Wright’s third chapter in Justification, “First-Century Judaism: Covenant, Law and Lawcourt,” is an attempt to explain that first-century Jews (the main characters and audiences of the New Testament) were more concerned with experiencing deliverance from exile (an exile the Jewish people had been experiencing even after returning to their land, as they were still under Roman occupation) by way of David’s promised son. While first-century Judaism was not ignorant to ideas of transcendence and afterlife, those issues were being overshadowed by more pressing physical, political concerns. In other words, first-century Jews, unlike many Christians today, were not simply trying to find their ticket to heaven. They expected God to move within history, within their world.
Wright notes that first-century literature illumines us to the fact that Judaism was not a monolithic religion before, during, or after the time of Christ. He speaks of Variegated Nomism – the multiplicity of ways in which first-century Jews were interpreting Israel’s law, constructing theologies of grace, resurrection etc.
I find this much clear: first-century Judaism was far different from the works-not-grace caricature of Judaism that Martin Luther so unfortunately concocted in order to read the biblical text into his own sixteenth-century world. There is a cost when we use the biblical text so liberally as to form the biblical narrative and characters in our own image, so that they are living out our story rather than us living continuing their story faithfully in our day. Disregard for historical context, authorial intent and the like can lead us in directions as dangerous as the Lutheranism-gone-awry that was experienced in the Holocaust in the early-to-mid-twentieth century – a mere sixty years ago.
Within the “Judaisms” of the first century, there were some who aimed to calculate the moment when God would deliver Israel from exile. Wright notes many of them leaned heavily on Daniel 9 – a prophecy of the end of exile in which an angel tells the main character that exile would not be for the simple seventy years he read about in Jeremiah, but seventy weeks of years (70 X 7). (pgs 57-59)
This, Wright says, is the social milieu into which Paul writes – a group of people who felt that they were living a continued biblical narrative, still in exile but hoping for the end of exile as described in Daniel 9. Yes, these Jews were back in their land, out from captivity in Babylon. Jews were “enslaved” to pagan cultures and customs.
Here the Bishop lets out some of his frustration with Piper and his “ordinary folk”:
“. . . for many, perhaps most, contemporary Western readers of the New Testament (John Piper’s ‘ordinary folk,’ perhaps), the effort required to think into a worldview where people were thinking to themselves, When is God going to do what he’s promised? is all too much, and they shake their heads and settle back into the comfort of a non-historical soteriology the long and short of which is ‘my relationship with God’ rather than ‘what God is going to do to sort out his world and his people.’ Or, alternatively, the question, when will God do what he’s promised? splurges back onto the theological scene in the form of lurid speculations about the Rapture: drive eschatology out the front door, and it will break in through the back window. And with all of these strategies we thereby put ourselves in the position of musicians who, finding the score of a Beethoven symphony, reckon that because the only instruments they possess are guitars and mouth-organs, that must be what Beethoven had in mind. Or, if you like, that because the only music they know is a collection of songs none of which last longer than four minutes, that must be what Beethoven actually intended.” (pg 61)
Can you tell he’s had it with Piper and his “ordinary folk,” and their commitment to make ordinary what should be a very inordinate use of Scripture?
One of the ways in which Wright’s view of justification succeeds is in its incorporation of the New Exodus motif woven throughout the entirety of Scripture. In Chapter Three Wright exegetes Daniel 9 (remember, this is a text that first-century Jews were leaning into for a variety of reasons), and two things become very clear: “righteousness” in this passage is interchangeable with covenant faithfulness, and God’s covenant faithfulness allows Him to stand as “right” (faithful) when His covenant people are not (allowing the curse of exile as promised in the covenant) as well as to declare “right” (lawcourt language) an unfaithful people (allowing exodus) – on the basis of God’s own covenant faithfulness, not the people’s.
That doesn’t sound much like Luther’s caricature of works-righteousness, does it? No, this is about a God who is covenantally faithful to the extent that He allows consequences of the covenant (exile) but ultimately restores the covenant on the basis of His own covenant-keeping (allowing exodus). This is the hope of first-century Judaism, and the center of Paul’s writing, that God would declare His people right – an act that, to them, was connected to the political ramification of exodus and the ongoing of narrative of human history.
