What DidPaul ReaMean?

LI-'-.—r^w*

by Simon Gathercole

Kew perspective' scholars argue that we need,well, a new perspective on justification hy faith,

Pick up any recent Bible commentary or theology textbook, and you will read about something

called the "new perspective on Paul." Seminaries have buzzed for decades about how they might

apply to Paul the new light shed on Judaism. Some advocates of the new perspective conclude that

the Reformers have led Protestants to misunderstand the all-Important doctrine of justification.

As a result, the new perspective has stirred more than a little controversy. Ligon Duncan, former

moderator of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), said new perspective theology "undercuts

the certainty of believers regarding the substance of the gospel message." (n June, the PCA General

Assembly said advocates of the new perspective should report themselves to presbytery courts,

because their teaching does not accord with the Westminster Standards.

Leading new perspective theologian N. T. Wright has repeatedly responded to his critics. Talking

in 2004 with James D. G, Dunn, who named the new perspective, Wright faulted his critics for pro-

ducing websites that "are extremely rude about the two people sitting on this platform tonight for

having sold Paul down the river and given up the genuine Reformed doctrine of justification by faith."

So is this merely a squabble among Reformed theologians? Certainly not—some new perspective

scholars also teach that Martin Luther's preoccupation with the Roman Catholic Church has led all

Protestants astray. Do we now need to reframe our preaching and teaching to be truly biblical?

British scholar Simon Gathercole takes on that question in this article. -CT Editors

FOR NEARLY 30 YEARS, a number oftheologians have argued for a "new perspective" on the apostlePaul and his doctrine of justification. Advocates of this approach believe that many cherished concerns ofthe Protestant Reformation were either wrong or ill-directed. Those concerns include justification, whichMartin Luther described as nothing less than the "key article of Christian doctrine." Yet some evangeli-cals have found in the writing of new perspective theologians—particularly James D. G. Dunn and

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W H A T D I D P A U L R E A L L Y M E A N ?

N. T. Wright—a key to unlocking Paul'soriginal intent. So what"s all the fuss ahout?

WHAT'S SO NEW ABOUT PAUL?

One point that needs to be clear at the out-set is that the new perspective on Paul isnot really what it might sound like. Forone thing, no secret society meets to pro-mote this new school of thought. Advo-cates do not even offer a united front:Scholars generally associated with the newperspective argue with each other just asmuch as traditionalists do. The new per-spective is, rather, a convenient umbrellafor a current trend in Pauline scholarshipwith quite a limited agenda.

This leads to a second point. The newperspective does not propose to reevaluateall of Paul's thought. It says nothing new,for example, about the person of Christ,the Holy Spirit, or the Christian life. It isfocused narrowly on what Paul says aboutjustification, and even more specifically onwhat Paul opposes when he talks aboutjustification by faith. In particular, the newperspective investigates the problem Paulhas with "works" or "works ofthe law."

The difference between old and newperspectives can be summed up briefly. Inthe old perspective, works ofthe law arehuman acts of righteousness performed inorder to gain credit before God. In the newperspective, works ofthe law are elementsof Jewish law that accentuate Jewish privi-lege and mark out Israel from other nations.

Two vital ingi^edients go into the new

perspective. The first is actually more anew perspective on Judaism than on Paul.It reacts against the traditional idea thatJews in Paul's day believed they couldaccumulate merit before God by theirdeeds. In place of seeing Paul's contempo-raries as legalistic, the new perspective

IN THE OLDPERSPECTIVE,FAITH MEANS

TRUST IN GOD'SMERCY ALONE.

says the concern in early Judaism was tomaintain the identity ofthe Jewish nation,especially through observing the Sabbath,circumcising their newborns, and eatingkosher. These boundaiy markers or badgesof identity for the Jewish nation distin-guished them as belonging to God'scovenant people.

Second, this understanding of first-cen-tury Judaism is then applied to Paul.According to the new perspective, Paul isonly focusing on these aspects of Jewishlife (Sabbath, circumcision, food laws)when he mentions "works ofthe law." His

prohlem isn't legalistic self-righteousnessin general. Rather, for Jews these works ofthe law highlighted God's election oftheJewish nation, excluding Gentiles. Calledby God to reach the Gentiles, Paul recog-nizes that Jews wrongly restricted God'scovenant to themselves.

