2. Paul, the Hebrew of Hebrews: Participation in Christ

This fundamentally different interpretation of Paul placed the apostle firmly in his Jewish context. Although it was advanced by only a small minority of scholars throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, after the World War II the Jewishness of Paul, and the fundamental continuity of his gospel with the religion of Judaism and the teaching of Jesus, began to emerge as an increasingly strong consensus. This interpretation, in turn, has engendered significant new debates of its own.

2.1. Paul, Jewish Prophet of Being-in-Christ: Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) was one of the first scholars in our period to argue that Paulצs announcement of the gospel, like Jesusצ earlier proclamation of the kingdom, was thoroughly Jewish. Schweitzerצs first work, titled Geschichte der Paulinischen Forschung (1911), offered—like his earlier Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung—an iconoclastic summary and critique of nineteenth- century German scholarship on the apostle.²⁶ Schweitzerצs own substantive treatment of Paul had to wait almost twenty years, until the publication of Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus in 1930.²⁷

In relation to the first question, Schweitzer argued that Paulצs gospel was in “complete agreement” with the very Jewish proclamation of Jesus: it was rooted in Jewish apocalyptic, and dominated by the eschatological expectation of the coming Messiah.²⁸ Schweitzer was for this reason scathing of the approach adopted in the history of religions school:

those who labor to explain [Paul] on the basis of Hellenism, are like a man who should bring water from a long distance in leaky watering cans in order to water a garden lying beside a stream.²⁹

To Schweitzerצs mind, the quest to understand Paul by comparing him with the Hellenistic mystery religions was misguided, especially since a complete explanation for his thought was ready to hand in Jewish apocalyptic eschatology and the proclamation of Jesus.³⁰ Nevertheless, Schweitzer readily acknowledged that although “Paul was not the Hellenizer of Christianity . . . his eschatological mysticism of the Being-in-Christ . . . gave it a form in which it could be Hellenized.”³¹ Significant here was Schweitzerצs insistence that Paul saw Christ as “the end of the law” (Rom 10:4): although the Jewish law continues to bind those outside of Christ, “the law ceases where the Messianic Kingdom begins” and therefore “the law is no longer valid for those who are in Christ Jesus.”³²

This “eschatological mysticism of the Being-in-Christ” was Schweitzerצs answer to the second question, that of the center of Paulצs thought. According to Schweitzer:

The fundamental thought of Pauline mysticism runs thus: I am in Christ; in Him I know myself as a being who is raised above this sensuous, sinful, and transient world and already belongs to the transcendent; in Him I am assured of resurrection; in Him I am a Child of God . . . Being-in-Christ is conceived as a having died and risen with Him, in consequence of which the participant has been freed from sin and from the law, possesses the Spirit of Christ, and is assured of resurrection . . . this “being-in-Christ” is the prime enigma of the Pauline teaching: once grasped it gives the clue to the whole.³³

For Schweitzer, the mystical doctrine of dying and rising again with Christ lies at the heart of Paulצs thought. The centrality of this “being-in-Christ” logically follows from Paulצs “idea of predestination to the Messianic kingdom.”³⁴ Though apprehended by faith, entered into through baptism, and celebrated in the δordצs Supper, the participation of the elect in Christ is foreordained and thus ultimately independent of human apprehension. According to Schweitzer, Paulצs great “achievement was to grasp, as the thing essential to being a Christian, the experience of union with Christ.”³⁵ The necessary corollary of this emphasis on the centrality of “being-in-Christ,” however, was the relegation of Paulצs teaching about justification by faith to the periphery. Like William Wrede before him,³⁶ Schweitzer argued that:

the doctrine of righteousness by faith is . . . a subsidiary crater, which has formed within the rim of the main crater—the mystical doctrine of redemption through the being-in-Christ.³⁷

That is to say, according to Schweitzer, Paulצs doctrine of justification by faith was a “battle doctrine” drawn from him by the opposition of Jewish agitators, rather than a central element of his thought.³⁸

Schweitzerצs case endeared him to neither the academy nor the church. Writing as he did at the time when the history of religions school exercised great influence, his case for a Jewish Paul largely fell on deaf ears. His emphasis on union with Christ as the center of Paulצs theology, while in many ways similar to the emphasis of Reformed theology from Calvin onwards, faced a cold reception in Lutheran Germany, especially since Schweitzerצs construction (unlike that of Reformed theology), involved the relegation of justification by faith to the periphery. In a later time, under different conditions, Schweitzerצs insights came to be appreciated. But prior to World War II, the vast majority of Christian scholarship on Paul, both Catholic and Protestant, continued to posit a sharp break between Paul and his Jewish forbears.

