Leonard Wee / 2009

Brief Notes on New Perspective on Paul

1. Protestant exegesis has allowed the Lutheran emphasis of justification by faith to impose a
hermeneutical grid on the text of Romans.

Protestant theology is deeply influenced by the view of Martin Luther, the Augustinian
monk, whose reading of Romans and Galatians was rooted in Augustine’s own troubled
conscience in the struggle with sin.1 This led the traditional Reformed theologians to centre
Paul’s theology on the doctrine of justification by faith. However, that cannot be the centre
of Paul’s theology, because there is no direct connection between this and other aspects of
Paul’s teaching, like his eschatology, the church, and Christian ethics, and so on.

Thus, for Paul, the doctrine of justification by faith is but a polemical argument advanced
to address the issue of the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians—there were
questions being raised about the Gentile Christians’ obligation to the Torah. The sin of the
Jews is that they have set up the Law as a mark of national identity, which acts as a barrier
in hindering the Gentiles from coming to God. That misses the original purpose of their
calling as a people of God, which is to be a channel for God’s redemptive plan, beginning
with the call of Abraham.2

2. The emphasis on “justification by faith” in itself is important; but the problem is what this
emphasis was set in opposition to.

3. The understanding of Romans from the Reformation is that the antithesis to “justification by
faith” is what Paul calls “justification by works”, and this is understood as a system
whereby salvation is earned through the merit of good works. It is based partly on the
comparison suggested in Rom 4:4-5, and partly on the Reformation rejection of the system
where indulgences could be bought and merits accumulated.

4. The problem, however, is reading this Reformation antithesis back into the NT period,
especially in Paul’s epistles to the Romans and Galatians, assuming that the Judaism in
Paul’s day is a system of cold legalism, of earning one’s salvation by accumulating merit
through good works, with little or no room for the free grace of God and His forgiveness.

5. E. P. Sanders argued that this is merely a Christian caricature of Judaism in the first century
3
A.D., and is a gross distortion of what Judaism in Paul’s day truly taught. He criticised prior
scholars who uncritically relied on the Jewish Talmud (a later source) to reconstruct pre-
4
A.D. 70 Judaism.

6. On the contrary (according to Sanders), Judaism’s whole premise is based on the free grace
of God. God had freely chosen the Israelites and made a covenant to be their God and

1
Krister Stendahl, "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," The Harvard
Theological Review 56, no. 3 (1963).
2
N. T. Wright, "The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith," Tyndale Bulletin 29, (1978). See also
Idem., The Messiah and the People of God (Oxford: Oxford University, 1980).
3
E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977). Some of those who
questioned the Lutheran reading of Paul before Sanders were: Albert Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul
the Apostle, trans., William Montgomery (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1931); George Foot Moore,
"Christian Writers on Judaism," The Harvard Theological Review 14, no. 3 (1921); Krister Stendahl, "The
Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," ibid. 56, (1963).
4
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 63.

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them, His people.

7. This covenant relationship is regulated by the law. The law is not the way by which one
gets into the covenant (the Jews are already in a covenant relationship with God), but the
means by which they are to live within that covenant. Therefore, the law is not the means
of “getting in” but of “staying in”. It includes provisions for sacrifice and atonement for
those who transgress this law and are repentant, so that their covenant relationship with
God can be restored.

8. The term “covenantal nomism” is coined by Sanders to characterise this system of

maintaining one’s status among the people of God by observance of the law as part of the
covenantal relationship: “Covenantal nomism is the view that one’s place in God’s plan is
established on the basis of the covenant and that the covenant requires as the proper
response of man his obedience to its commandments, while providing means of atonement
for transgression.”5

9. According to Dunn, however, Sanders did not follow through on this insight far enough to
set Paul’s theology against this newly understood background of Second Temple Judaism.
Instead he developed his thesis that Paul’s Damascus Road experience has led him to shift
arbitrarily from one system (covenantal nomism) to another (Christianity), which led to his
theology being incoherent and contradictory.6

10. At the centre of it all this is the question of Paul’s view of the law. This leads to exegetical
discussions in relation to several passages in Romans containing what Paul says about the
law:

! Should nomoß in 3:27 be translated “law” or “principle”?

