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Fax mark justification

good morning we welcome you to this first forum of the 2009-2010 academic year and we're going to be taking as our consideration today an issue of great importance to evangelicals on both sides of the Atlantic dealing with one of the central doctrines of the faith are going to be considering the issue of bishop in T right and the doctrine of justification let me introduce the panel first dr. Denny Burke who is the dean of boys college and associate professor of New Testament he also serves as editor of the journal for Biblical manhood and womanhood and writes a daily blog a number of articles well published dr. Thomas Shriner the james began in harrison professor of New Testament interpretation and associate dean for scripture and interpretation at Southern Seminary he joined the Southern Seminary faculty in 1997 after serving 11 years on the Faculty of Bethel Theological Seminary he's the author of many books including a major theology of the New Testament titled New Testament theology magnifying God in Christ dr. mark ciphered serves as Mildred and Ernest Hogan professor of New Testament interpretation before joining our faculty in 1992 he served as a campus minister with the navigators and as a visiting lecturer at Wheaton College and at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School along with many articles he is also the author of the book justification by faith and also Christ our righteousness he currently serves as co-chair of the New Testament theology seminar for the Society of New Testament studies dr. Brian Vickers is associate professor of New Testament interpretation he also serves as assistant editor of the Southern Baptist journal of theology he is the author of the work Jesus's blood and righteousness Paul's theology of imputation Bishop NT Wright has served since 2003 as the Bishop of the Diocese of Durham in the Church of England prior to that he was a professor at Oxford University previously a lecturer there he also taught it in master College in Toronto in the suburban Toronto area there in Canada well-known figure through his writings and his lecturing he is an articulate spokesman for a particular new insight and an argument within New Testament studies and that is why we're having this conversation today there's a great deal to Bishop NT right and as you consider speaking about someone who has written on such a wide diversity of issues in the New Testament before we turn to the doctrine of justification let's place him in New Testament studies how would we describe the impact and influence of NT right just in terms of the field of New Testament studies professor Schreiner he has written very helpful material on the historical Jesus criticizing the Jesus Seminar he's written a recent article defending the biblical view of homosexuality so in many ways he's our friend and especially on issues of the historical reliability the New Testament he really is the source of many of the best arguments and the best defenses certainly that are engaging arguments in the public square now that's that's absolutely right I think his critiques of John Dominic Crossan are thorough penetrating convincing just read the first part of Jesus and the victory of God and I think you'll find it to be enormous ly helpful well after kind of placing him in terms of New Testament studies with some achievements we very much recognize and appreciate where does he fit within New Testament theology professor Safran well there's a two-part answer to that he's in still in the midst of a five volume project to write a New Testament theology it is the most extensive most ambitious project of our time and as Thomas already mentioned he's wielding a lot of influence especially through this work he hasn't gotten quite yet to the Paul volume he has put out sort of brief missives so that we can might anticipate what's coming but it's in his assessment of the story of Israel and God's work with Israel and the story of salvation then that his work in the sense becomes the most interesting in a certain sense than the most questionable it's very interesting on his website in anticipation of the volume on Paul and justification he uses a very interesting British phrase to define the work he says it's going to be a full dress work on pollen justification I guess contrasted to the partially clad works that have been done thus far in looking at the whole question of why we would have this consideration of NT right professor Vickers why are we here but what really summons us to a discussion like this in public of Indy right and the doctrine of justification I think there's there's well there's many things and two things I would say is this is one so much of what he has to say resonates with those who hold some version of a traditional view of justification and secondly because he does present a challenge to that to you know to a more traditional what we typically call a traditional view of justification he presents a challenge especially at one of the central points and that has to do with with imputation and I think that's I think that's what drives lots of these sort of discussions about right and before we turn to imputation before we even turn specifically to justification there's an historical argument an interpretive argument that inde right and others make and he was not the first to make it concerning the reading of Paul and the reading of first century Judaism Dean Burke where does he level his assault he is literally directly unashamedly saying that the Protestant reformers and their heirs have misread Paul right well part of the reason we're here is because of this whole dispute and this interchange between John Piper and his 2000 book future of justification which is a defense of that view and Wright's recent response in his new book and what you'll see is that what I think is the most important critique in Piper's book is that he says that Wright argues for a final justification based on works and he uses the phrase frequently in his writings its final justification based on works which many of us read us something that's moving us more back to a Roman Catholic point of view in Wright's most recent book interestingly he does not even engage