2.2. The Jewish Paul: the Post-war Paradigm Shift

This post-war reappraisal came in several stages.

a) Early Voices

Schweitzer was, to be sure, not a lone voice in early twentieth-century scholarship. The Reformed branch of Protestant theology had, following Calvin, long emphasized the deep continuity between the way of salvation presented in the Old Testament (OT), and that offered in Christ in the New. More specifically, there were significant protests against the caricature of Judaism in Christian theology and scholarship before World War II, most significantly from C. G. Montefiore³⁹ and G. F. Moore,⁴⁰ who argued that first-century Judaism was not a religion of legalistic works-righteousness, but one of grace. Nevertheless, such protests, like that of Schweitzer, were largely ignored.

b) Paul the Jewish Rabbi: W. D. Davies

The situation was different, however, after World War II. The horrors of the holocaust sensitized the academy and the church to Christian mistreatment of Jews. The result was a new openness to the case for the Jewishness of Paulצs gospel made earlier by Schweitzer, Montefiore, and Moore, and a long overdue re-evaluation of first-century Judaism in Christian scholarship. At the same time, the beginnings of the post-modern rediscovery of narrative and to community opened the way for new readings of Paul which were more sensitive to the “story of Israel” and “church as community” emphases in his letters.

The first to pursue these lines of argument after the War was the Welsh-born, Cambridge-trained scholar W. D. Davies, who spent the majority of his academic career in the United States (Duke University 1950–1955; 1966–1981; Princeton University 1955–1959; Union Theological Seminary, New York 1959–1966). Daviesצ major work Paul and Rabbinic Judaism⁴¹ has been said to mark “a watershed in the history of scholarship on Paul and Judaism,”⁴² and to be “one of the few epoch-making books in modern Pauline studies.”⁴³ Daviesצ major achievement was to demonstrate, via analysis of the Jewish sources, that Schweitzerצs instinct was correct: Paul is best understood in his first-century Jewish context.

In relation to first-century Judaism, Davies maintained that the traditional Protestant (Lutheran) reading of Paul as the arch-critic of Judaism produces an inaccurate caricature of Judaism as a lifeless religion of legalistic works- righteousness. In relation to Paulצs own thought, Davies argued, in contrast to Schweitzer, that Paul is best located not within the matrix of apocalyptic Judaism, but within the Rabbinic Judaism that emerged from the Pharisaism of Paulצs own day. On this basis, Davies insisted that Paul saw the Christian faith not as the “antithesis of Judaism but its fulfillment.”⁴⁴ Indeed, Davies saw deep continuity between the biblical narrative and Paulצs gospel: Paul interpreted the problem of the human condition in relation to the fall of Adam and Jewish ideas about the “evil impulse”;⁴⁵ Paulצs language about dying and rising with Christ reflects not Hellenistic mystery religions, but Jewish ideas about Israelצs solidarity with the Messiah;⁴⁶ Paulצs teaching about the Christian life presents it as a recapitulation of the story of Israel.⁴⁷ In all of this, Paulצs originality lay not in a radical departure from Judaism, but in his declaration that the “age to come,” long expected in Judaism, had now arrived in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. This involved for Paul a renewal of the people of God, by the gift of the Spirit, to include Gentiles, and a renewal of the Jewish law in the “law of the εessiah” (ύal θ:2). In answer to the first question, then, Davies wrested Paul from those who had placed him amongst the Greeks, and planted him “firmly back into the soil of his native Judaism.”⁴⁸

In this context, it should be no surprise that Davies answered the second question by identifying the union of believers with Christ, the second Adam, as the center of Paulצs thought. Indeed, Davies agreed with Schweitzer that justification by faith, while not unimportant, is a subsidiary element in the apostleצs thought, and one which was only drawn from him in the polemical context of his argument with Judaizers.⁴⁹ It is at this point, however, that Davies has been rightly criticized. For while it is now hard to argue with his case for Paulצs Jewishness, Daviesצ failure to account for Paulצs radical—at times vehement—critique of Judaism, is a major oversight. Significant discussion of Paulצs critique of Judaism is conspicuous by its absence in Daviesצ work. He provides only a very limited treatment of those passages in which Paul declares that a person is “justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom 3:28), or critiques the “works of the law” or Israel “according to the flesh.” It would appear, then, not that Daviesצ swung the pendulum back too far in the direction of Paulצs Jewishness, but that in rightly emphasizing Paulצs Jewishness, he failed to adequately account for what is distinctly Christian about the apostle to the Gentiles.

c) Paul and the Robust Conscience: Krister Stendahl

The next significant contribution to this emerging “new perspective on Paul” came from Krister Stendahl, a Swedish Lutheran scholar based at Harvard University. In a provocative essay of 1963 titled The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West, Stendahl, like Moore, argued that the Protestant categorization of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness is unfounded, and owed more to δutherצs critique of sixteenth-century Catholicism than to Paulצs critique of first-century Judaism:

For the Jew, the law did not require a static or pedantic perfectionism but supposed a covenant relationship in which there was room for forgiveness and repentance and where God applied the measure of grace.⁵⁰

