A Reformed View of the New Perspective (of Paul)

(A) Reformed View of the New Perspective

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/04/18/reformed-view-of-the-new-perspective/

by Scot McKnight

April 18, 2012

Comments

The clash was inevitable, but the clash has too often taken place under terms and categories that unfairly describe the other side. The traditionally Reformed have a stake in framing Paul’s gospel as justification by faith, and behind that they traditionally understand the problem to be humans who strive to establish themselves before God. A good proponent of this view, always framed in pastorally sensitive ways, is Tim Keller. But the New Perspective says "No" to this way of framing Paul’s gospel.

Why do you think the Reformed view of justification clashes so much with the new perspective on Paul, especially its view(s) of justification? What’s the essence of the clash?

First, that view assumes a view of Judaism that has clearly been undermined: Judaism was not full of self-righteous people seeking to establish themselves on the basis of the Law before God. Instead, one good way of describing Judaism is what E.P. Sanders called “covenantal nomism.” Covenant - and that means grace and election - have the first word and the Law (the nomism bit) is not how to become a Jew but how to maintain ones Jewishness, or sustain one’s relationship to the God of Israel. In effect, this knocks the former problem out from under one traditional view and sends people back to the NT and Judaism to see “what the problem was.”

In steps Alan J. Spence, in his book Justification: A Guide for the Perplexed, to say the New Perspective (1) gets it all wrong and (2) is designed to create a gospel shaped apart from what I’m calling Spence’s “justification worldview,” a worldview in which God is judge, humans are sinners, and Christ establishes as relationally right with God.

Spence got off for me on the wrong foot in five ways:

First, he misspelled E.P. Sanders’ name wrong every time, spelling it “Saunders.” He also called him “E.T.” Saunders, and this makes me wonder if he has even read Sanders. One should avoid speculating on such things, so I won’t. (Maybe I already have.)

Second, he kept seeing Sanders in terms of comparative religion and, well, yes, Sanders does talk about comparing the pattern of religion, but to say he’s into comparative religion pulls Sanders from the historian to the modern religions expert. Just not so.

Third, he failed to sketch that the fundamental insight of Sanders and of the whole New Perspective is a fresh re-examination of Judaism and that means, inevitably, what Paul was saying in the context of a sharper profile of Judaism. I see absolutely no interest in Spence in this historical question.

Fourth, Spence shows no awareness of the nuances of variation among New Perspective scholars — from Sanders to Wright to Dunn to Hays and others. For Spence, this is all about Tom Wright’s denial of his justification worldview, and this chp is dramatically different in tone from his chps on Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin and is more like — but stronger — than the chps on Schleiermacher and Barth. He blames the latter two for deconstructing a justification worldview, and thinks Wright is floating on that deconstruction.

Fifth, he says he will root his sketch of Tom’s view of justification in his What Saint Paul Really Said, in spite of the 2009 book called Justification, which ought to have been the place to base one’s observations, but I’ll forgive him for not living up to what he said: it’s just as much based on the 2009 book as the earlier one, though I don’t think he sees the nuances of the latter vs. the former.

Spence sketches Wright’s narrative, which is the narrative of Israel’s Story coming to fulfillment in Jesus, the true Israelite; he argues Wright’s view of justification is not about salvation but about ecclesiology (this is an overstatement); he doesn’t think there’s enough about forensics, in spite of Tom’s clear statements to the contrary though Wright doesn’t have Spence’s justification worldview; and he thinks Wright doesn’t have enough on faith as instrumental in salvation. Well, here’s a good summary of Spence’s criticisms:

I suggest the controlling motif of Wright’s soteriology is ‘the reinstatement of good governance through the kingship of Jesus’ or, in the evocative jargon of the comparative study of religions, ‘messianic nomism’. [Who uses this expression?] If one removed from his exposition of justification the few passing references to relational concepts such as grace, mercy, pardon and reconciliation [did he read Justification?], the structure would stand intact. None of these concepts serve as load-bearing terms. They are, however, integral features of Paul’s soteriology.