that so much as reaffirm it and he says it's not right that's making that point it's Paul that's making that point so it's a huge departure in my view from a Reformation already of a mini Testament well let's be specific about what that is dr. Schreiner when you're talking about his his direct assault upon what we might call the majority reading of Paul and first century Judaism what's he talking about well I think one of the reasons Wright is attractive is rights trying to do a whole Bible reading and and he depends here on EP Sanders book Paul and Palestinian Judaism written in 1977 and Sanders argues that Judaism was was not a legalistic religion that Judaism was not a religion of works righteousness and and right picks up on that right really doesn't defend that personally he assumed Sanders is right but but the whole new perspective and Sanders and Dunn and others that they're depending significantly on Sanders reading of Judaism that there isn't legalism in Judaism and therefore the Protestant reformers says right done and others the Protestant reformers read the New Testament in light of the Roman Catholic Protestant debates of the sixteenth century and they fundamentally says right miss miss read the New Testament well we need to take that argument on before we can move further and consider whether or not EP Sanders James D G done and now in T right making the argument have a point professor ciphered have we for the last several centuries misread Paul and misread first century Judaism because if so this conversation is going to take a very different trajectory yes we should probably head toward Rome if we're wrong we're in big trouble I can tell you that that's right at least a couple of things ought to be said about this new perspective of which right is a particular representative in the first place I would want to argue that the very coming of Jesus and then after the coming of Jesus the spread of the gospel to Gentiles broke open issues that were not in question prior to that it was precisely because Jesus came and healed and cast out demons and taught and had fellowship with sinners that the question of how a person is right with God comes to the fore it's not the case that that question was not being asked by the way right like to say this is a 16th century question asked the rich young ruler who came to Jesus about this question he comes asking what should I do that I might inherit eternal life this is a first-century question as well but my point at the moment is the question of a relationship between grace and law gospel and obedience didn't come to the fore until Jesus appeared on the scene he pressed questions by his very presence that would have remained in the background the same was true as the gospel spread to Gentiles at first you had many Jewish believers who embraced faith in Jesus as Messiah and of course as a matter of culture if nothing else continued to observe the law in that situation you could have persons who truly and completely had placed their faith in Jesus Christ for their salvation and alongside people who yes they believed in Jesus but they thought they also needed to contribute to that salvation through what they did and it was only as the gospel went to Gentiles but the question then became pressed okay which is it going to be what does the gospel teach us and this is the dynamic that write effectively along with the whole of the new person who fails to come to grips with the exposing of the question by the presence of Jesus and the gospel it's an extremely helpful point to make dr. Schreiner well I would want to add and I completely agree with that that that Sanders paradigm has been significantly challenged in some scholarship professor ciphered and Don Carson and Peter O'Brien in their first volume of variegated noam ISM calling the question the validity of the the reading of Jewish sources and accord with a Sanders paradigm there's a book by Mark Elliott survivors of Israel that calls into question Sanders paradigm and Rudolph's Paul de lon the Covenant Simon gather Kohl where is boasting so there's a lot of evidence out there that calls into question Sanders reading of Judaism itself I think fundamentally we have to read it at the end of the day in light of the gospel Paul may be an innovator Paul may critique Judaism where no one else did and yet Sanders paradigm has I think inherent problems just reading the Jewish text themselves just speaking of the responsibility of one who would read the text teach the text preach the text professor Vickers I can't make it work just taking the the thesis of the new perspective on the Apostle Paul and then looking through the entirety adjusted go back to the Gospels and going through the New Testament large passages of the scripture really appeared to be saying very little if indeed there is no constant threat of legalism in the background and if we're not being told that legalism is more or less the natural bent of fallen humanity in terms of seeking to justify the self before God yeah I mean I think that's try it right I think when we as Douglas Wilson has made a similar point that is that as important as these as important as these documents are these extra biblical documents as important as they are and they are massive and weighty and hard to weight way through at the at the end of the day when we read the New Testament it appears that we have the evidence that we need to say that this was true that what dr. ciphered just described was true you know Paul in Philippians 3 for instance seems to be contrasting the righteousness that is a gift over against you know a righteousness of his own in which he can boast and to me that looks to me that looks this simply looks like legalism or works righteousness however you know however you want to cut it at the end of the day it seems like the evidence in the New Testament is there that you have tradition building up own tradition Matthew 23 this seems to be exactly exactly what Jesus is criticizing the Pharisees for well they kind of understand what's at stake here let me - just as specifically about the letter to the Galatians what would Paul see as the problem that drives him to such apostolic despair almost about his people there in the church in Galatia if legalism is not