This reappraisal of first-century Judaism required a corresponding reappraisal of Paulצs theology. Stendahl argued that the emphasis on the doctrine of justification in the Western Christian tradition from Augustine to Luther and beyond was an outworking of the “introspective conscience of the West,” and foreign to Paul. From a survey of Pauline texts, Stendahl argued that Paul, in fact, had a “robust conscience.”⁵¹ Put briefly, Paul did not struggle with Augustineצs or δutherצs guilt problem. Thus, while Luther was interested in individual salvation, and asked the question how he could find a gracious God, Paul was more interested in salvation history, and asked the question of how Gentiles can find a place in ύodצs covenant community. Thus, according to Stendahl, justification by faith is not the heart of Paulצs teaching, intended as the salve to the guilty conscience of individual sinners, but a polemical and pastoral doctrine designed to defend the rights of Gentile believers as full members of the people of God, and heirs of ύodצs promises to Abraham.⁵²

d) Paul, Apostle of God’s Victory in Christ: Ernst Käsemann

These developing trends in Pauline scholarship found a new and creative synthesis in the writings of Ernst Käsemann, Professor of New Testament at Mainz (1946–1951), Göttingen (1951–1959), and Tübingen (1959–1971), a member of the German Confessing Church under the Nazis, a life-long advocate of socio-political action in the name of Christ, and also a student of Bultmann. Käsemannצs interpretation of Paul is a brilliant but ultimately unstable synthesis. In it, he weaves together emphases inherited from the Lutheran tradition interpreted through Bultmann, with emphases taken from the protest associated with Schweitzer.

On the one hand, in answer to the first question, Käsemann insisted with Schweitzer, that Paul must be understood in the framework of Jewish apocalyptic, which he famously suggested was “the mother of all Christian theology.”⁵³ In a series of publications climaxing in his influential 1973 commentary An die Römer,⁵⁴ Käsemann argued that Paulצs gospel proclaimed the Lordship of God in the Messiah, and so stood in deep continuity with the prophets of Israel, and with the kingdom proclamation of Jesus himself.⁵⁵ On the other hand, Käsemann insisted with the Lutheran tradition, and with Bultmann, that Paulצs doctrine of justification remains central to his thought, standing over against all human pride and self-justification, including Jewish boasting in the law.⁵⁶ For Käsemann, then, Paulצs gospel was rooted in Jewish apocalyptic, and announced to the entire world that the sovereign Lord would judge not only the Gentiles, but also even his own covenant people. The cross of the εessiah pronounced ύodצs judgment on all human pride, including Jewish pride, and it was only in submitting to that judgment, through faith in Christ, that all people, Gentile and Jew alike, might be justified before God. Thus like Baur, the history of religions school, Bultmann, and others in that stream of scholarship, Käsemann gave due weight to Paulצs significant critique of Judaism. Unlike that school, however, Käsemann saw that Paul, like the prophets before him, opposed Judaism from within.⁵⁷

This novel reconstruction grew out of Käsemannצs conviction that Paulצs righteousness language must be set a larger canvas than was otherwise recognized. Paulצs gospel, according to Käsemann, announced ύodצs victory, in Christ, over all the powers of evil on a cosmic scale. This victory over the powers of evil includes victory not only over sin and death, but also over the law, by which human beings attempt to establish their own righteousness before God, and so by their “pious claims and works . . . attempt to bring God into dependence on us.”⁵⁸ Thus when Paul declares at Rom 1:16-17 that the gospel reveals the “righteousness of God” (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ), he speaks not merely of ύodצs gift to those in Christ, thus shattering all proud religious pretensions, but more importantly of ύodצs power to transform their lives and, ultimately, to set things right in his world.⁵⁹ Put another way, Käsemann insisted, against Bultmann, that the “gift” of righteousness cannot be separated from the giver.

The result of all this was that, in relation to Paulצs teaching on justification, Käsemann stood, self-consciously, “between two fronts.”⁶⁰ On the one hand, though he is clearly indebted to the Lutheran tradition, including not least his own teacher Bultmann, he pushed beyond the boundaries of a forensic and individualist understanding of justification to stress what he saw as its transformative, corporate, and cosmic dimensions.⁶¹ On the other hand, while he affirmed with Stendahl and others that Paulצs doctrine of justification was highly polemical in character,⁶² he was not content to limit its significance to the margins of theology as a curiosity of first-century Jew-Gentile polemics, insisting instead on its timeless character as “the center, the beginning, and end of salvation history.”⁶³ In Käsemannצs influential writings, then, the stage was set for the rise of the new perspective on Paul, and also for its eclipse in a range of post-new perspective interpretations of the apostle to the Gentiles.

2.3. The New Perspective on Paul

The origins of the new perspective on Paul are usually traced to the publication of E. P. Sandersצ book titled Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977). This perspective takes as its starting point the conviction of Schweitzer, Davies, Stendahl, and Käsemann that Paul is best understood within his Jewish context. But in reality this involves two new perspectives: a re-evaluation of the nature of first-century Judaism as a religion of grace rather than of legalistic workצs righteousness; and a corresponding reinterpretation of Paul. In relation to the first of these new perspectives (on Judaism), there is basic agreement that the old (Lutheran) perspective, according to which Paul opposed the grace of the gospel to the law of Moses, and the faith of the Christian to the works of the Jew, cannot do justice to the evidence. In this respect, it is possible to understand the new perspective, at least in part, as a “Reformed protest (Judaism and the law as positive and God-