One could at this point stop for a long day discussing how Wright expounds grace and these other terms, and to ask if the proper approach is “The Western Tradition’s” view vs. recent NT scholarship’s view, and how one determines such things — surely by exegesis and history not by appealing to Augustine and Luther and Calvin – but I find this summary critique both hitting on the sensitive areas but grossly misrepresenting Wright’s stuff. But I’m sketching Spence, who says Tom’s use of those terms was only done in deference to others, the way Spence himself crossed himself in a Catholic school as a boy though he was Reformed.

In essence, Spence thinks the best Story of the Old Testament must be only the personal salvation story because the governance Story of Wright, by which he means Jesus as King as the true Israelite through whom God will put the world to rights …. and, well, we’ve got an exaggeration: Tom Wright believes in personal salvation; he thinks the NT teaches that; but personally is caught up in the larger Story. What Spence has is a theory of justification that no one in the Old Testament taught (unless one thinks Gen 15:6 is Abraham’s personal salvation), for which there would have been no back story in the New Testament and which is then assumed to be the true gospel of the apostle Paul.

The New Perspective’s view of justification deserves some good strong pushback; there have been some early overstatements and many take backs, including some by Dunn and Wright. I wonder if Spence might spend some time reading Jimmy Dunn’s big pumpkin book, his book on Paul’s theology, and read the chp on justification, and then ask if he has really sketched the New Perspective’s view of justification. He hasn’t.

This Guide for the Perplexed will make some folks happy; it leaves me perplexed.

The Origin of Sin, Hell, and Universalism

It seems that in order to talk about Hell and Universalism one must also talk about God and Sin. So let me back into the latter discussion by first addressing Universalism in terms of covenantal concepts. Then speak to God and sin. And lastly death and hell.

Sin and Universalism

According to Andrew Perriman (a view that I would agree with), the church is a corporate salvific community of believers within an ever-expanding and re-populating Abrahamic covenant resident through the testamental eras in an rapidly unfolding eschatological sense. And it is to this covenant's jurisdictions that superintends over all other soteriological considerations of "universalism" commonly argued within various branches of the Reformed Church. His is the biblical theological view that focuses on God's covenanted people, or incorporated communities, while the Reformed soteriological statement may focus on the systematic view of salvation delimited only to covenanted individuals. Curiously both theological positions originate from within Reformed theology itself out of which Calvinism's more systematic theologies were birthed bearing a multitude of logistical statements and theological deductions that seemingly require advance degrees in philosophy and linguistics to even begin to follow through its many centuries of synthetic arguments. Specifically as it expounds and exposits on that area of doctrine described as "soteriology" and better known in the vernacular as "the doctrine of salvation."

But the covenant view focuses on (i) the gracious charter of God "cut" or established between man and Himself through enactment of sacrifice. In the ancient Near East this is known as the Suzerainty-Vassal covenant treaty binding each agreeable party to variously named obligations, blessings and curses. Its structure is readily recognizable throughout the entirety of the book of Deuteronomy in all its chapters. While the soteriological systematic view focuses only on the implications of not heeding that charter as implemented between God and man. (ii) The first view sees a covenant meant for all peoples living in a land of universal blessings, whereas the other sees it as meant for "the elect, the predestined" who may only participate in God's delimited blessings. (iii) The first view avoids reflecting on the metaphysical implications of death and the grave, while the second view creates stricter boundaries upon death by giving considerate focus upon hell itself. So that, regardless of Perriman's purpose of debating implied universalism or not, he has intentionally raised a range of problems presented by the "systematic view of personal soteriology" (known as Calvinism) as versus the more natural or reasonable reading of a "corporate biblical theology of a covenanted people of God" found in Scriptures known as Remnant Theology (as versus replacement or separation theology):

• Replacement Theology - the Church and Israel refer to the same group of people.
• Separation Theology - the Church and Israel refer to different groups of people.
• Remnant Theology - The Church and Israel overlap in some manner of continuity and discontinuity.