what's in the background and the attempt to justify oneself before God by means of the law it seems like I'm supposed to jump in but it seems like the problem in Galatians and in some of the other places is Jesus and I need of course I need Jesus but what else do I need is it can't help bring a Luther quote if the devil can't ruin people by making them worse he does so by making them better Paul's opponents in Galatia did not imagine didn't understand what they were doing they thought that they were making an improvement on the gospel yes you need Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins but you also need the works of the law in order to finally stand at the final judgment they thought that they were improving on the gospel and it's Paul who steps into the situation we should remind ourselves that these are Christians at least Christians in name who are making this mistake and Paul finds it necessary to clarify the gospel in this situation enters in T right prior to his emergence as a proponent of defender of an exponent of the new perspective there was an era in his life in which he was at least more associated with what we might call traditional evangelical theology in Great Britain what's that all about he was a author with an early work you know they're a band yeah actually I can't hear you a banner of truth book yes I think what's so striking about it is how much he has turned from that so much of his writings even in this new book are taken up with really stringent critiques and I think sometimes characters of views that apparently he once held which was a more traditional view of justification so if you go and you read what st. Paul really said you'll hear him describing imputation as this idea that righteousness is a gas floating across God's courtroom and going to the other person well nobody with a Reformation understanding of imputation beliefs that's what imputation is but it's that kind of rhetoric that now marks his opposition to what it was apparently he wants out at the intersection now between MT right and the new perspective emerges in his writings in his public arguments and lectures so what is the distinctive contribution that inde Wright brings to the new perspective on Paul I don't know if it really brings anything distinctive except for he's closer to us than a James Dunn and and Sanders I mean Sanders is a Protestant liberal he describes himself as such done I think would put himself on the left edge of evangelicalism rights a lot closer to us so so when when he speaks he resonates with evangelical audiences he he holds the scriptures to be the Word of God we talked about his view of the resurrection his his view of the historical Jesus so he has a plan to put the whole Bible together we want to do that as evangelicals so I think he particularly speaks to us because he's close to us because he's enormous ly gifted he has a wonderful personality and he speaks to people today I think that's exactly the point we would not be having this discussion at the same level of in and certainly of interest in the future of evangelion theology and in the health of the evangelical church's grasp of the gospel if we were really just talking about EP Sanders and James DG done within T right we find someone who really is a beacon of a great deal of hope and a source of much influence from any and Evon Jellicle ism because of his other work defending the veracity of the scripture of of really expounding the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ but in this point we really do find a point of tremendous concern and it is a biblical and exegetical concern a theological concern and as we will later turn it's a pastoral concern as well so let's take the argument on straight forwardly we're looking at the argument of NT right or the Assumption as we have heard of this argument of NT right where is the is the most influential argument or assertion or presentation that he is making that leads us to have this discussion I think it's his overall stance is concerned with Christian community is concerned with Christian social responsibility we live in the world that in many ways is falling apart he is dissatisfied or at least concerned about the rampant and unhealthy individualism that characterizes much of evangelical Christianity and it's that concern that that obviously coincides with the broad concern within evangelical Christianity that has created this wave of interest in him so that as we were discussing just before we came out here yet he seems to be right that is without the W when he talks about these issues because it strikes such a nerve with us and no one bothers to ask about the consistency of his argument underneath that he picking up on what we were talking about earlier he desperately wants to remain Orthodox I think but it is so very difficult for him he loves his new ideas and he will skate back and forth between the two and equivocate and unless you are attuned to the equivocations you'll never catch him you know in reading through his work listening to his lectures having met him and having heard him engaging in discussion with him I think of the British meaning of the word clever he is extremely clever and in this sense I I dare say that this cleverness can be a real issue because it also comes hand in hand with an incredible almost unspeakable audacity because his claim is no less than that the Protestant reformers and their heirs have misunderstood not only Paul and not only first century Judaism but the doctrine of justification and that's the gospel dr. Vickers that's an audacious claim in your classroom I daresay that would be a very audacious claim I think in the scope of Christian theology it's an even more audacious claim yeah it isn't and one of the again one of the things that makes it difficult is as has been pointed out already when you read through his book it's not as if it's not as if everything you read you think impossible impossible no way I mean there's so much in there that you think yes yes that's what I would say that's what I do say one of the one of the problems in this goes back to this idea that you were talking about earlier about the sort of cleverness of the argument is right on right off the bat in the book if somebody's coming to the book