! How can Paul claim to be establishing the law in 3:31?

! How is 7:14-25 to be understood? Should nomoß in 7:23 and 8:2 be translated “law” or
“principle”?

! With regards to 9:30–10:4, what is the meaning of “law of righteousness” in 9:31 and
“end of the law” in 10:4?

! If Paul has turned his back on Judaism and its law, why does he say that love of one’s
neighbour is a fulfilment of the law in 13:8-10?

11. The problem of holding in an integrated whole both the positive and negative statements
regarding the law in Romans has not reached a satisfactory solution (cf. Räisänen).

12. The central event in the history of Israel as a nation: The exodus from Egypt and the giving
of the law at Sinai. Obedience to this law is Israel’s response to divine grace, not an
attempt to gain God’s favour.

13. It is unnecessary to enter into a debate about how deeply rooted this understanding of law
and covenant was before the Exile; whatever the facts were, covenantal nomism was given

5
Ibid., 75.
6
James D. G. Dunn, "The New Perspective on Paul," Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of
Manchester 65, (1983). See Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism.

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 Leonard Wee / 2009

its definitive shape by Ezra’s reforms in the post-Exilic period. This was massively
reinforced by the Maccabean crisis, where it was precisely Israel’s identity as the covenant
people—the people of the law—that is at stake.

14. In the period following the Maccabean crisis, the connection between election, covenant
and law remains a persistent theme within Jewish self-identity. This can be discerned from
a number of writings during the 2nd Temple Period: the writings of ben Sira, Jubilees,
Damascus Document and Pseudo-Philo.

15. Given this background, Paul’s readers (Jews, Jewish proselytes, God-worshipping Gentiles)
would understand that Paul was concerned that covenant promise and law had become
too inextricably identified with ethnic Israel, with the Jewish people marked out in their
national distinctiveness by the practices of circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath (N. T.
Wright, Messiah, coins the phrase “national righteousness”).

16. Paul was trying to free “promise and law” for a wider range of recipients, from the ethnic
constraints which narrow God’s grace and detract away from God’s main purpose of
salvation through Christ.

17. By setting Paul’s treatment of the law in this matrix, a solution to the exegetical problems in
Romans outlined above is obtained.7

! Rom 2—critique of Jewish covenantal theology. The law as dividing the Jew and non-Jew
(2:12-14); the law as a source of ethnic pride (2:17-23); and circumcision as a focal point
for privileged distinctiveness (2:25-29).

! An important hermeneutical key to crucial passages such as 3:27-31, 7:14-25 and 9:30-
10:4 is the recognition that Paul’s negative statements about the law is directed against
the law that is misunderstood by the Israelites as a boundary marker, the law becoming a
tool of sin by its close identification with the flesh, and the law side-tracked into being a
focus for national zeal.

! Freed from this narrow Jewish perspective, the law still has an important role to play in
one’s “obedience of faith”.

! The parenetic section in 12:1–15:6 is Paul’s attempt to provide a basic guideline for
social living, the law redefined for the eschatological people of God in place of the law
that is misunderstood in distinctively Jewish terms.

18. The failure to understand “the social function” of the law is a fatal weakness of earlier
attempts to understand Paul’s treatment of the law in Romans (e.g. Cranfield, Hahn and
Hübner) as well as Räisänen’s critique of Paul’s theology.

7
See James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1988), §5.3.

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References
Dunn, James D. G. "The New Perspective on Paul." Bulletin of the John Rylands University
Library of Manchester 65, (1983): 95-122.

________. Romans 1-8. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1988.

Hahn, Ferdinand, and Frank Clarke. Mission in the New Testament. Studies in Biblical
Theology. London: SCM, 1965.

Moore, George Foot. "Christian Writers on Judaism." The Harvard Theological Review 14, no.
3 (1921): 197-254.

Räisänen, Heikki. Paul and the Law. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen
Testament. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983.