Overall one may say with reasonable assurance that God has come to restore all things unto Himself. And that the covenanted church's mission is to proclaim this restoration through the cross of Jesus. That the journey for mankind is the discovery, or realization, of God's universal and inescapable love and the "blessings" that come to a covenanted people reconciled to God as their gracious Suzerainty. But to those who reject the love and sacrifice of God as free-willed beings there will also be required the "curses" that come to a previously covenanted people of God willing to break treaty, and in this case, specifically not bow to the Lordship of Jesus Christ who enacted redemption upon a Cross of Sacrifice. In strict terms, those "curses" may be considered self-made or self-inflicted because the Christian idea of sin is that which is not of God. To not be in God is to be in sin. And because it is a personal choice than it can be considered a self-made hell which is a grievous enough choice that God will continually, and unabandonly, assists us to not make regardless of the personal hell and depravity we carry with/within us through this life. But "curses" does not mean that God will automatically inflict harm and destruction upon those who break from His universal covenant... it simply means that we have chosen sin's harm and destruction upon ourselves by breaking covenant with God. In this way God is not found to be capricious or mean God; nor a totalitarian or despotic ruler; nor even a cosmic monster which can arise with the Calvinistic doctrine of soteriology through its doctrines of personal "election" and "predestination" and its implied "double predestination" to those damned for all eternity under the TULIP system.

Hence, the Abrahamic Covenant is historically re-enacted by Jesus on the cross of Calvary whereon He presented Himself to be literally "cut," or sacrificed, as the Lamb of God so as to establish a finalised ratification of the Covenant of Redemption between the God of the Heavens and the peoples of the earth. Marking this universal covenant as eternally bounded by God's very own sacrifice Himself and consequently reinforced and empowered by His self-made (and willful) covenant with mankind. Thus, it was (and is) a universal covenant with universal obligations, blessings and curses (as so described in the above paragraph). And it is in this manner that the Suzerainty-King is vindicated and is shown to be just and righteous when He returns to enforce His ransomed, conciliatory, covenanted people. All the more so because it was the Suzerainty Himself who was sacrificed in order to enact this binding covenant with man such that no surer sacrifice could be made except upon the personage of the Godhead ratified and invoked (sic, compare the book of Hebrews with the book of Deuteronomy specifically in this regard).

However, what does this all mean? And how did the church begin to diminish the love of God as it raised the bar on the justice and wrath of God? Is God a God of Love or is He a God of Justice? And do these non-sequitur's of truth bear a similarity of image and intent but miss the mark completely upon the very purposes of the Godhead meant and designed for a fallen Creation?

Was the Act of Creation Sinful?

In this way I find the argument of universalism misguided as a systematic theological argument by missing the intent of God's act of reconciliation. True, God's love is universal. But also true is the rejection of that love offered time-and-again by the Spirit of God to a rejecting mankind. Scripture attests again-and-again that God's relationship to creation is one of reconciliation, restoration, and the glorious re-ordering of Creation's sinful bent away from Himself back unto Himself. In a sense, we have all that is "pure" on the one side of things, and all that is "impure" on the other side of things. Or, we have all that is "God" on one side and all that is "not God" on the other side. But when God recreated His image into something separate from Himself, in the transference man was given free will as part of God's very own image of volition, which thing was also expressed into Creation's very own essence. Thus, God's image was stamped upon Creation's image, (i) part of that being volition or free will. And (ii) part of that being the essence of God however we describe it. So then not only man, but Creation itself, is marked by God's very essence, or Image, and within that essence or Image came free will (I see this explicitly in the creative order when considering quantum physics principles of indeterminacy and uncertainty). And yet, we might ask, how then did sin arise? And how can anything be separate from the very being of God? Even "Creation" itself, like man, proceeded from God and is of God... So how did "sin" result if all had come from a perfect and sinless, holy God?