and they're say they're neutral or or they're leaning sort of one way or the other one of the first things you're going to hear in this book is that they're going to hear good things about how you know that the traditional arguments have tried to come to grass with this that of the other thing but then they're very very quickly going to be led down the path to to equating the traditional arguments with things like geocentrism mere Western ideas and then of course Lee of the self yeah of course yeah especially the self and then the real clincher and in the in the atmosphere we live in today especially in an academic atmosphere I mean you're better off criticizing somebody's mother than calling them modern and he am here and he immediately sort of you know this is right near the being in the book and then throughout the book he connects this idea with the sort of with modernity and who wants to be that and so it kind of poisons the well a little bit even before he gets started it makes it very very difficult I think for people to be inclined towards the view he's arguing against yeah that's one of the particularly irksome issues of much of the revisionist scholarship not only the doctrine of justification but on virtually everything else you see this epithet modern throne whenever anyone asks a question for instance about historicity as if the patristic fathers thought the history was unimportant when they were making propositional statements concerning the work of Christ or the acts of God and then when you arrive at this supposedly modern conception of the self I daresay that's going to make Plato the first modern and certainly a Gustin you know even more modern it really is a denial of the fact that this individual concern with the self before a holy and righteous God is it all a rightful proper concern I mean that's one of the major issues in his writings first of all just as as dr. tscheiner said there's much accurate in his in his analysis and critique of American evangelicalism especially I think he would say American evangelicalism in terms of its individualism there is no doubt that American evangelicalism and beyond wherever there is the influence of this notion of the autonomous self there is far too much individualism but that does not justify throwing out what is I would argue a necessary reading of the New Testament in terms of Paul's suggestion that there will be no one who will be able to boast there is no one who will be able to be justified by me means of the law it's not just corporate it is individual and it goes it goes way back earlier than the New Testament to the I mean the very first thing that happens in the Bible is a self assertion of Adam and Eve to go their own way over against over against the way established by God mr. cyphre it should be pointed out that in Wright's flight from individualism he creates an individualism of his own he discards biblical individualism that is that all of us believe in Jesus Christ and to belong to the church belong to the community of justified sinners that's what the church is the community of justified sinners unknowingly he doesn't realize what he's doing but for right of course our confirmation to the image of God as it appears in Jesus becomes primary Jesus is the one who is truly human his justification is different from ours we can touch on that later in right spot not in biblical thought but that distance between us and Jesus then has to be gradually overcome we become more and more like him that distance then between Jesus becomes a distance between you and me some of us all of us are human but effectively in Wright's approach some of us are more human than others the question is how close you are to this image of God of God in Jesus and that is individualism in fact it's strikingly similar to the sort of individualism that the Galatian opponents wanted to introduce in those churches because then your proximity to God it was dependent upon how obedient you were and the churches then no longer the community of justified sinners but this community of those who are truly human truly holy in varying degrees let me just mention if I may another form of individualism which is being able to look back to Luther and say Luther was wrong I am right no pun intended let's just looking at the The Audacity I come back to that of suggesting that we've misunderstood justification not in its peripheral issues not even in merely its pastoral application but in its essence so let's jump in the deep into that pool let's look at the doctrine of justification distill for us the argument the assertion made by NT right concerning the doctrine of justification that makes necessary this conversation well there's a number of facets to it but one of the big things is the first thing I mentioned that initial justification is by faith for him final justification is on the basis of works whereas we would say that final initial justification and final justification are on the basis of Christ's work he is our that he's a ground of righteousness that we hold on to and that's where he loosens things up a little now he would come back and say well you're talking about justification as if it has to do with soteriology really pols notion of justification is ecclesiological but to me the response to that is that's a distinction without a difference in this sense does it really help to be justified if you're not becoming a member of the people of God and Wright says that you're not shown to be justified or declared to be a member of the people of God until the end until the final judgement and so what does that mean that you're justified initially and then later on you find out if you became a member of God's Universal Church to me it does not hang hang together so he wants to say that it doesn't have so theological implications but I believe that it does well let's collapse chronology is a little bit here in dr. Schreiner and let me just ask the question if if we were to be able to arrange a seminar attractive as this would be an invite professor Luther and professor Wright to discuss the doctrine of justification would they even be talking about the same thing I think they define it very differently I mean Wright defines justification as covenant faithfulness and Ana's Denny pointed