Wright proceeds to shed light on Piper’s big motif for understanding righteousness and justification, God’s concern for God’s own glory. Here’s one part of Wright’s review of Piper that I found to be particularly funny (and refreshing):
“there is a huge mass of scholarly literature on the meaning of God’s righteousness, and Piper simply ignores it. I am not aware of any other scholar, old perspective, new perspective, Catholic, Reformed, Evangelical, anyone, who thinks that tsedaqah elohim in Hebrew or dikaiosyne theou in Greek actually means ‘God’s concern for God’s own glory. . . . Piper’s attempt to show that there must be a ‘righteousness’ behind God’s ‘covenant faithfulness’ is simply unconvincing. It begins to look as though Piper has simply not understood what covenant faithfulness means, and its enormous significance throughout Scripture.” (pgs 64-65)
Also to my amusement, Wright notes that even J.I. Packer – a notoriously Reformed scholar – slips into the New Perspective when he notes, “The reason why [Isaiah and Psalms] call God’s vindication of his oppressed people his ‘righteousness’ is that it is an act of faithfulness to his covenant promise with them.” (pg 64)
The Bishop proceeds to discuss the role of Israel in God’s plan to put the world to rights. God does not give up on Israel. God does not replace Israel. It is precisely through Israel that God will put the world to rights. Wright notes Piper’s decision to not engage Romans 3 and 4 (chapters centered on Abraham and God’s still-applicable commitment to bless the world through his people). This is consistent with Piper’s evasion of Deuteronomy 27-30, Daniel 9, and the whole of Genesis 15. Piper is not engaging the texts that best clarify that God’s righteousness is His covenant faithfulness.
And it is at this point that I, as a reader, become frustrated on Wright’s behalf. Piper and others within the old perspective have accused Wright of proposing a “complicated” gospel. The danger of that accusation is the implicit notion that Wright is weaving complexities into the biblical narrative. The reality, it seems, is quite the opposite. Wright is merely guilty of engaging more of the biblical narrative in his exegesis and theology. We would do better to call Wright and his gospel “hard-working”or “supremely literate.”
The chapter proceeds with Wright discussing Piper’s construction of a theology of God’s righteousness for God’s own glory. Wright acknowledges that such theology portrays God as Divine Narcissist. In reality God is not a self-absorbed being concerned with making sure that His creation lauds Him; He is an outward-focused giver of love whose tsedaqah elohim is His generous faithfulness to undeserving people who have not been anywhere near as faithful to Him.
The role of Israel and Torah in God’s saving plan is the final theme of the chapter. Wright notes the similarities between E.P. Sanders’ covenantal nomism and Calvinism’s emphasis on covenant and “being in Christ.” Wright esteems the Reformed view for agreeing with Sanders’ take far more than Lutheran exegetes and their construction of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness.
While often falling in the Reformed camp on many issues, Piper’s handling of Israel is fairly Lutheran; he and his “ordinary folk” may find it easier to create a caricature of Judaism to fit their purposes rather than to study the variety of beliefs within Second Temple Judaism (it seems that Piper is suspicious as to whether much reliable knowledge can be gained from that wealth of material).
Here Wright chops away at both the old perspective’s antinomianism with which I am so amused and the replacement theology over which I completely fume:
“According to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that he had not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. A Calvinist will find that much easier to grasp than a Lutheran – though it would be interesting to hear an old perspective expositor explain how Jesus’ brisk commands in that great sermon are to be obeyed by his followers without any sense of moral effort, synergism and so on.”
This is where the New Exodus motif within the Pauline corpus becomes so important: it is the blood of the Lamb over our doorposts that spares us and declares us “right” (initial justification), yet we still need to follow God on the path of liberation and deliverance, the Way that brings us from a former identity (Egypt, Eden) to a new humanity (Promised Land, New Jerusalem/complete Kingdom of God). This is covenantal nomism! Following the law (whether it be Torah or that which the Spirit writes on our hearts) is not what makes it possible for us to be part of God’s people, but it is the guideline for how to get from Egypt to the Promised Land, from a humanity that lives to propagate systemic sin and death to a humanity that lives to participate in the systemic faithfulness and life. This is synergy! And compared to it, monergy is shown to be nothing more than an inferior half-gospel that leaves everyone standing under a blood-covered doorpost, but never leaving their house for the Promised Land!
As Wright is making abundantly clear, there is no such thing as a soteriology that is divorced from eschatology – God is not rescuing people from the unfolding history of His creation; He is acting within the grand narrative of His creation to save it. Wright says it well when he talks about God’s single plan to save the world through Israel, and when he acknowledges Jesus as the uncompromised “Yes!” to God’s covenant with Israel. Jesus is every bit as much the Son of David as he is the Son of God, and until we come to terms with that Israel and Torah will be a source of confusion in our theology of escapist eschatology. But if we can come to terms with our favorite first-century Jewish carpenter, then we can see what it means that Gentiles join Jewish followers of God in their mission to bless the world.
That mission requires obedience and synergy, covenantal nomism. Jesus paid it all, and now we walk in his Way.