given) against a Lutheran theology (Judaism as the wrong sort of religion, the law as negative).”⁶⁴ In relation to the second new perspective (on Paul), however, the debate is more complex, such that the “new perspective on Paul” is, at best, an umbrella term.⁶⁵ In terms of exegesis, the flashpoints have been the meaning of key Pauline words and phrases, especially “righteousness of ύod,” “justification,” “works of the law,” “faith,” and “faith of Christ.” In terms of biblical theology, the key issues have been the nature of righteousness language in the Christian canon, the relationship between the law and the gospel in Paulצs thought, the extent to which Paul anticipates the Reformation doctrine of the imputation of Christצs righteousness, and the role of Christian obedience in the final justification of believers. For the sake of brevity, the following survey briefly outlines the (at points very different) interpretations of Sanders, J. D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright, who are commonly acknowledged as the three leading voices within the new perspective on Paul, before surveying the range of the responses to this new wave in Pauline scholarship.⁶⁶

a) E. P. Sanders

E. P. Sanders completed his Th.D. at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1966) and held teaching posts at McMaster University (1966–1984), the University of τxford (Dean Irelandצs Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture: 1984–1989), and Duke University (Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion: 1990–2005). In a series of publications from 1973 onwards, climaxing in two major works titled Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977) and Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (1983),⁶⁷ Sanders sought to unseat the then dominant Protestant understanding of first-century Judaism, exemplified in the work of Bultmann, and

to offer a corresponding re-reading of Paul.⁶⁸

To begin with, Sanders argued that first-century Judaism was not a legalistic religion of merit-based works-righteousness. On the contrary, he insisted, the rabbinic sources reveal a religious system which he described as “covenantal nomism.” In Sandersצ words:

Covenantal nomism is the view that oneצs place in ύodצs plan is established on the basis of the covenant and that the covenant requires, as the proper response of man, his obedience to its commandments, while providing means of atonement for transgression. ⁶⁹

According to Sanders, the variegated Judaisms of the first century shared a fundamental understanding of the covenant as the key soteriological category.⁷⁰ In this context, he insisted that first-century Jews understood that God had elected Israel purely by grace. First-century Jews did not understand themselves as miserable sinners in need of salvation, but as ύodצs chosen people. They did not obey the law in order to earn ύodצs favor, but as an expression of their covenant with him, and as a means of maintaining their place among the chosen people. They believed that “salvation comes by membership in the covenant, while obedience to the commandments preserves oneצs place in the covenant.”⁷¹ Like Paul, therefore, first-century Jews understood that salvation is by grace; it is not earned by meritorious obedience.⁷² Putting all of this together, Sanders made a crucial distinction between “getting in” and “staying in.”⁷³ In first-century Judaism, he argued, obedience to the law was never a means of getting in to favor with God; it was, however, the necessary requirement of staying in the covenant: “keeping the law is always the condition for remaining in the covenant, never the means of earning ύodצs grace.”⁷⁴

Sanders asserted that his re-reading of first-century Judaism required a significant re-reading of Paul. The crucial question raised by his analysis, for Pauline studies, was why, if Judaism taught salvation by grace, did Paul ultimately reject it? Put another way, if Paulצs Jewish contemporaries were not trying to earn their salvation by obedience to the law (the common Protestant view), then who, or what, was Paul opposing when he declared that justification is “by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom 3:28)? Sanders own answer to this question was straightforward, but has ultimately proved unsatisfying. He suggested, with Stendahl, that Paulצs primary critique of Judaism was a salvation- historical one.⁷⁵ Paulצs “real attack on Judaism,” Sanders suggested, was focused on the “the idea of the covenant” which restricted salvation to the Jews. Put

simply, Judaism had failed because it had failed to recognize that in Messiah Jesus God offers salvation for all, Jew and Gentile alike. Or, in Sandersצ memorable words: “this is what Paul finds wrong in Judaism: it is not Christianity.”⁷⁷

For this reason, despite Paulצs agreement with Judaism on the question of grace and works, Sanders argued that “Paul presents an essentially different type of religiousness from any found in Palestinian Jewish literature.”⁷⁸ Paulצs “pattern of religion” does not fit the covenantal nomism, which Sanders found in Palestinian Judaism;⁷⁹ it is a “change of entire systems.”⁸⁰ In particular, Sanders argued that Paulצs christocentric theology differed from Judaism in three important respects. First, while the covenant was the key soteriological category in Judaism,⁸¹ it played only a minor role in Paulצs thought,⁸² being replaced by Paulצs “participationist eschatology” according to which participation in Christ by faith is the key soteriological category.⁸³ Second, in terms of the human predicament, while Judaism began with the presumption of ύodצs favor under the covenant, and understood sin as transgression, which can be rectified by atonement and renewed obedience,⁸⁴ Paul began with the paradox of a crucified Messiah (the solution), and surmised from this the plight of humanity in bondage to sin.⁸⁵ Third, while Judaism employed righteousness language to speak of the maintenance of right relationships within the covenant,⁸⁶ for Paul righteousness or justification was “a transfer term,” referring to the transfer of believers from the power of sin to the kingdom of God through their participation in Christ.⁸⁷ The result of all of this, of course, was that Sanders, like Schweitzer before him, rejected the Protestant (Lutheran) emphasis on justification by faith as the center of Paulצs thought, and gave that place instead to Paulצs teaching about participation in Christ.⁸⁸ In the final analysis, Sanders argued that the difference between Judaism and Paul was primarily a question of salvation history: “what is wrong with the law, and thus with Judaism, is that it does not provide for ύodצs ultimate purpose, that of saving the entire world through faith in Christ.”⁸⁹