Paul extends these insights to churchrelations. Just as Jews wrongly restrictedGod's covenant, so also Jewish Christianswrongly insisted that Gentile Christiansneeded to observe the law to be full-fledgeddisciples. This led to the challenge thatPaul issued to Peter at Antioch (Gal.2:11-14). How could Peter withdraw fromtable fellowship with the Gentiles thereVSurely such an action was inconsistentwith the ti'uth of the gospel.

These two points are the product of aflurry of literature in the late 1970s andearly 1980s. The new perspective onJudaism was argued for largely by E. P.Sanders in his Paul and PalestinianJudaism (1977). Sanders was particularlyconcerned ahout anti-Jewish tendenciesin the old perspective and its portrayal ofJudaism as inferior to Christianity.Sanders's aim was to present a cleaned-uppicture of early Judaism, untainted byChristian prejudice. He argued that bothpre-Christian Judaism and its successor,rabbinic Judaism, had just as strong anemphasis on grace as Pauline Christianitydid. Election was central to Judaism, aswas God's redemption of his people fromEgypt. Observing the law merely kept

Old School: ReformersDeza, Luther, andCalvin found InScripture a doctrinoofjustlticatlondifferent from whatthe medieval Catholicchurch taugttt.

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Jews in the covenant established hy God.Scholars received Sanders's work as a

major contribution to Jewish studies. Butit fell rather flat when applied to Paulinescholarship. So N. T. Wright and James D.Ci. Dunn, along with Sanders, attempted tointegrate this new view of Judaism moresuccessfully with a new view of Paul. Theyfocused on "exclusivism," the sense ofnational righteousness maintained bypractices such as Sabbath-observance, cir-cumcision, and keeping kosher. Paul, thenew perspective argued, dedicated himselfto warning against exclusivist nationalrighteousness. God was bringing peoplefrom all nations to believe in the Messiah.

HAPPY BEGINNING, SAD ENDINGAlmost all scholars, new and old, agreethat Paul answers the problem of "worksofthe law" with "faith." But if the new per-spective has shifted how we understandworks ofthe law, then the meaning offaith—or at least the emphasis of it—needsto shift as well. In the old perspective, faithmeans trust in God's mercy alone, not inhuman acts of righteousness. In the newperspective, faith is a badge, or identitymarker, which can be shared by all, Jew;md Gentile.

The new perspective does not neces-sarily deny the traditional meaning offaith, but rather finds its focus elsewhere.Faith remains central to Paul's doctrine ofjustification, because it means that Gen-tiles do not need to become Israelites

New School: JamesO. G. Dunn (left) andN. T. Wriitit (confer)have applied toChristiatiity theinsights thoy learnedfrom E. P. Sanders(right) about Judaism.

when they become Christians. Accordingto the new perspective, Paul accentuatesthis point in the early chapters of his letterto the Romans.

Galatians makes the same point in a dif-ferent setting. Here, Paul finds the probleminside the church. Galatians 2 breaks the

NEW PERSPECTIVESCHOLARS ARGUEWITH EACH OTHERJUST AS MUCH ASTRADITIONALISTS

DO.

rules of good storytelling with a happybeginning and a sad ending. Initially, Peterand Paul agree at their meeting inJerusalem about law-observance not beingnecessar>' for Gentiles (Gal. 2:1-10). Later,in Antioch, Peter rebuilds the barrierbetween Jews and Greeks. Nervous abouthis reputation as a traditional Jew, he with-draws from table fellowship with the Gen-tiles (2:11-14). Paul considers this move adisaster. So he castigates Peter and remindshim how faith and faith alone—not worksofthe law—mark people out as belongingto God's covenant (2:15-16). Faith means

that Jew and Gentile must eat together.Following this pattern, justification by

faith and not by works of the law focuseson God's acceptance not only of Jews butalso of Gentiles. Some have argued thatPaul makes this point most clearly inRomans 3:28-30: "For we maintain that aman is justified by faith apart from obsen'-ing the law [literally, "apart from works ofthe law"]. Is God the God of Jews only? Ishe not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, ofGentiles too, since there is only one God,who will justify the circumcised hy faithand the uncircumcised through that samefaitb." Advocates ofthe new perspectivetend to read this passage as a statementabout God welcoming Gentiles, who thenneed not observe Jewish practices, such asSabbath-keeping, circumcision, and akosher diet. This interpretation wouldthen be confirmed by what follows: a focusagain on the fact that God is not the Godmerelyof a single nation, but of Jew andGentile alike (verses 29-30).