Sanders, E. P. Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.

Schweitzer, Albert. The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. Translated by William Montgomery.
London: Adam and Charles Black, 1931.

Stendahl, Krister. "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West." The
Harvard Theological Review 56, no. 3 (1963): 199-215.

Watson, Francis B. Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.

Wright, N. T. "The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith." Tyndale Bulletin 29, (1978): 61-
88.

________. The Messiah and the People of God. Oxford: Oxford University, 1980.

________. The New Testament and the People of God. With corrections. ed. Christian Origins
and the Question of God. London: SPCK, 1992.

________. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God.
London: SPCK, 2003.

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 Leonard Wee / 2009, 2013

N. T. Wright’s Interpretation of Paul

These notes are in two parts: (A) a summary of N. T. Wright’s views; and (B) comments on
N. T. Wright’s interpretation of Paul.

(A) N. T. Wright’s Views

1. God’s righteousness is his own faithfulness, to his own covenant.1 It is his covenant
faithfulness, which leads to the salvation of Israel.2 It is not something that is imputed
onto or conveyed to the sinner, like an object, a substance or a gas that can be passed
across the courtroom.3 The righteousness of God in Paul is not a status people have from
God but God’s own righteousness.4

2. Sin and evil are seen in terms of injustice, in which the social and human fabric is
fractured.5 What is needed is for justice to be done, in terms of restoring things as they
should be.

3. The key theme in Romans is about God and his covenant faithfulness and justice, rather
than simply justification.6

4. Romans 1–8 should be understood as follows:7

Chapters 1-4: God's gospel unveils the fact that in the Messiah, Jesus of
Nazareth, the God of Israel has been true to the covenant established with Abraham
and has thereby brought saving order to the whole world. In the face of a world in
rebellion and a chosen people unfaithful to their commission, God has, through the
surrogate faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah, created a worldwide—that is, a Jewish
and Gentile—family for Abraham, marked out by the covenant sign of faith.
Chapters 5-8: God has thereby done what the covenant was set up to do: to
address and solve the problem expressed in biblical terms as the sin of Adam. In
the Messiah, Jesus, God has done for this new people what was done for Israel of
old in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham: Redeemed from the Egypt of
enslavement to sin, they are led through the wilderness of the present life by the
Spirit (not by the Torah), and they look forward to their inheritance, which will
consist of the entire redeemed creation. This is how the creator will finally put the
whole world to rights. All this is the result of God's astonishing, unchanging, self-
giving covenant love expressed completely and finally in the death of Jesus.

5. When Paul speaks of Christ’s “obedience” (Rom 3:21–4:25; 5:12-21), he is not suggesting
that Jesus’ “obedience” was somehow meritorious, so that by it he earned
“righteousness” on behalf of others. That is an ingenious and far-reaching way of making
Paul’s language fit into a theological scheme that is very different from his own. Rather,
Paul is highlighting Jesus’ faithful obedience to the saving plan marked out for Israel, by

1
N. T. Wright, What St Paul Really Said (Oxford: Lion, 1997), 96.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., 98.
4
Idem., "Romans," in New Interpreter's Bible: Acts–First Corinthians, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville, TN:
Abingdon, 2002), 402, 403.
5
Ibid., 399.
6
Ibid., 403.
7
Ibid., 405.

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which God would save the world.8 Through Jesus’ death, “sin and its results have been
dealt with. Wrath has been turned away from God’s people.”9

6. Romans 3:22.

Wright: “…the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah…”10
ESV: “…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ…”
GNT: “…dikaiosu/nh de« qeouv dia» pi÷stewß !Ihsouv Cristouv…”

7. Romans 10:3. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their
own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. The righteousness of God here refers to
God’s own character or actions. It revolves around the question, “Has God been faithful
to his promises?”11

8. Paul does not regard his contemporaries as proto-Pelagians, who are trying to pull
themselves up through works-righteousness. Thus, Paul’s primary concern in Romans is
not soteriological but ecclesiological in nature.12

9. Traditional Protestant doctrine distorts Paul, and causes us to lose sight of the heart of the
Pauline gospel.13

10. Wright on the believer’s justification: 14

The verdict of the last day has been brought forward into the present in Jesus the
Messiah; in raising him from the dead, God declared that in him had been
constituted the true, forgiven worldwide family. Justification, in Paul, is not the
process or event whereby someone becomes, or grows, as a Christian; it is the
declaration that someone is, in the present, a member of the people of God.