b) J. D. G. Dunn

Despite Sandersצ enormous influence, it was J. D. G. Dunn, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham (1982–2003), who first popularized the phrase “new perspective on Paul” with the title of his 1982 Manson Memorial Lecture.⁹⁰ Since then, Dunn has argued his case in an impressive series of publications on Paul and his letters in the context of early Christianity, including a large commentary on Romans (1988) and a major study of the Theology of the Apostle Paul (1998).⁹¹ In essence, Dunn has taken Sandersצ interpretation of first- century Judaism as his starting point, pushed this reading further, and then offered a different, and ultimately more influential, re-reading of Paul.

In relation to first-century Judaism, Dunnצs initial new perspective essay supported Sandersצ work in undermining “one hundred years of falsely placing Paul and Judaism in fundamental antithesis.”⁹² In the same essay, Dunn clearly agreed with Sanders in rejecting the Lutheran hermeneutic which had dominated Pauline scholarship,⁹³ and adopted Sandersצ categories of getting in and staying in as a description of covenantal nomism in first-century Judaism.⁹⁴ On the other hand, Dunn suggested that Sanders “failed to take the opportunity his own mold- breaking work offered,” namely, “to explore how far Paulצs theology could be explicated in relation to Judaismצs covenantal nomism.”⁹⁵

In terms of Paulצs own theology, Dunn sees a much greater degree of continuity with Judaism than Sanders ever envisaged. In particular, Dunn argues that Paul was not against the idea of covenant, or against the law, but against a

particular Jewish attitude to the law. What Paul rejected was Jewish nationalistic exclusivism, which boasted in its exclusive membership of the covenant over against other nations, and which distorted the law into a means of excluding Gentiles.⁹⁷ In particular, Paulצs polemic against the works of the law (e.g. Gal 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10; Rom 3:27; 4:2; 9:32; 11:6) was directed not at the law itself, but at the Jewish use of certain elements of the law (especially circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath) as badges of covenant membership or boundary markers designed to exclude Gentiles.⁹⁸ Paulצs problem with these works was that, when allowed to retain significance in the church, they disastrously divided the single body of Christ.

The results of this reconstruction for Paulצs teaching on justification by faith are significant. Dunn stresses that Paulצs teaching about justification must be understood in the context of his mission to the Gentiles. As a polemic against Jewish nationalistic exclusivism, it expresses “Paulצs fundamental objection to the idea that God has limited his saving goodness to a particular people.”⁹⁹ In Dunnצs words:

[J]ustification by faith is the banner raised by Paul against any and all such presumption of privileged status before God by virtue of race, culture or nationality, against any and all attempts to preserve such spurious distinctions by practices that exclude and divide.¹⁰⁰

That is, according to Dunn, justification by faith includes an important ecclesiological or sociological dimension: faith in Christ rather than works of law is the badge of membership in the new covenant people of God.¹⁰¹ Nevertheless, Dunn has more recently affirmed that justification by faith is not merely an ecclesiological or sociological principle, but also involves the “vertical” dimension of a sinnerצs standing before ύod. ¹⁰² Even at this point, however, Dunn believes a significant modification to the traditional Protestant understanding is necessary. In particular, he sees in Paul an emphasis on future justification on the basis of Spirit-enabled Christian obedience that is lacking in traditional Protestant formulations. As Dunn puts it:

Paulצs theology of justification by faith alone has to be qualified as final justification by faith and works accomplished by the believer in the power of the Spirit.¹⁰³

Although this is a significant departure from Reformation teaching, Dunn has most recently insisted that the new perspective, at least his version of it, was never designed to undermine the traditional Reformation understanding of justification by faith as ύodצs declaration that those in Christ are right with himself. It was, rather “primarily an attempt to highlight a missing dimension of Paulצs doctrine of justification.”¹⁰⁴

c) N. T. Wright

N. T. Wright is currently Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St εaryצs College, University of St Andrews, Scotland, having held a number of university teaching posts (McGill 1981–1986; Oxford 1986– 1993) and offices in the Church of England (Dean of Lichfield 1994–1999; Canon Theologian Westminster Abbey 2000–2002; Bishop of Durham 2003–2010) following the completion of his Oxford University doctoral thesis on Paulצs Letter to the Romans (1981).¹⁰⁵ Wrightצs contribution to the new perspective on Paul began with his 1978 Tyndale New Testament Lecture titled The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith.¹⁰⁶ Through a long line of publications, both scholarly and popular,¹⁰⁷ he has a made a significant impact on Pauline studies already, even if his major work is yet to come.¹⁰⁸ Although advocating a “new view” of the apostle Paul, Wright has also been at pains to emphasize, especially in more recent publications, that he considers himself to stand in the Reformed Protestant tradition, and to be offering a corrective to certain emphases in that tradition rather than a wholesale rejection of it.¹¹⁰