out Wright says that justification is about who you can eat together with it table so it's all about inclusion in the people of God it's about ecclesiology and I think Luther would say it's about being right with God it's about how how you get saved I think there's important pastoral implications that but maybe you want to wait on that well I think the the the first issue is just to establish that this is not some kind of glancing blow at the doctrine of justification as it has been proclaimed and defined by the Reformers as it has been defined within the evangelical and Protestant Creed's and confessions and as it is now central to at least the majoritarian evangelical understanding not just to the doctrine of justification but of the gospel of what it means to be saved means you just try to Glaus covenant faithfulness into this text on the righteousness of God not having a covenant faithfulness of my own but a covenant faithfulness from God I don't think that even makes a lot of sense and or nor fits the context of what Paul is speaking of plus it shifts the nature of salvation from the once and for all deed of God in Jesus Christ to some sort of gradual transformation in your life or my life because governent faithfulness is to be appropriated in point one point in the end because Wright thinks of Jesus fundamentally as example as as this paradigm of what the human being is to be and and of who God is at the same time because he thinks of Jesus in that way he has really difficulty in trusting in Jesus and in fact in his most recent book on justification then he suggests that we must not only trust in Jesus but in a clear break from not only the Protestant Creed's but the ancient Creed's he wants to place his trust in the holy spirit he appeals to the Creed's but the Creed's don't speak of trust in the spirit they affirm that there is a holy spirit I believe in the Holy Spirit I placed my trust in Jesus Christ but this trust in the spirit then leads into this problem that we've just discussed right makes a distinction between status as a member within the people of God and he speaks it then of the status that has to be come in reality what what's been given as a mere status so that everything now it depends upon the transformation in our lives we have to be clear on this he is absolutely right both with and without @w when he says that he's not Pelagian on this question that's true he's fully Augustinian because he regards it as the spirits work but he is not reformation 'el let me just just kind of a thought exercise asked us to jump jump over this discussion for a moment jump over the Reformers jump over the most recent debates let's assume that we just confront the argument of NT right first of all in his accusatory tone towards much of contemporary of angelical ism you know professor Vickers he appears to have a great deal of evidence on his side when you look at the fact that so many people who think they're Christians do not look like Christians at least biblically defined what do we do with that now he does I mean that's I mean I think again this is one of the one of the appeals of his book is he does seem to be painting this landscape that people read and think yeah that's exactly that's exactly what we look like but I mean unfortunately though I think that even that question in one sense has to be has to be set aside and get back to the I mean what's that I mean what's the real issue the real the real issue isn't the really the real issue isn't sort of the evidence that we're giving or what we look like the real issue before we get to that of course is is what makes us what we are I mean how are we how are we right before God and there's a lot of sort of he would use the word muddle-headed nasaan both sides of the on both sides of the debate but I think the real issue here is that if you're looking at the ills of contemporary evangelicalism if you're looking at the superficiality and the confusions the accommodated lifestyles of so much of modern day of angelical ISM if you work backwards from that there's a certain very strong attractiveness to Professor Wright's now Bishop Wright's argument because if indeed our understanding of the gospel produces people who do not look in any sense like Jesus and or like a follower of Jesus then clearly we have a huge pastoral problem that belies a theological problem and I'll agree with Bishop Wright that is a huge problem that should lead us back to a consideration of the gospel lead us back to a consideration of the doctrine of justification and essentially to the issue the fulcrum issue of imputation but he tragically miscalculated what a church ought to look like nevertheless I'll confess I like Luther and Luther says at one point God saved me from a church of saints I want to be in that little company where there is weakness and sin and struggle and yet faith in the forgiveness of sins if let's just take for a moment as a proposition that we belonged that right is now our Bishop we would never do that we don't like bishops anyway but but but but and we belong to his church and we're all supposed to be truly human people so of course what especially when we come to church we look truly human and around one another we actually human but that by no means conquers the sin that remains in the human heart the real company of the church is the company of forgiving sinners we shouldn't forget the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer I wonder if Wright has forgotten it forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors that's that's as much a part of the Christian life every day as our petition for daily bread and the forgiveness received then is given on to others I don't want to be in a church in which were all truly human I want to be in a church of forgiven sinners that's right er I agree we we all fall short and we are a community of the redeemed but the New Testament also says faith without works is dead the the Reformers acknowledge that you you see it in Luther and Calvin and all those who've taught the scriptures throughout the ages there there is fruit in those who belong to Christ it's imperfect we don't rely on it it's not the basis of our righteousness but but there is change in in believers and insofar as we don't preach