Perhaps it was the mere fact that Creation was made "separate" from God in some ontological sense - that it took God's perfected, volitional, essential will of harmony as it was reflected and imbued in His Godhead - and it became corrupted in a disharmonious separation from that same Godhead. Maybe, though this is conjecture and not known. But we cannot say that it was without God's foreknowledge of this disharmonious event that it resulted. Why? Because God was not ignorant of the affects of His creative activity upon Creation. This would declare that God was not omniscient. Nor can we say that God was powerless to contain or prevent these same affects or results. This would declare God as not being omnipotent. Nor can we say that God is somehow separated from, and unaffected by, His creative act. This would declare God as not being omnipresent within all parts of His creation. What we can say is that when God created Creation He knew that it would become sinful, and that it would affect His Godhead as much as it would affect itself (omniscience). That He would still continue in the act of creation purposefully (omnipotence). And that its separation from Himself would break fellowship with His holy presence and refuse reconciliation with its all-present Creator-God (omnipresence). Thus we may say that the act of creation is a mystery. That its continuance is a mystery. That its sustenance is a mystery. And that its operation is a mystery. But a mystery that is miraculous and marvelous nonetheless!

Furthermore, the "why's" of God's divine acts must be left only to the divine counsels of God other than to understand that this God created out of pure joy and wished to share Himself with those things other than Himself. Does not the artist do the same thing? Does he not wish to share his heart, his temperament, his being with those around him? Is it not the same difference that we see from the image of the Creator within the artist? That He would share Himself - His heart, His temperament, His being - with all around Himself, or surrounding Himself, or within Himself, beyond that of His very own divine Fellowship? A Fellowship that needed to express itself beyond itself to something that had never existed before; from itself to something other than itself; through itself to the very empowerment of a created world of universe and nature, creature and mankind, each-and-all bearing the imprimaturs of the Divine's wisdom, glory, magnificence, eternity, infinity, and holiness? How like the artist is the very God of the world who colours this world with sublimities beyond the mortal pale? Who makes visible the invisible? And the invisible visible? Who brings sight and sound to the living? Breath and burden to all creatures? Who raises sun and moon with one hand, and lifts clouds and winds with the other? Who speaks peace one moment when at the next moment He trods through the valley of death and destruction? Who bows all things living to His will? Who deigns to walk stride-for-stride with any who are lost and alone, destitute and deprived, without hope or mercy, seeking deliverance and salvation? Yes, this is the God of creation. It is He that is Almighty God. Who will rule and reign. Who seeks His will. His shalom of peace and divine order in all that is, or is not, obedient to His will or peace. Who brings order from chaos. Who uses chaos to bring order. Who is Infinite Wisdom, Power, Ability and Purpose. He it is that is the Creator God of the Universe and none other. Neither image or idol. Neither fallible thought or foolish opinion. Neither pretensions of doubting hearts or ignorant spirits. It is the Creator God that gives all life and breath. Who wishes to share Himself with all that is separate - even as it exists as an integral part of Himself - in the divine mystery of what it means to be creation.

So then, we may only say that Creation is separate from God but inexplicably related to God; that it was birthed from the divine essence of God but in that birthing became corrupted by sin somehow; that sin did not exist until the angels were birthed; and later, even as creation itself was made with man as its central player of disobedience; that God's omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence is neither diminished nor limited in its fullness through His act of Creation; that one of the main characteristics of Creation is volitional, or libertarian, free will; that the Image of God is found in Creation and speaks as much to Creation's holiness as to its fallenness; and further, that the very act of God in creating further portends to Creation's holiness. Consequently, the physical characteristics and fleshly composition of creation is not what makes Creation sinful (contra the doctrine of pelagianism, for one).... It is sin itself resident within Creation that has made Creation sinful. For to be freed from the body is not to be freed from sin - else death and the grave would have no hold! It requires the freedom of redemption to free man and creation from sin. That only and nothing less than this (contra doctrines of self-denial, mortal austerity, fleshly abuse and discipline). It is the soul, and not simply the body, that has become corruptible and requires incorruptibility. The flesh but speaks to this fact. To be fleshly, or of this world, is not what makes sin present. Sin was already present and the fleshly "home" we bear but only attests to sin's presence. Sin has corrupted both our soul and fleshly pale. But looked at another way, all creation, including mankind, bears God's essence. His image. His being. We are holy vessels that have become corrupted through this thing we call sin. And yet, it is God's selfsame essence, will and purpose, that will complete His image of holiness in all things living, all things fleshly, yeah, even mankind. Who will raise (or resurrect, or re-birth) our mortal bodies unto a new heavens and new earth. Renewed by the very redemption of God Himself. Even our Lord and Savior Jesus will join Himself freely with His creation giving to it His glory, sublimity, majesty, honour, and love.