On the question of first-century Judaism and Paulצs critique of it, Wright is in basic agreement with Sanders and Dunn. As early as 1978 he affirmed, with Sanders, that traditional Pauline scholarship “has manufactured a false Paul by manufacturing a false Judaism for him to oppose.”¹¹¹ According to Wright, first- century Jews were not seeking to earn their salvation by meritorious works, but were confident to the point of presumption in their status as ύodצs elect;¹¹² Israelצs “meta-sin” was not her attempt to earn favor with God by obedience, but her attempt to “confine grace to one race” by turning the symbols of her covenant with God (Sabbath, dietary laws, circumcision) into “badges of superiority,” and so effectively excluding Gentiles from any share in the blessing promised to Abraham.¹¹³ In partial agreement with Dunn, Wright argues that by the phrase works of the law Paul intends the law “seen as that which defines Israel over against other nations.”¹¹⁴ His polemic against works of the law is, then, not directed against the law itself, nor against a Jewish attempt to earn salvation by keeping the law, but against a kind of Jewish presumption which saw salvation as the inalienable right of the Jews and the Jews alone. Similarly, Paulצs contrast between faith and works was not a contrast between believing and doing in the traditional Lutheran sense, but between relying on Jesus and relying on the law. The problem with Judaism, as Paul saw it, was not works-righteousness in the sense of the attempt to earn salvation by moral effort, but works-righteousness in the sense of Jewish national exclusivism.¹¹⁵

It is in his reading of Paulצs positive teaching, however, that Wright has made his major contribution. The main distinctive of Wrightצs approach is his insistence that Paulצs letters must be read in the context of the covenant, which he explicates in biblical theological terms as “ ύodצs single plan through Israel for the world.”¹¹⁶ For this reason Wright is critical of the way in which later theology has screened out the “Jewish, Messianic, covenantal, Abrahamic, history of Israel overtones” of Paulצs theology.¹¹⁷ In this context, it is no surprise that Wright argues that ύod צs righteousness, both in the τld Testament and in Paul, refers to “ ύod צs own faithfulness to his promises, to the covenant.”¹¹⁸ Paulצs break with Judaism, he says, did not come in the shape of his theology, but in its content.¹¹⁹ δike Judaism, Paulצs theology was grounded in ύodצs gracious covenant, envisaged covenant members living in response to ύodצs grace, and looked forward to a final judgment according to works.¹²⁰ Unlike Judaism, however, Paul declared that in Jesus the long-awaited Jewish Messiah had come, and that therefore the great final age, in which ύodצs promise of blessing would go out to all nations, had now arrived. For this reason, the badge of membership in the true people of God was no longer the Jewish works of the law but faith in the Messiah. Paulצs burden was to affirm that salvation is by “grace not race.”¹²²

On this basis, Wright advances a fourfold understanding of justification in Paul. He argues, firstly, that the Greek δικ- root has its origins in Hebrew law court imagery and that righteousness or justification in this law court setting “does not denote an action which transforms someone so much as a declaration which grants them a status”; it is “the status that someone has when the court has found in their favor.”¹²³ At this point, Wright clearly affirms the Reformation understanding of justification as a forensic declaration, over against the Augustinian/Roman Catholic view of justification as moral transformation. Secondly, Wright argues that this law court language can only be understood within the broader framework of ύodצs covenant with Israel, his “single plan through Israel for the world.”¹²⁴ In this context, justification refers to ύodצs final vindication of his true people in fulfillment of his covenant promise, demonstrating that those who trust in Jesus the Messiah are, in fact, the true descendants of Abraham. Related to this, thirdly, Wright insists that Paulצs teaching about justification must be set within his eschatology: justification is, above all, the verdict God will pass over his covenant people, those who trust in Jesus, on the final day.¹²⁵ Finally, as already indicated in the second and third points, Wright argues that Paulצs teaching about justification is intimately related to his Christology. Jesus is the long awaited Jewish Messiah, who did what Israel was always meant to do, who offered God the obedience he required, and whose death and resurrection, as Israelצs representative and substitute, enabled ύodצs “single plan through Israel for the world” to proceed. Jesusצ resurrection was, therefore, his own vindication or justification, encompassing within it the justification of all those who belong to him.¹²⁶ In this sense, although justification properly refers to the verdict of the final day, in Christ “the verdict of the final day (is) brought forward into the present on the basis of the Messiah brought forward into the present, and the resurrection brought forward into the present.”¹²⁸ None of this seems particularly controversial, until one realizes that it leads Wright to three positions that have attracted significant criticism. He argues, first, that “justification,” for Paul, does not primarily refer to a personצs salvation, narrowly understood, but to ύodצs declaration that those in Christ are members of

his family, included in the covenant, having been forgiven their sins.¹²⁹ Wright argues, second, that “justification,” for Paul, does not include the idea of the “imputed righteousness of Christ.”¹³⁰ And he argues, third, that final justification is in some sense based on the believerצs Spirit-inspired obedience.¹³¹ In these three controversial conclusions, however, Wright is not alone. His views are therefore best discussed in the context the ongoing debates regarding the “new perspective.” It is to those debates that we must now turn.