those texts we don't preach Scripture rightly however a right solution is that the solution because he doesn't understand justification a right that you we don't begin at the right foundation so so everything else is ruined what's good record to the issue of imputation Dean Burke where's the problem he doesn't believe in the imputation of Christ's righteousness yeah just as I said before he caricatures the the reformed view is this idea of righteousness floating across the courtroom and landing on the other feet on the people who are in the dock he suggests that it would actually be unjust if it were so yeah that's right he says that God would be unjust it doesn't even make any sense to him he says especially on a second Corinthians 5:21 he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him which by the way he has one of the most peculiar interpretations of that text that I have ever heard and I think he's a little bit out there on his own on that but he says there is not this exchange of Christ's righteousness coming to us our sin being imputed to him he says that it would be unjust so either it's hugely problematic and it's you know one of the things that happens I see with Wright and many people who are following him is the refusal to accept the confessional implications of their new position this is not the Reformation this is not what we have traditionally held and you say well it is what the Bible teaches and so therefore listen your reading is taking you outside of this tradition so I critique the tradition fine but don't pretend like it was the tradition all along yeah they did there is a sense in which it's as if evangelical theology is an unfolding project of which we now have the the most significant turn and I share that concern I think it gets back to the issue of whether or not you can really look at the doctrine of justification as NT right now looks to it and remain in any sense evangelical not in the the movement identification but in the Reformation identification where would NT right be in terms of the great Reformation debates over justification I think honestly he would try to carve out a new third position if I read him a right and say no to each but in the end of the day justification by faith alone on the basis of Christ's righteousness alone I cannot square with his arguments I am reflecting for today and it this deals with one of his equivocations when he treats Paul's confrontation of Cephas at Antioch for some odd reason he rejects any notion that the issue involved here was the forgiveness of sins and he says it's purely and simply membership in the people of God that's all the justification in that context is I realize he says other things in other places but he cannot we can't hold him to consistency because he doesn't hold himself to it but when you think about that statement that it's mere this merely the status one has to say such a a rank moralism it would be important to Rome itself at least Rome understands initial justification as the forgiveness of sins that this can only come from an evangelical well from a certainty yes yes it from inside that self-identification isn't of Angela bright sure right dr. Schreiner I think it's interesting in his recent book when he speaks of imputation he says that the traditional understanding is wrong because justification is a courtroom forensic doctrine I agree with him there and then he says in a courtroom the judge can't give his righteousness to the one who is being charged and I think that's amazingly reductionistic as if the illustration of the courtroom is exhausted by human experience instead you have to look at the biblical text to see the richness of what it is saying in terms of what is happening and yet he he bases it on what happens in a courtroom I think that's quite astonishing I think that's right that although the Scriptures of course understand God's justifying work in Christ and the final judgment as it's a forensic scene what takes place there is beyond all humans expectation because of God's marvelous love in Jesus Christ part of the problem also with right on this one is that he imports a modern courtroom into the Scriptures because the sort of scene that the scriptures paint of a courtroom and the sort of scene that is implied in our confrontation with God is not one in which the judge stands before two litigants this is rather the case in which God is part of the lawsuit there's a question going on between God and humanity as to who is the liar and who is telling the truth and the wonderful news of Scripture is that although we are liars God in his son has come and taken our place so he doesn't dog doesn't act merely as a judge although that he is but he is also one with whom we contend and right simply refuses to see this in more recent months this conversation has become accelerated and amplified in our ranks by the publication of dr. John Piper's critique of Indy rights theology a critique that I would define first of all as being a massively important work done by a working preaching pastor that kind of theology from the the pulpit and from the role of the pastor I think is very very important and I think it's also a charitable critique of Indy right respectful but it is direct and certainly in those early chapters it gets right to the fact that what is at stake is the gospel and whether or not persons will actually hear the gospel that saves as a result of the transformations that the Wright suggests so we were all eagerly awaiting what was billed as expected as Indy Wright's response to John Piper hammy read both books I can't say that Wright's newest book is actually a response to John Piper except perhaps in the origin of its of its writing and publication he doesn't actually take on the most crucial and critical arguments made by John Piper against his position and he admits it at the beginning of the book he says this is basically a redo of my previous Paul's but Paul books so I mean there's a new occasion for this and he has some more unfair characters I think that are included in there like in Chapter 1 comparing those who hold Piper's you to the old East German Stasi officers who force things into a certain personality you know but there's nothing new there he admits it right up front there's there's