Was the Intent of Creation Sinful?

No. The intent of Creation was not sinful because its Creator-God is not sinful. But somehow "sin" did result and corrupted the volitionalism imbued within Creation (man included, for "nature/creation" has its own type of volitionalism or liberatarianism). Sin corrupted God's Image that had been transferred into His Creation - into that very substance that had been created from Himself as part of His essence, His being, His will. And yet to describe Creation as a "separate part" external to God is inexact. This position would then fall into the various forms of pelagianism which views all matter and flesh as sinful. For Creation is as much a part of God as God Himself is a part of Himself. In a sense, Creation is God and we are but witnessing the turmoil that is occurring within God as a part of God's turbulent creation at an ontological level that we are feeling, and seeing, on an existential level (one could say that the religion of Hinduism highlights these facts, although not strictly Christian it bears a form of Christian observation regarding creation's turmoil... but this is another matter for another time). A turmoil that cannot be left to stand as separate from God but must find reconciliation, restoration and renewal. For it is within God's nature to be whole. To be unified. To find harmony, peace, and "shalom" (the Jewish term meaning "order").

However, we also wish to avoid falling into a panentheism that says that God is as dependent upon Creation as Creation is upon God. This would be the view of Process Theism (or, Process Theology) which position then goes on to add "that each affects the other in a formative way" - which is true, but not true as dependent realities (more said on this in a moment). Nor do we aver a form of pantheism when speaking of Creation as God, and God as Creation, each both-and-the-same. This would be the view of Hinduism and similar religions like Hinduism. Whereas we do affirm that God is both separate-but-conjoined with Creation. Just as Creation is separate-but-conjoined with its Creator. That each bears the essence of the other. This is the view of Christian theism. Moreover, God volitionally declared Himself "bound" to Creation, as much by fiat as by fact (making process theology only partially correct); so that, He Himself must resolve this tension through reconciliation rather than through simple dismissal through destruction or death. This would be the views of both Classic Theism as well as Relational Theism. Furthermore, each affects the other in a formative, but not a dependent fashion. Which is also the view of Relational Theism but not that of its sister position of "Relational-Process Theism" (here commonly referred to as "process theism" within this website).

Lastly, and in some sense, I think God must resolve this tension from an ontological perspective as well. That since Creation is as much a part of His essence as He is of His own essence, then a reconciliation must be made. Or, proposed differently, we are of God's essence (both by His Image as well as by His Creative act), and because we constitute a part of God's Creation, we must be reconciled back to our Creator because His essence cannot be left unconstituted. It demands an ontological re-ordering. A divine reconciliation. Consequently salvation is both a determination made by the Godhead as much as it is an ontological necessity. Because of these facts sin, death and hell will likewise have mandatory consequences both because of divine determination as much as by ontological necessity.

Is the Nature of Creation Sinful?

I might answer this by saying that Creation itself was pure and holy. But when sin entered - however it entered for we do not know and can but only speculate as explained above - it did corrupt Creation both in its Image of God as well as in its nature to be in harmony with God: in the estates of fellowship, devotion, love and good will. Creation literally fell out of fellowship from the Godhead as it were, and has been tumbling on its own ever since, thus necessitating Reclamation. Restitution. Restoration.

In response, God has set about to do this very thing - to reclaim, to restitute, to restore - in a complex array of salvific events that will renew the original charters of Creation back unto Himself. Importantly, man figures advisedly into God's plan of renewal. Somehow, in the depths of God's being man has been determined as an instrumental factor, and even a major element, in the restoration of Creation. "From Adam came sin" it is said by the Apostle Paul, and "from the Second Adam (Jesus) comes sin's defeat and death." This would also speak to, and include, all followers of Jesus, called the Church, which has the divine commission to "defeat" sin and death through the power of the Cross, by water and by blood, through the Spirit of God. For through Jesus - and through that divine fellowship known as His body the Church - comes the very renewal of life and restoration of Creation in the wisdom and mercy of God.