2.4. Responses to the New Perspective on Paul: Issues of Ongoing Debate

Responses to the new perspective on Paul have varied widely. At one end of the spectrum, a number of scholars, such as M. Thompson, D. Garlington, and K. Yinger wholeheartedly embrace both the new perspective label and the re-reading of Judaism and Paul that it implies.¹³² At the other end of the spectrum, a number of other scholars, such as T. R. Schreiner, M. A. Seifrid, C. P. Venema, J. Piper, D. Moo, and M. Horton, while allowing for various nuances, continue to argue that the Protestant Reformers understood Paul better than the advocates of the newer view.¹³³ In the middle, other scholars, such as M. Bird, have sought to find a kind of “via media between reformed and revisionist readings of Paul.”¹³⁴ At the same time, it is increasingly recognized that the debate has shifted significantly beyond the initial battle lines drawn up between the old and new perspectives so that, at least since 2001, writers such as B. Byrne and M. Bird have begun to speak of a “Post-New Perspective Perspective,”¹³⁵ and others, such as F. Watson and D. Campbell, have offered positions that they consider go “beyond the new perspective.”¹³⁶ The result of all of this is that a number of distinct but related issues remain the subject of significant debate. In what follows we briefly outline the state of play on six key questions.

First, The nature of both first-century Judaism, and Paulצs critique of it, remains in dispute. τn the one hand, Sandersצ arguments against the old perspective on Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness have won widespread acceptance. Where Sandersצ reconstruction is basically accepted, the tendency is to see Paulצs polemic against the works of the law as primarily directed at Jewish presumption and ethnocentrism.¹³⁷ On the other hand, a large number of scholars, with S. Gathercole, acknowledge that Sanders has rightly drawn attention to the significance of grace and the covenant in first-century Judaism, but continue to argue that “alongside the emphasis on ύodצs gracious election . . . there is nevertheless a firm belief in final vindication on the basis of works.”¹³⁸ Indeed, D. A. Carson, in his summative conclusion to the most sustained and comprehensive critique of the new perspective on Judaism to date, judges “not that Sanders is wrong everywhere, but that he is wrong when he tries to establish that his category is right everywhere.”¹³⁹ Carson finds that first-century Judaism was characterized by a “variegated nomism,” and argues that Sandersצ broad category of “covenantal nomism” papers over “huge tracts of works-righteousness or merit theology.”¹⁴⁰ And many scholars, likewise, continue to understand the target of Paulצs polemic to at least include Jewish legalism and merit-righteousness, even if a simultaneous attack on Jewish ethnocentrism cannot be ruled out.¹⁴¹

Second, There is significant debate regarding the meaning and significance of righteousness language in Paul, especially in relation to Paulצs declaration of the “righteousness of ύod” (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ: Rom 1:17; 3:5, 21-22; 10:3; 2 Cor 5:21; Phil 3:9). These debates predate the rise of the new perspective and its critics, but have received fresh impetus from the recent discussions. On the one hand, a number of scholars continue to defend the traditional Reformation reading, which interprets “righteousness of ύod” (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ) as ύodצs gift of righteousness to those who trust in Christ.¹⁴² This reading goes back at least to Augustine,¹⁴³ received a major impetus from Luther and Calvin,¹⁴⁴ and has been advocated by scholars from a range of confessional positions ever since.¹⁴⁵ An alternative reading, however, according to which the “righteousness of God” (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ) refers to ύodצs own righteous character or actions has recently gained increasing support.¹⁴⁶ This reading also claims ancient precedent in the writings of Ambrosiaster,¹⁴⁷ and was championed by a number of prominent scholars prior to the rise of the new perspective.¹⁴⁸ Wrightצs reading of the “righteousness of God” as ύodצs “covenant faithfulness” is one example of this view, but it should be noted that this reading is not unique to Wright, nor to the new perspective.¹⁴⁹ Finally, attempting to mediate this debate, some scholars, including Dunn, have followed Käsemann in understanding δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ to denote both ύodצs saving power, and the gift of righteousness created by that power.¹⁵⁰