some some other sort of mischaracterizations like about imputation that that somehow that product the traditional process of view of imputation means that there's a storehouse of merit saved up for us well it's true I mean he that some people have spoken that way quite incorrectly I mean I I might add but but but to say that this is really what imputation is so anybody who holds a traditional view of imputation means they think that Jesus has stored up merit Poor's and then we sort of withdraw it that's a characterization that's simply not true of a large it may be the majority I think of the traditional position so again it comes back down to this question of imputation and what it really what it really means right is rather Bitlis Cystic to be quite frank that is to say he will latch on to particular wording and hold on to it without regard to the context and especially without regard to the history of Protestant tradition in theology and and he'll have to be answered at some level in terms of the Bible itself and there's a there's something missing I mean I like I like when I hear right talk about from Abraham to Israel to Messiah to the world I like that that idea of this big I big picture of Scripture but what's missing in this book in my view is I just have a question where's Adam and this really gets down to the the what the traditionals we keep using this word than what the traditional view is all about the traditional view is all about kind of Paul boiling the human race down to two people and you know anybody you ever meet anybody you'll ever encounter either here or anywhere in the world will be one of two people though either be in Adam or in Christ and then the the actions of one of those two people affect and determine the status that people have before God and and I don't think that that's not really dealt with it all in this book and that is central if you're going to deal with the traditional view that's central to the to the traditional view just so that we have this nailed down I'm going to ask professor Schreiner articulate for us what you believe to be the New Testament doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness I think the New Testament teaches that our righteousness doesn't lie in ourselves our righteousness is Christ's righteousness that is given to us on the basis of his death and resurrection and the perfect life that he lived when we put our trust in Christ or the forgiveness of our sins we are united with him and we receive our righteousness I mean Christ's righteousness so we stand in the right before God not on the basis of what we have done but what Christ has done for us that's reflected in our hymnody in our Creed's in our confessions and and it's the essence of the Protestant thesis otherwise the Reformation was really a very sad and messy misunderstanding but if that be true then that's the gospel turning to the pastoral implications NT right makes a fast statement bishop right says that the gospel is not primarily a message about how one is saved that's an incredible statement isn't it mm-hmm for him it's simply a declaration that Jesus Christ is the resurrected Lord that's the gospel that's the announcement as John Piper so carefully points out that is not good news unless you give an account of how the resurrected Savior is for you and not against you we're all sinners we have committed sins against this resurrected Lord who's going to judge the world it's not good news to know he's back okay that's not good at all and so it's it's not good unless there is a firm confidence in the fact that we will be found righteous in him right Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and was buried and he was raised and seen by many witnesses even in the Apostolic declarations of the gospel narrative of the death and resurrection of Jesus there's an account of how that counts for us that somehow he is a substitute for us and that he's justifying us and to leave that out of the gospel Proclamation is to and has horrible pastoral implications not only is it being a biblical Dutch writer I read a book of his recently I forget the exact title but it was a series of sermons he gave during Easter week to a small town in England a town that had suffered a lot so he gave a sermon every day and the sermons were good in many respects he emphasized God's comfort God's love but not once this is a week of Easter sermons not once does he proclaim the Gospel and a whole week of Easter sermons I we actually shared an email conversation back and forth on this III find that bind boggling here here you're doing sermons all during Easter week to a congregation he never proclaimed the gospel why it's not at the forefront of his thinking it's what is not at the forefront of his thinking is that people need to repent and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins what's at the forefront of his thinking is societal transformation right I know I find this and I put this it comes out even in his little commentaries you know the the illustrations the points the applications tend to be political rather than either ecclesial or in terms of personal discipleship all right a 5% or so of people in England are in church is is the call of a bishop to focus on the transformation of society which is a good thing or to proclaim the Gospel and and I just I think he misses what's happening with ordinary people and their stance before God so nothing is more important than that I come from a Roman Catholic background most of the Roman Catholics I grew up with as far as I could tell were like me unsane we didn't know the gospel and and with someone like right I just don't think he's proclaiming the gospel that and that is fundamental one of the most disturbing statements that he makes to me it appears in his surprised by hope book in which he says that God wants us wants to save us not so much for ourselves but for what he can do through us now think about that for a moment God doesn't want you he wants to use you in some way for his own ends it's a very utilitarian view of God that's when the reasons I wouldn't want to have right as my bishop because if a man thinks like that about God he's bound to think the same way about me he doesn't really want a friendship with me or love me he he