Reading for the Justification Debates

I've blogged a few times on the debates about the "new perspective on Paul," debates which have some bearing on our understanding of salvation in Christ. Strictly speaking, I'm inclined to think of the doctrine of the Trinity as the doctrine by which the church stands or falls, but Luther was right to devote considerable attention to the doctrine of justification. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some key resources:

Alister McGrath's Iustitia Dei. A standard work on the history of the doctrine.

James Dunn's The New Perspective on Paul. A compilation of essays written by the author as well as a new introductory essay.

N. T. Wright's What St. Paul Really Said. A good introduction to the author's reframing of Pauline soteriology.

Wright's Paul: In Fresh Perspective. Further work building on the previous volume.

Wright's Justification: God's Plan, Paul's Vision. A current analysis of the debates and an updating of Wright's exposition of Paul's doctrine of justification.

Stephen Westerholm's Perspectives Old and New on Paul. A thorough account of historic and recent perspectives on Paul along with the author's own response to the new perspectivists.

Simon Gathercole's Where Is Boasting? An analysis of Second Temple Judaism's understanding of justification, divine judgment, good works, and so on, combined with an exposition of Romans 1-5 centered around the theme of "boasting" as it relates to justification and the new perspective.

Michael Bird's The Saving Righteousness of God. An balanced evaluation of the debates. Packed with insightful commentary.

Mark Husbands and Daniel Treier (eds.) Justification: What's at Stake in the Current Debates. Various essays on the imputation of Christ's righteousness, historical perspectives, and so on.

Bruce McCormack (ed.) Justification in Perpsective. Various essays on historical perspectives, dogmatic challenges, and the new perspective.

D. A. Carson, Peter O'Brien, Mark Seifrid (eds.) Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2 vols. For the more ambitious, a large and crucial collection of essays unpacking the soteriologies of Second Temple Judaism and the apostle Paul. Designed to respond to the new perspective's rendition of Paul's doctrine of justification.

If I may lay my cards on the table, Westerholm, Gathercole, and Bird have been most persuasive for me when it comes to critically assessing the new perspective, acknowledging its insights, and addressing its problematic features.

Justification and the New Perspective on Paul: Six Theses

This semester I've been working on a paper dealing with justification and the new perspective on Paul under the supervision of Dr. Craig Blomberg. It's been a taxing but rewarding endeavor and, though I'm nearly finished with the paper, I sense that I've only scratched the surface. In order to guide my exploration of the topic, I developed six theses for the traditional perspective and then six theses for the new perspective that I believe sum up the emphases of both camps. (That I arrived at six theses instead of that holy number seven probably calls attention to the incompleteness of the paper.)



The Traditional Perspective

1) The Pauline teaching on justification by faith was designed to combat Jewish (or, more precisely, Jewish Christian) legalism threatening the health of early Christian churches.

2) By “works of the law,” Paul means deeds done in response to the composite of God’s moral requirements, which are embedded in the OT law and known in at least a rudimentary way by Gentiles.

3) It follows from human depravity that human beings cannot perform the works of the law and so cannot be justified by them.

4) We are justified by the grace of God in Christ, which must be received simply through faith.

5) To be justified is to be declared righteous in the sight of God, who acts as judge in the divine courtroom.

6) This act of justification is what enables one to join in the people of God.



The New Perspective

1) Paul’s teaching on justification by faith is not designed to combat Jewish legalism penetrating Christian communities. In short, the problem is not works-righteousness but lingering covenantal nomism and nationalism.

2) By “works of the law” Paul means conformity to certain commandments especially conducive to marking off the Jewish people as God’s elect.

3) While recognizing the impossibility of human beings earning salvation, the new perspectivists stress that the problem of the “works of the law” lies not in their championing human achievement. Rather, the problem lies in imposing these Jewish boundary markers on Gentile Christians, a problem borne of the Judaizers’ failure to keep in step with the flow of redemptive history.

4) As more traditional interpreters argue, human beings are justified by the grace of God in Christ, which must be received simply through faith.

5) To be justified is to be declared righteous, but this is primarily a matter of being declared a member of the covenant.

6) The event of justification is not what enables one to join the people of God; it is a declaration of which persons truly are part of the covenant people.

Any reactions to the developments represented here?