Those who believe in the gospel are declared to be “in the right”.15

11. The book of Galatians is not concerned with how precisely someone becomes a
Christian or attains to a relationship with God, but with the question of how you define
the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of the Jewish race, or in some
other way?16 The real question is, how can you tell who is a member of the covenant
family?17

12. The issue of justification in Gal 2:15-16 is not how to become a Christian, but whether
Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians can share table fellowship?18 Present justification
does not address the event of “conversion” or the process of Christian living; it is God’s

8
Ibid., 467.
9
Ibid., 468.
10
Ibid., 467.
11
Ibid., 646.
12
Ibid., 655.
13
Idem., What St Paul Really Said, 113.
14
Idem., "Romans," 468.
15
Ibid.
16
Idem., What St Paul Really Said, 120.
17
Ibid., 122.
18
Idem., "Romans," 468.

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declaration that certain persons are members of the covenant people, that their sins have
been dealt with.19

13. The “works of the law” are the works that marked out the Jews from their pagan
neighbours.20 The problem with the Jews is their claim “to possession of Torah as the
badge of being God’s special people.”21

14. Romans 2:13. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the
doers of the law who will be justified. This verse is not hypothetical; in reality, doers of
the law will be justified. It is not the case where the mere possession of Torah, hearing it
read in the synagogue, will carry validity with God. Rather, what counts is “doing
Torah”. 22

15. Israel’s ethnic privilege, backed up by possession of Torah, will be of no avail at the final
judgment if Israel has not kept Torah. Justification, at the last, will be on basis of
performance, not possession.23

16. Romans 3:25. …whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by
faith. Faith refers to the covenantal faithfulness of Jesus, not the believer’s appropriation
of Christ’s propitiatory death.

17. Romans 5:18-19. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act
of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s
disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will
be made righteous. This verse does not teach that Christ’s active and passive obedience
are imputed to those whom he represents. The obedience here is Christ’s faithfulness to
God’s commission to bring salvation to the world. The many are “justified” in the sense
of being given a new status as the people of God. 24

18. Romans 10:3. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish
their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Israel’s own righteousness is not
the works righteousness that comes from the keeping of the law, or a more general
human effort, as traditionally understood.25 This righteousness from God (not of God) is a
status of covenant membership, a gift bestowed upon faith. 26 [Note: Wright frames
“righteousness” as applied to human beings in terms of status categories, not moral
categories. However, on Rom 1:18-32, he speaks of the unrighteous behaviour of men in
moral categories, not status.27]

19. Faith in present justification is the “badge of covenant membership, not something one
performs as a kind of initiation test.”28

19
Ibid., 481.
20
Ibid., 649.
21
Ibid., 461.
22
Ibid., 448.
23
Ibid., 440.
24
Ibid., 529.
25
Ibid., 654.
26
Idem., What St Paul Really Said, 124-125.
27
Idem., "Romans," 434.
28
Idem., What St Paul Really Said, 125.

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Faith and obedience are not antithetical. They belong exactly together. Indeed, very
often the word “faith” itself could properly be translated as “faithfulness,” which
makes the point just as well. Nor, of course, does this then compromise the gospel
or justification, smuggling in “works” by a back door. That would only be the case
if the realignment I have been arguing for throughout were not grasped. Faith, even
in this active sense, is never and in no way a qualification, provided from the
human side, either for getting into God’s family or for staying there once in. It is
the God-given badge of membership, neither more nor less.29

