R E A D Y F O R C H A N G E ?

I have been challenged and stimulated recently by a book by Tom
Wright, ‘Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision,’ published by
SPCK. Wright was until recently Bishop of Durham and is now
Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the
University of St Andrews. His scholarly treatment of the doctrine of
justification has provoked a great deal of theological debate in recent
years, as, along with other scholars such as J. D. G. Dunn and E. P.
Sanders, he has challenged some of the assumptions that underlie the
standard interpretations in Reformed and evangelical traditions of
Paul’s epistles to the Galatians and Romans, where the apostle
proclaims and defends the gospel in view of the unbelief and
opposition of the Jews of his time. This challenge to traditional
interpretations of Paul on the part of Wright and others has become
known as the ‘new perspective’ on Paul.

According to those of the new perspective, based on their research into
Second Temple Judaism, the real issue that Paul had with the
unbelieving Jews was not that they did not understand grace and that
they were trying to earn their salvation by their own good works. Jews
of Paul’s time – that of Second Temple Judaism – recognised the grace
that lay behind the covenant with Abraham, knowing that no individual
Jew could earn a place in Abraham’s posterity, although continuance
in the blessings of the covenant was seen as conditioned on obeying
the law. The real point of contention with Paul’s gospel lay with its
proclamation of the crucial role of Jesus as God’s Messiah in fulfilling
the law and ending the need for a separate specifically Jewish identity
for the true people of God. Paul is now proclaiming that what identifies
God’s family and separates them from those outside, under the new
covenant, is no longer the ‘boundary markers’ of circumcision and ‘the
works of the law’, but faith in the Messiah who unites Jew and Gentile
in one body.

The problem of the old perspective on Paul, it is claimed, is that
Protestant interpreters have read the issues that concerned 16th century
Reformers in their controversy with medieval Catholicism into Paul’s
letters, loading them with meanings and implications that were not
intended. The old Protestant emphasis has been on how the individual
guilty sinner can find release from the burden of personal sin, and this
is the lens through which Paul’s words have been focused. The new
perspective sees the issue in Galatians and Romans as that of the
identity of the true covenant community and how it is to be recognised
now that God’s purpose for both Israel and the world are fulfilled
through the revealed lordship of Christ. Wright believes that Paul
regards justification – the status of being declared righteous by God –
more as a matter of God’s recognition of who is now included in the
covenant community than as something happening to get you in, on
the level of an individual transaction with God.

Whether we need to revise our traditional views of justification by
faith in the light of the new perspective or whether in fact the new
perspective has ‘got it right’ is a matter of ongoing debate. A case can
be made for saying that the old and new perspectives with a bit of
tweaking are not incompatible but can be made to complement each
other. In any case, since these reflections are supposed to be some kind
of response to the theme of ‘vision for change’ you may be wondering
how my attempt to sum up this piece of modern theology is
appropriate or relevant.

First of all, by way of an answer, I suggest that simply at the mundane
level of how we form our views of what the Bible is saying, the ‘new
perspective’ makes for an interesting case study. When we are
compelled to revise our opinions on some topic, you could say that our
‘vision’ itself is changed and that we should prepare for the practical
implications. Unless we are willing to embrace the new vision, our
way of thinking will remain stuck, and our lives too will be in a rut.

But then, supposing you have embraced some ‘new perspective’ which
on closer examination is found to contain some error or overstatement,
are you prepared to humble yourself, admit as much and seek a better
approximation of the truth, perhaps some middle ground?
Secondly, the subtitle of Tom Wright’s book, ‘God’s Plan and Paul’s
Vision’, is richly suggestive. Before Paul could have a vision worth
following, God first had a plan. God was sovereign; this was shown in
the fact that, although Paul was not what we’d consider ready-made
material for the vision that met him on the road to Damascus, and
which came to consume his life, God met him anyway, not on the basis
of his personal wishes, which would never have naturally stumbled on
what God had in mind, but on the basis of his plan for him born in
eternity without his consultation. Paul was a reluctant visionary.
But there is someone else who was crucial to the story of God’s plan -
and Paul’s vision - long before it became a matter of current day
theological reflection. The Apostle Peter, whose faith journey preceded
that of Saul of Tarsus, needed to see the same vision three times before
he could grasp that God was doing a new thing in opening a door of
faith to the Gentiles. At a time when Paul was beginning to take his
place as a leader in the church, Peter proved himself to be a slow
learner and backslider from the vision God had given him, when,
fearing the disapproval of the circumcision party, he withdrew from
fellowship meals with the Gentiles.

The change that God brought through vision to Peter and Paul was so
revolutionary that it went against the grain of both men and faced them
with a real crisis. Perhaps this is true to human nature. Doesn’t it take
the wind of the Spirit to stir us up from our cosy little nests to confront
some greater vision, with all the uncomfortable challenges that come
with it?

Brian Barclay