wants to use me for his own and is in some ways and and that's one of the things that issues from this deflection of the doctrine of justification that that he you can't end up with a God that doesn't really love you he just wants to use you whereas I would want to affirm without any reduction of our call to witness our call to action in the world that God's end ends with each one of us he loves each one of us without condition and that's enough that love that overflows through Jesus Christ in us to others professor Vickers metanoia repentance New Testament clearly calls repentance Christ's call for repentance Indy right calls for repentance but as I try to put it all together it's not repentance from our sins so much as it is repentance from assaulting the environment kind of anti-social behaviors it just doesn't appear to me that any kind of New Testament understanding of conversion based upon my life my sins in my need for repentance my desperate need for Christ getting back to what dr. Schreiner said about these sermons I'm not sure where that would come from and Wright's theology can you help me with that yeah I think this gets us back to where we started and what we're seeing here is a symptom of when this symptom of when these individual ideas are stripped away this is what this is what you're left with it's it's no longer it's no longer me before a wrathful God guilty before him as much as is these sort of indiscretions or other things that I've kind of collectively done with with everyone else and everyone else in the human ranks and what starts to fall away and this is this is where the implications become so important what starts to fall away is the idea that we must all appear before the judgment seat and give an account and because this individualism or this there's this attack against this individual ideas at the beginning I think what we're seeing here is is the result of it yeah and in the the it does become difficult to think what is it exactly we're repenting on our time has escaped us as a final question let me just ask you all where does this discussion go from here what's next what must be resolved and what does this mean for the future of evangelicalism denne well I would if I could just finish with an exhortation to students who are reading right and who are looking at right in terms of what you're doing next don't trim your sails in this direction this is not reliable you damned your people to uncertainty and terror of the judgment if you cannot say to them that Jesus died for your sins and you can know that he loves you now and the verdict is not still out awaiting the last day that's precisely what the Bible teaches that the verdict has happened in Jesus and so we need to be proclaiming that to people look straighter I think the last thing I'd say is I think there's a danger even listening to a discussion like this where we focus on crunch on rights weaknesses I think there's a danger of a young student reading right and seeing the good things and thinking everybody up here on the panel overreacted and and so I think we'd all want to reaffirm there are good things in right from which we can learn but don't miss where he's gone astray and a fundamental area the gospel young students tend to want to believe something new but if you stray in terms of the gospel you've forgotten the gospel Luther was right we need to relearn the gospel every day if we think we know the gospel if we think we've mastered the gospel we don't know it we have to be mastered by it every day so don't forget the gospel don't don't fail to see where he goes astray even seeing some of the good things he says our time even as evangelicals is one in which we've lost the horizon of the final judgment and my urging then is to not lose that horizon nor to forget the power of the forgiveness of sins here and now to make new creatures I think that I would where do we go from here I think it it goes to show that these these are these ideas then they never go away the centrality of something like justification never goes with oh they'll never really be the last book on justification the many may wish there would be but because every generation will have to come back and face these things again and one of the things we can be grateful to to NT right as we're up here because he's written this book it's it's engaging it's challenging but it should challenge us not to just rest on assumptions but to go back to the tax go back to the scriptures not just follow this person in that person to go back to the scriptures and read them again read them afresh engaging these things so that we can speak to you know that some of the issues related to justification that we're talking about today we're not really not issues related to justification debates 50 years ago and so I think that uh I think that it comes down to really taking these central biblical doctrines and applying them in each generation I want to thank each of you for your participation in this discussion this is a conversation they get started but never finished and there is never enough time this is a conversation that will go on in classrooms and in conversations among students and professors and it's a conversation that also will unfold as additional arguments are made new articles and books are written I just want to encourage us all to know that we need not look to an issue like this with fear that's why we take on these questions both in the classroom and in terms of a forum like this because we want this to be a conversation that takes us not just with a focal view to an individual of some controversy but takes us back to the scriptures and walks us through our theological tradition in such a way that we're not just merely defenders of a tradition but that we are those who go back to the scripture and say how do we read here obey teach and preach the Word of God in such a way that God is glorified and Christ is amplified when the church is edified the biggest problem I have with Bishop NT writes perspective on Paul and justification is that I cannot imagine in the end how you would preach what I would recognize to be the gospel if you accept those assumptions well thank you for coming today continue the conversation we'll continue it with you god bless you good day you