THE NEW PERSPECTIVE ASSESSED

The new perspective cannot merely bewritten off as a disaster from start to fin-ish, as some critics would have us believe.One ofthe most important benefits ofthenew perspective on Paul is that it accentu-ates the worldwide focus of God's deal-ings in Christ. Paul uses justification tohighlight how all Christians, Jewish andGentile, come to God on the same basis—that of faith.

W H A T D I D P A U L R E A L L Y M E A N ?

The new perspective also elevates ourhistorical awareness of Paul's situation.There are certainly important ways inwhich Paul's debate with his Jewish con-temporaries anticipates later controver-sies—between Augustine and Pelagius, forinstance, and to a lesser extent betweenLuther and his opponents. But we mustnot read Paul merely with our favoritedebate from church history in mind. E. P.Sanders rightly detects in much ofthe tra-ditional Protestant description of Judaisman anxiety about Roman GathoHc works-righteousness crouching at the door. Thisleads us to Sanders's concern with por-traying Judaism in a fair and unprejudicedlight. This is also an important contribu-tion: There can be no place in the churchfor cheap caricatures of Judaism. Sandershas encouraged scholars to look seriouslyat Jewish sources around the time of Paulto understand what they really say.

Nevertheless, other scholars haveshown that Sanders himself presents a one-sided view in his reaction against the one-sided traditional view of Judaism. So theclose examination of these sources is stillan important area of scholarly research.We also need to be carefiil in how we talkabout Judaism from the pulpit and in ourconversations about Scripture. Ghristiansmust avoid cheap caricatures as well as apolitically correct anxiety about saying thatJevre need to hear the gospel.

Similarly, when pastors preach on theGospels and Acts, they must distinguishbetween criticism delivered by Jesus andPaul against their contemporaries, on theone hand, and their high regard for the lawof Moses on the other. Some Jews in thefirst century clearly did interpret the lawin a way that imposed strictures foreign tothe Torah. But we must not criticize thelaw itself, as if it were a body of petty rulesand regulations. To do so would be to criti-cize God himself. His law is "holy, right-eous, and good" (Rom. 7:12).

SIX TENDENCIES

On the other side, there are a few points atwhich the new perspective is, in my judg-ment, at fault.

1. We need to go back to E. P. Sandersand his insistence that Judaism in Paul'sday did not think in terms of salvation assomething earned or gained by obedience

to the law. Now it is certainly the case thatProtestant scholarship had previouslyexaggerated this fact, but it is not wrongeither. Documents from around the timeof Paul state that some Jews believed obe-dience to the law was rewarded on thefinal day with salvation: "The one whodoes righteousness stores up life for him-self with the Lord" {Psalms of Solomon, c.50 B.C.). "Miracles, however, will appear attheir own time to those who are saved hy

TRYING TO OBEY

THE LAW THROUGH

THE FLESH IS LIKE

TRYING TO CLIMB A

SHEER ROCK FACE

WITH NO HANDHOLD.

their works" (2 Baruch, c. A.D. 100). Thereare a number of examples like this. Paul'sunderstanding of justification makessense, then, as a criticism of law obser-vance as the means to eternal life (seeRom. 3:20). Many of Paul's contempo-raries seem to have believed that obedi-ence was possible without a radicalinbreakingofGod.

For Paul on the other hand, salvationwas impossihle without the earth-shatter-ing events ofthe Cross, Resurrection, andPentecost. I mentioned previously thatfor Sanders, observance ofthe law wasmerely how people stayed in the covenantthat God had already established. Butobedience for Paul was no mere formality.It took mighty acts of God to make itpossible.