Thus, while God tarries, the Church is to be about its mission of spiritual salvation and reconciliation; corporate and civil justice and equality; economic benevolence and fairness; and ecological restoration and provisioning, among other things here considered. We are not to simply wait for Christ's Parousia but are to put to use all the talents and abilities, insights and passions, energies and imaginations, of the Church of God into our blighted, misused, mispurposed, benighted world. In this way has the Kingdom of God come unto men. A Kingdom that will be ultimately rejected. An upside-down Kingdom that is not understood. That leads by example through selfless servitude, sacrifice, and sharing. But a Kingdom proclaiming God's heart-and-will within the fallen realm of God's creation destined for final reclamation, restitution, and restoration.

Conversely, if Creation were left to itself it would lead to a completion of death, ultimate disorder, and be invariably marked by hatred and animosity. This state of affairs could then no longer be a part of God's essence. Nor His divine Godhead. Nor of God's holiness. For injustice would be the reigning ethic in this anarchical "kingdom" of total despair, total isolation, consummate self-absorption, consummate brokenness, and consummate societal destruction known as death. A death that would either be "temporary" and compelled towards a final annihilation. Or a death that is eternally locked within itself upon its own self-propagating prison walls and dungeons of chaining darkness, torment, and "hells." But a death no less. And one that its Creator-God must rectify. Must correct. Must resolve. Even prevent. Not only because He wills it so, but because He can do no other but reconcile His Creation back unto Himself. His Godhead. His essence (sic, the concepts of relational theism and ontological order have now been placed together as interlocking positional themes).

Annihilation as a Theologoumenna

As a brief aside, my own view of death is one of annihilation as the only logical consequence rather than an existing "eternal state of death" we call hell, or the Lake of Fire, posited by theologians as an eternal residing part of God's creation forever and ever and ever. But in either case, whether Death is annihilatory, or whether it is eternal in its estates, God's essence is rectified and order is established however He chooses its ending determinations. Yet it seems to me that a more perfect order of wholeness subtends itself towards the view of annihilation, a view we call a theologoumenna, which is not strictly a biblical doctrine but more of a theological supposition that seems biblical.

And I think the Love of God would demand this too. That He be not consider our eternal tormentor and executioner, but our everlasting Restorer - either to life eternal, or to a final, completed death that is extinguishable. Perhaps we might say that death in-and-of itself is ultimately distinguishable. That in its very nature or essence is ultimately found its perishability. And it is in this wise that sin and death cease an eternality of existence. So that even in the very concept of death itself can be found the overarching shalom, or restorative order, of God. Something that can not continue because it simply can not continue paradoxically. That in itself it finds a finality and an end. That said, the force and nature of God is to reconcile, to restore, to overwhelm a creation bent on refusing God's divine personage and glorious being. Creation's sinfulness cannot continue. It cannot succeed. It can only succeed in holding to its own rebellion with its consequential results of death and final destruction however that works out.

Summary

And so we are told that even in Creation's rebellion it will be defeated through a final death... and a final reordering of creation. In the end, the Suzerainty-King shall rule, and He will rule completely. Neither sin, death, hell or devil shall defeat His universal grace, mercy, hope and supreme majesty. As there has come a "Day of Reconciliation through Christ," so there will come a "Day of Wrath" (described as the "Day of the Lord" in the OT) visited upon those who refuse God's covenant of love, truth and justice enacted upon Christ's life and ministry, even as it was enacted upon His death, His resurrected ascension, and His returning Parousia to rule and to judge. Till that time we proclaim God's purposes. His heart. His intent. And His abiding desire. That His Just Love demands no less. That His Loving Justice cannot be refuted. That His purposes cannot be defeated. That His essence must reign supreme.