Third, The meaning and significance of Paulצs teaching about justification is hotly contested. To begin with, there is no consensus on how the concept should be defined: should justification be understood broadly, to include the whole Christian doctrine of salvation, or narrowly, to encompass only the teaching of those Pauline passages where the δικ- root appears?¹⁵¹ In terms of the substantial issue, the old Reformation debate continues: should Paulצs justification language be understood, with Augustine and the Roman Catholic tradition, to mean both “declare righteous” and “make righteous” or, with the Protestant Reformers, in exclusively forensic terms, to mean “reckon as righteous”? There is now a relatively widespread consensus, across confessional lines, that the verb δικαιόω, like its Hebrew antecedent (דקʶ), is a forensic and declarative term, drawn from the law court setting, and carrying the sense “declare righteous” or “vindicate.”¹⁵² A significant minority of Pauline scholars, however, spurred on by Käsemann, argue that Paulצs justification language includes reference to moral transformation.¹⁵³ In response, a number of Reformed scholars argue, following Calvin, that while moral transformation is indeed important for Paul, the apostleצs teaching is best understood if we consider justification and moral transformation (“sanctification”) as inseparable but distinguishable benefits of union with Christ.¹⁵⁴ Yet further, there is also significant debate about whether justification in Paul is best understood as a future verdict anticipated in the present in Christ (so Wright),¹⁵⁵ a present verdict to be confirmed in the future (so Piper),¹⁵⁶ or a process which spans the whole period between a believerצs initiation into Christ and the consummation (so P. Stuhlmacher).¹⁵⁷ Finally, there is not yet agreement on the question of whether Paulצs justification language is primarily language about the sinnerצs standing before ύod, as traditional readings would insist, or

primarily language about the inclusion of Gentiles among the covenant people, as argued by advocates of the new perspective.¹⁵⁸ While there is recognition on both sides that both vertical and horizontal dimensions are significant, the question of emphasis remains.¹⁵⁹

Fourth, There is a significant debate surrounding the question of whether Paulצs teaching about justification can support the traditional Protestant affirmation that God imputes the righteousness of Christ to sinners who believe. Wright resolutely rejects the notion that Christצs moral obedience is imputed to sinners. The main problem Wright sees with the language is that it relies on medieval conceptions of grace and righteousness,¹⁶⁰ and implies that righteousness is some kind of substance or commodity that can be shared between parties, rather than a status conferred by the declaration of a judge.¹⁶¹ In place of this construction, Wright prefers to speak of justification as ύodצs declaration that those who are in Christ by faith are right with him, and members of his covenant family, because of their participation in Christ, their representative head.¹⁶² God is able to justify sinners in Christ because—as their representative—what is “true for him is true for them”: in Christצs death their sin is condemned; in Christצs resurrection they are vindicated.¹⁶³ It is, therefore, Christצs death and resurrection alone which are reckoned to the one who believes.¹⁶⁵ Here Wrightצs thought is close to the traditional Reformed emphasis on justification as a forensic aspect of the believerצs union with Christ, even if he rejects the idea that Jesusצ “active obedience” counts for others, and demurs from the term “imputation.” Indeed, R. H. Gundry and Seifrid, who have otherwise been critical of the new perspective, concur with Wright at this point. And more recently, Bird has proposed the category of “incorporated righteousness” to emphasize the believerצs union with Christ as the ground of their righteousness.¹⁶⁷

Fifth, Related to the discussion regarding justification and imputation, the place of the believerצs obedience in his or her final justification before God remains in dispute. Dunn and Wright have both emphasized, in different ways, the significance of the believerצs Spirit-enabled works in relation to their final justification before God. Indeed, until quite recently, Wright has regularly spoken of justification as ύodצs verdict on the final day, passed “on the basis of the entire life.”¹⁶⁹ By this language, Wright insists that he intends nothing other than the Spirit-enabled Christian obedience which accompanies true faith, demonstrates a personצs membership in the covenant, and in no way merits salvation. Nevertheless, in his more recent writings, Wright has been more careful to present Christ alone as the basis of the believerצs justification, and to adopt the Pauline language of judgment “in accordance” with works.¹⁷¹ At the same time, a number of other scholars, including Yinger, Seifrid, Gathercole, and Kirk, assign an instrumental role of some kind to works in final justification, even as they emphasize that these works are only enabled by the Holy Spirit. This view has, however, drawn sharp criticism from a number of scholars, not least among them Piper, whose book-length critique of Wright emphasizes that while the believerצs obedience is the necessary fruit and evidence of their union with Christ, it may in no way assigned an instrumental role as any basis of final justification.¹⁷³

Sixth, A related but distinct debate surrounds the crucial Pauline phrase “faith of Christ” (πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ), which occurs seven times in Paulצs letters (Rom 3:22, 26; Gal 2:16 x2; 3:22; Eph 3:12; Phil 3:9).¹⁷⁴ The phrase has traditionally been interpreted anthropocentrically as an objective genitive, with reference to the believerצs faith: “faith in Jesus Christ.”¹⁷⁵ In recent years, however, an alternative interpretation has gained increasing acceptance. This reading interprets the phrase Christocentrically, as a subjective genitive, referring to the “faith of Jesus Christ” in the sense of the “faith(fullness) exercised by Jesus Christ.” Although advocates of this reading can be found earlier, a major impetus was provided in 1983 by the publication of R. B. Haysצ major study The Faith of Jesus Christ.¹⁷⁷ Good arguments have been made on both sides, and recognizing this, some scholars, such as M. Hooker, have suggested that Paulצs understanding of “faith of Christ” is “a concentric expression, which begins, always, from the faith of Christ himself, but which includes, necessarily, the answering faith of believers, who claim that faith as their own.”¹⁷⁸ Here again, it should be noted that although the question is related to those surrounding the new perspective on Paul, the debate is not as simple as new perspective verses old; significantly, Dunn and Wright have argued different sides on the issue.¹⁷⁹