2. Does Paul think primarily of circum-cision. Sabbath observance, and food lawswhen he uses the phrase "works ofthelaw"? My own view, and that of a numberof other scholars, is that Paul focuses onobservance ofthe law as a whole. Works ofthe law simply means doing the law—thelaw in its entirety. So the issue at stakewith works ofthe law is not so much Jew-ish identity as the ability of Israelites ashuman beings to obey the entire law. We

shall return to this point later.3. Criticism of "individualistic" read-

ings of Paul can throw the baby out withthe bathwater. Some new perspectivescholars want to guard against individual-istic understandings of justification. See-ing faith to be transcultural, available toboth Jew and Gentile, these scholars shiftthe emphasis from personal conversiontoward the larger canvas of God's dealingsin salvation history. But we cannot escapethe dimensions of conversion and personalfaith in Paul. These are vitally important:The church is not a lump of humanitj', butan assembly of individuals. Faith accord-ing to Paul is exercised by individuals (e.g.Rom. 4:5; 12:3; Gal. 2:20), and is also a fea-ture of churches (e.g. Rom. 1:8; Col. 1:4).Individual and corporate faith are not atodds with one another.

4. A further tendency ofthe new per-spective is to confuse the content of justifi-cation with its applications. It is true to saythat justification by faith is about includingGentiles into the people of God. But it isessential to see that the core meaning ofjustification by faith is about how believ-ers, despite their sin, can be reckoned asrighteous before God. Then we can speakofthe scope of justification, which is for allwho believe, from every tongue, tribe, andnation. Unfortunately, in some hands, theemphasis on inclusion as a primary com-ponent of justification can have two fur-ther effects.

5. Seeing justification as primarilyaddressing how Gentiles can be incorpo-rated into the people of God can lead to adownplaying of sin. This approach to justi-fication can lose sight of Paul's vital con-cern for how sinners can he made right-eous. One leading New Testament scholarhas described his view of justification asGod building an extra room in his housefor Gentiles. But this view neglects the factthat Israelites as well as Gentiles are sin-ners and need to be justified.

6. Since the emphasis in some discus-sions of justification is on inclusion, toler-ance, and ecumenism, there can be a ten-dency to downplay the importance ofdoctrinal clarity. One recent commentaryon Romans emphasizes mutual acceptanceas the key to the book. It is revealing thatthe commentator then regards Romans16:17-20 as a later interpolation, because

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the passage emphasizes teaching doctrineand staying away from heretics. Paulinsists, however, that unity and doctrineare not mutually exclusive. True unitycomes not at the expense of doctrine, butprecisely around the central truths ofthegospel.

Once again, it needs to be rememberedthat the new perspective does not put for-ward a single, united front. As a result,these criticisms will not all apply to oneperson at the same time. They are, howev-er, tendencies to keep an eye out for whenstudying the new perspective.

HARD HEARTS NEED JUSTIFICATIONIt's not enough, though, to interact withscholarship ahout Paul. We also need tounderstand what the Bible teaches aboutjustification.

"God is the justifier!" (Rom. 8:33). Thetriune God, out of his great love, sent hisSon to die as a substitute. On this basis, hejustifies believers (Rom. 5:1-11). But whathappens in the event of justification? Theword itself has been interpreted in a num-ber of different ways, so it's helpful to turnto biblical passages that define it. Theapostle Paul derives his definition fromthe Old Testament—specifically. Genesis15:6: "What does the Scripture say? 'Abra-ham believed God, and it was credited tohim as righteousness'" (Rom. 4:3, quotingGen. 15:6).

In the Old Testament, "righteousness"is the status that an Israelite receivedwhen he or she fully observed the require-ments ofthe law: "And if we are careful toobey all this law before the LORD our God,as he has commanded us, that will be ourrighteousness" (Deut. 6:25). The tragedy ofthe covenant, however, is that despiteGod's glorious provision of redemptionand ofhis Torah, the Israelites oftenbehaved just like Gentiles. Stiff-neckedand hard-hearted, they rebelled againstGod. They never attained the status ofrighteousness, which they would havepossessed had they lived up to the ideal inDeuteronomy.

But this status of righteousness is pre-cisely what is granted to those who havefaith in Christ. Although these former idol-aters traded in the glory of God and dis-obediently suppressed the truth, God nowdeclares them righteous—declares them to

have fulfilled everything in his presencethat he has commanded. This "in his pres-ence" (or "before the LORD our God" inDeut 6:25) is important. Justification, inwhich righteousness is reckoned to us, isboth a legal declaration of our status and astatement about our relationship withGod. People who are sinners are declaredby God to have done ail that he has com-manded.