20. Romans 3:24-26. … and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received
by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had
passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he
might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Within this context, “justification,” as seen in 3:24-26, means that those who
believe in Jesus Christ are declared to be members of the true covenant family;
which of course means that their sins are forgiven, since that was the purpose of the
covenant. They are given the status of being “righteous” in the metaphorical law
court. When this is cased out in terms of the underlying covenantal theme, it means
that they are declared, in the present, to be what they will be seen to be in the
future, namely the true people of God. Present justification declares, on the basis of
faith, what future justification will affirm publicly…on the basis of the entire life.
And in making this declaration (3:26), God himself is in the right, in that he has
been faithful to the covenant; he has dealt with sin, and upheld the helpless; and in
the crucified Christ ha has done so impartially. The gospel—not “justification by
faith,” but the message about Jesus—thus reveals the righteousness, that is, the
covenant faithfulness of God.30

(B) Comments31
1. Wright has self-consciously adopted the project of critical realism (which he sees as
bypassing both Enlightenment phenomenalism and fundamentalist objectivism).
Consequently, he argues that "story" lies back of all theological formulation and
expression.

2. For Wright, the New Testament writers have reconfigured a basic Israelite story around
Jesus: Jesus is the proposed solution to the abiding problem of Israel's exile. For this
reason, one should see the early Christian movement as another species of Judaism (al-
though distinct from other expressions of Judaism).

3. Wright sees "righteousness of God" language as referring to God's own faithfulness to his
covenant promises. As such, this language finds its background in three areas: covenant,
law court, and eschatology.

4. Concerning righteousness, Wright argues consistently that, when applied to Jews of Paul's
day, this refers to a truncated covenant status focused on zeal, flesh, and ethnocentric
exclusivity.

29
Ibid., 160.
30
Ibid., 129.
31
This section is taken from Guy Prentiss Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul
(Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2004), 148-149.

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5. Wright sees present justification as God's declaration that one is already in the people of
God. It is a doctrine touching ecclesiology, not soteriology. Present justification is
declared on the basis of future justification, which will be grounded on the believer's
faithful obedience to the covenant.

6. Wright sees faith in present justification as that which evidences one to be a true member
of the people of God. In this context, it is counter to works of the law, which, with Dunn,
Wright sees preeminently as circumcision, Sabbath, and food laws. With respect to future
justification, Wright will argue that "faith" and "faithfulness" are to be understood
synonymously.

7. Concerning the death of Christ and justification, Wright knowingly and explicitly
repudiates imputation as an un-Pauline concept. Wright is fairly silent on the connection
between these two concepts, other than that there is a connection that the apostle forges
between them.

8. Concerning the death of Christ more generally considered, Wright concedes that we may
speak of Christ's death as atoning and propitiatory. Nevertheless, in terms of expressing
the mechanism whereby Christ's death is applied to the believer, Wright is consistently
vague. Although Wright uses language of the law court to speak of Christ's death (Christ's
death was judicial punishment; in Christ, sin was condemned), Wright also rejects
imputation as a Pauline doctrine. Consequently, one cannot speak in traditional terms of
the pardon of the believer's sin by reason of imputation. Where Christ's death does
connect with the believer's experience, in Wright's view, is as it defeats the powers of sin
and death.

9. For Wright, Paul made a decisive transition from Judaism to Christianity, but this did not
involve either a burdened conscience or discontent with his former life in Judaism.
Romans 7 describes the corporate experience of Israel under the law, not the experience
of Paul or any other individual believer. For believers today, being a Christian entails: (1)
assent to four propositions (the death, resurrection, messiahship, and lordship of Christ);
(2) submission to baptism, which Wright perceives to be far more realistic in Paul than
traditional Protestants have taken it; and (3) participation in the inclusive life of the com-
munity, which participation is conceived largely in terms of social activism and
ecumenism.

References

Waters, Guy Prentiss. Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R
Publishing, 2004.

Wright, N. T. What St Paul Really Said. Oxford: Lion, 1997.

________. "Romans." In New Interpreter's Bible: Acts–First Corinthians, edited by Leander E.

Keck, 10. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2002.

________. Paul and the Faithfulness of God. 4 vols. Christian Origins and the Question of God.
London: SPCK Publishing, 2013.