The New Perspective: Justification, Part 2 (the Atonement)

As previously noted, Wright’s understanding of justification is perhaps his most controversial teaching, as it runs ever so contrary to Reformation doctrine.

Remarkably, Wright, an Anglican bishop, challenges 500 years of Protestant teaching (but then, Luther and Calvin challenged over 1,000 years of Catholic teaching).

Wright says,

Lawcourt imagery is appropriate because God is the God of justice, who is bound to put the world to rights, has promised to do so, and intends to keep his promises. But the means by which he will do so, from Genesis 12 onwards, is through the covenant he has made with Abraham; so that God’s covenant faithfulness on the one hand, and God’s justice on the other, are not two quite different things, but closely interlinked.

Now, God can only declare Christians “not guilty” and still be just unless either they are, in fact, not guilty or else Jesus has accepted their punishment. But Wright insists that we go much deeper into the story.

You see, Wright sees God’s justice as God’s insistence on putting the world right–hardly a law court image.

When we talk of God’s vindication of someone we are talking about God’s declaration, which appears as a double thing to us but I suspect a single thing to Paul: the declaration (a) that someone is in the right (their sins having been forgiven through the death of Jesus) and (b) that this person is a member of the true covenant family, the family God originally promised to Abraham and has now created through Christ and the Spirit, the single family which consists equally of believing Jews and believing Gentiles.

I have no problem at all with the covenant concept. I think it’s just as scriptural as can be. Christianity really is the way God chose to honor his promise to Abraham. Nor is there any difficulty with seeing our sins forgiven through Jesus’ death. That’s hardly a new argument!

But Wright wants to dispute the doctrine of imputed righteousness and replace it with a more scriptural, better understanding–

First, Paul’s doctrine of what is true of those who are in the Messiah does the job, within his scheme of thought, that the traditional protestant emphasis on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness did within that scheme. In other words, that which imputed righteousness was trying to insist upon is, I think, fully taken care of in (for instance) Romans 6, where Paul declares that what is true of the Messiah is true of all his people. Jesus was vindicated by God as Messiah after his penal death; I am in the Messiah; therefore I too have died and been raised. According to Romans 6, when God looks at the baptised Christian he sees him or her in Christ. But Paul does not say that he sees us clothed with the earned merits of Christ. That would of course be the wrong meaning of ‘righteous’ or ‘righteousness’. He sees us within the vindication of Christ, that is, as having died with Christ and risen again with him.

Ironically, in very Church of Christ fashion, Wright sees this all coming together in baptism–

And we now discover that this declaration, this vindication, occurs twice. … And, just as the final declaration will consist, not of words so much as of an event, namely, the resurrection of the person concerned into a glorious body like that of the risen Jesus, so the present declaration consists, not so much of words, though words there may be, but of an event, the event in which one dies with the Messiah and rises to new life with him, anticipating that final resurrection. In other words, baptism.

God’s justification–his vindication of the Christian–his declaring the Christian saved and a part of the covenant community–occurs at baptism!

Let’s recall what Paul says in Romans 6–

(Rom. 6:3-8) Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin– 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

Now, those of us in the Churches of Christ have always seen this as a proof text for baptism. Wright actually agrees (more on that in a future post). But his argument is that Christians are mystically crucified, buried, and resurrected with Christ. Therefore, just as Christ will never die, neither will we. That is unquestionably what Paul wrote in Romans 6.

Hence, we aren’t so much saved by the perfection of Jesus’ life but by our participation in his passion. Of course, the perfection of Jesus’ life is what made the passion possible, so the connection remains, but in a different form.

But Wright also agrees with the substitutionary atonement, that is, that Jesus took our punishment for us. Both concepts are Biblical and true.

I might combine them by saying that as Jesus died for our sins, and we died with him, then–in a sense–we suffered our punishment in baptism. Jesus allows baptism to replace physical death so that we come out of the water immortal, just as did Jesus. (However, I can’t think of a passage that actually puts this spin on baptism, so I’m just speculating.)

In Wright’s explanation, because of our faith, God treats us as though we died and were resurrected with Jesus and so get to enjoy Jesus’ immortality.

Now, this is actually what Romans 6 says. It’s also what Paul says in Galatians–

(Gal. 3:25-29) Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. 26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Notice the flow of events: faith: baptism: clothed with Christ: a united community: part of the covenant community promised to Abraham. All the themes are there.

Now, with Wright’s understanding of the atonement in mind, we can consider justification in the next post.