This justification, made possiblethrough the cross of Christ, means wedon't need to be anxious before God.There is nothing that can come betweenthe justified person and the everlastingblessing of life with God on the other sideof Judgment Day. The phrase fromRomans 8:33, "God is the justifier," isPaul's answer to the question of whether it

is possible for anyone to bring a chargeagainst God's elect. Of course not! Paul isalmost certainly alluding here to Isaiah'sgreat testimony about the Lord:

He who vindicates me is near.Who then will bring charges against

me?Let us face each other!Who is my accuser?Let him confront me!It is the Sovereign LORD who helps me.Who is he that will condemn me?They will all wear out like a garment;the moths will eat them up(Isa. 50:8-9).

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

Faith is another term that Paul helpfully

Further Readingon the New PerspectiveSHORT INTRODUCTIONSN. T. Wright's What Saint Paul Really Said (Lion, 1997) not only outlines his version

of the new perspective on Paul, but also Includes a helpful discussion of Paul's view of

Christ. Wright's book Paul: In Fresh Perspective {Fortress, 2006) combines this new

perspective with his views on Paul's challenge to the Roman Empire. Peter Stuhlmacher

and Don Hagner, Revisiting Paul's Doctrine of Justification: A Challenge to the NewPerspective (InterVarsity, 2001), offer a critique of the broader new perspective

movement from the more traditional camp.

POPULAR COMMENTARIES '

N. T. Wright has produced a series of New Testament commentaries in his For Everyone

series (Westminster John Knox). Galatians and Thessalonians (2004) and Romans(-8 (2004) cover issues related to the new perspective. John Stott's The Message ofRomans (InterVarsity, 1994) in the Bible Speaks Today series interacts with and

criticizes the new perspective in his characteristically accessible style.

SCHOLARLY DISCUSSIONSE. P. Sanders's Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Fortress, 1977) set the ball rolling.

James D. G. Dunn's TheTheoiogy of Paul the Apostle (Eerdmans, 1998) applies

Sanders's evaluation of early Judaism to Paul. More critical are the two volumes edited

by D. A. Carson, Peter T. O'Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid, Justification and VariegatedNomistn (Baker, 2001, 2004). Stephen Westerholm's Perspectives Old and New onPaul (Eerdmans, 2004) is also useful.

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARIESrspective side, James D, G. Dunn has done the most to apply his views to

commentaries. See his two-volume Romans 1-8,9-16 (Thomas Nelson, 1988), and

Gaiatians (Hendrickson, 1993). Valuable criticisms of the new perspective can be found

in Douglas J. Moo's The Epistle to the Romans (Eerdmans, 1996) and Thomas R.

Schreiner's Romans (Baker, 1998).

W H A T D I D P A U L R E A L L Y M E A N

defines. (Paul isn't always as difficult tounderstand as he is cracked up to be!) Hereturns to the Genesis narrative and Abra-ham's response to God's promise, offeringthis clear description of faith: "Against allhope, Abraham in hope believed and sobecame the father of many nations, just asit had been said to him, 'So shall your off-spring be.' Without weakening in his faith,lie faced the fact that his body was as goodas dead—since he was about a hundredyears old—and that Sarah's womb was alsodead. Yet he did not waver through unbe-lief regarding the promise of God, but wasstrengthened in his faith and gave glor>' toGod, being fully persuaded that God hadpower to do what he had promised. This iswhy 'it was credited to him as righteous-ness'" (Rom. 4:18-22).

We can see from this passage three par-ticularly important aspects of faith (orbelieving—they are forms ofthe same wordin Greek).

1. Abraham recognized the futility ofhis own future without God and God'shelp. God promised that Abraham'sdescendants would be as numerous as thestars, yet humanly speaking this wasimpossihle: Abraham "faced the fact thathis body was as good as dead," and whenhe did trust God, it was "against all hope."So trusting God is not something we sim-ply add on to our life. Ghristian faithrequires a complete reorientation of ourwhole attitude.

2. But faith is not merely an attitude—itis also the response to God's specificpromises. In Abraham's case, his faithanswers the divine word, "So shall youroffspring be." Faith is not content-lesshumility that places our hope in a higherpower. No, in faith we answer the divineword and its specific verbal content. Godspeaks, and we believe in him in responseto his word. God made particular promisesto Abraham, and in Romans 4, Paul goeson to say that God promises justification tothose who trust in him as the one whoraised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 4:23-25;see also Rom. 10:9).

3. Faith focuses not only on what Godhas said but also on his character. Abrahamtrusted that "God had power to do what hehad promised." Biblical faith mirrors God,the object of that faith. In everyday life, wegenerally have different kinds of faith in

different people, according to the nature ofthe relationship. We have a certain kind offaith in a spouse, another kind in a doctor,and a different sort in relation to a pastor ora friend. By telling us who God is, the Bibledefines what kind of faith we must place inhim: He is the God who justifies the ungod-ly (Rom. 4:5), who creates out of nothing(4:17), and who raised Jesus from the dead(4:24). Utterly all-powerful, he wields that

WE HAVE NOTLEFT THE

STARTING BLOCKSAS FAR AS

RIGHTEOUSNESS ISCONCERNED.

power to bring righteousness where therewas none, creation where there was none,and life where there was none. That's theGod we believe in.

NOT BY WORKS OF THE LAW

So what is wrong with works of the law?They are associated with the flesh, Paulanswers. (The NASB helpfully preservesthe old-fashioned sounding/7esft, for amore literal translation ofthe key pas-sages.) "Works ofthe taw" means obedi-ence to the law done outside of Christ,without the new-creating power of theHoly Spirit. In this condition, it is clearlyimpossible to observe the law, "because bythe works ofthe law no flesh will be justi-fied in his sight; for through the law comesthe knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20, NASB).

Paul has seen this borne out in Israel's his-tory. Even this nation "entrusted with thevery oracles of God" (Rom. 3:2), given alaw that was "holy, righteous, and good"(Rom. 7:12), could not please God.

The flesh is powerless to obey. "Forwhat the law could not do, weak as it wasthrough the flesh, God did" (Rom. 8:3,NA.SB). Trying to obey the law through theflesh is like trying to climb a sheer rockface with no foothold or handhold, with-out equipment. It can't be done.

In fact, the problem runs deeper thanthe flesh's weakness. The flesh even warswith God: "Because the mind set on thefiesh is hostile toward God; for it does notsubject itself to the law of God, for it is noteven able to do so" (Rom. 8:7, NASB), DO

revolutionaries follow the law? No—theyseek to overthrow it. We sometimes pre-sent sin as people's failure in varyingdegrees to reach God's standards. ButRomans 8:7 shows that we do not evenstart to please God. The problem withworks ofthe law, according to Paul, is thatstiff-necked human beings, left to theirown devices, cannot get anywhere nearpleasing God.

Paul makes it clear to the Romans thatGod reckons righteousness purely bygrace. He stresses that God is the soleoperator in salvation. There is no place forthe program offered by the law, that "if weare careful to obey all this law before theLORD our God, as he has commanded us,that will be our righteousness" (Deut.6:25). As we have seen, it is not that wehave accomplished some successful law-observance that needs to be topped off byGod to make a full quota. No, we have notleft the starting blocks as far as righteous-ness is concerned. God acts so that it isobvious to all that he alone does the wholesaving work. "And if by grace, then it is nolonger by works; if it were, grace would nolonger be grace" (Rom. 11:6).

At its core, the doctrine of justificationsays that sinners can be miraculously reck-oned righteous before God. This happensfor all who believe and has nothing to dowith observance ofthe law, which for sin-ners is impossible. With this foundation inplace, we can move on to see how Pauluses the doctrine of justification by faith.The new perspective rightly observes thatPaul uses justification to argue that GentileChristians need not take on the yoke of thelaw (Galatians) and that Jewish Christiansand Gentile Christians should live togetherin harmony (Romans 14-15). While wemust not neglect these demands, weshould not allow the tail to wag the dog. '^'

Simon Gathercole is senior lecturer in

New Testament at the University of

Aberdeen. He was recently appointed a

lecturer at the University of Cambridge,

starting in October.

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