R.E. Slater

February 28, 2012

*For a related article see "Does God Always Do the Wisest Thing?" -
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/does-god-always-do-wisest-thing.html

A new perspective on universalism and hell

http://www.postost.net/2011/03/new-perspective-universalism-hell

Andrew Perriman

Wednesday 16 March 2011

One of the things that has surprised me in the Bell’s hell controversy is the assumption behind much of the criticism that the denial of hell as a place of eternal conscious torment amounts to an endorsement of universalism—or at least as a “preliminary step” in that direction as it was put to me by Steve Hays on the Triabloggers site. Practically speaking, Steve has a point—consider, for example, this personal testimony from The Beautiful Heresy:

In my mid-40s I discovered Universalism about mid-2004 and immediately began reading all I could about it. I was raised as a Pentecostal Fundamentalist and could never quite grasp why G-d was so angry with me and the rest of the world that He wanted to condemn us to Eternal Torment. G-d seemed weak, angry and schizophrenic to me. This journey is about my discovery of G-d’s universal and inescapable love.

But universalism is not at all an inevitable corollary of the argument, on the one hand, that the supposed “hell” texts in the New Testament mostly have reference to historical events, and on the other, that the final destiny of those whose names are not written in the book of life is simply destruction, death (Rev. 20:15). In fact, it seems to me that the historicizing hermeneutic that locates the wrath of God in history—judgment on rebellious Israel, judgment on an aggressive, idolatrous and over-bearing paganism—also weighs heavily against the universalist position.

I can only offer a very limited response to the universalist argument here, prompted by a question about my statement that universalism “like much traditional evangelical thought, it is premised on the priority given to soteriology”. I will not look at the various texts usually put forward as evidence for universalism. I will simply outline some general lines of thought.

It may help, in the first place, to establish a distinction between two ways of defining Christianity.

1. The traditional understanding has been that Christianity is essentially a general religion of salvation, which makes the primary task of the church the salvation of the lost, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that as many people as possible escape the punishment (or perhaps annihilation) of “hell” and gain eternal life with God in heaven. In this construction personal salvation precedes the corporate existence of the church—and very often we find that neither ecclesiology nor missiology develops beyond a simple multiplication of this primary function.

2. The alternative approach regards “Christianity” (the quotation marks indicate reservations about the validity of the term) as an intrinsic continuation of the calling of Abraham, against a background of persistent and escalating human rebellion, to be the progenitor of a people marked out by a more or less exclusive covenant commitment. My argument in Re: Mission is that the people of God was from the outset determined as “new creation”: Abraham is promised the original blessing of creation, he is told that he will be made fruitful, that he will multiply, and that his descendants will fill the microcosm of the land of Canaan. The Christ-event lay at the heart of a massive convulsion in the historical existence of this “new creation” people, but the basic “missional” purpose remained intact: to bear concrete, embodied and prophetic witness amidst the nations and cultures of the world to the redemptive presence of the Creator and to the final hope of renewal. In this construction things are the other way round: the corporate and political existence of the church precedes the “salvation” and incorporation of individuals.

Under the first option there can be a reasonable debate about whether all humanity or only part of humanity will be saved. That is what I meant by the statement that universalism is “premised on the priority given to soteriology”.

Under the second option this debate makes less sense. The people of God is by definition a limited set [(a "remnant" people - skinhead)]. It is a people called out of the world—chosen, elected, set apart, transformed, sanctified—let us say, for the sake of the Mission Dei. When that people gets into trouble, it needs to be saved—from Egypt, from Babylon, from Antiochus Epiphanes, and critically from the condemnation of the Law that finally brought the wrath of God upon it in the form of the war against Rome. The manner of that final salvation opened up the door to Gentiles (Eph. 2:11-22), but it did not thereby transform the renewal movement into a general religion of salvation.

Most of the “salvation” or restoration texts in the New Testament, I would suggest, have to do with this deliverance of the historical community of Israel from destruction or obsolescence. Within the covenantal and narrative-historical framework the question naturally arises whether all or only part of Israel will be saved. So Jesus is asked as he makes his fateful journey towards Jerusalem, “Lord, are those being saved few?” His answer suggests that he thought it unlikely that many would find the narrow path leading to life (Lk. 13:22-24; Matt. 7:13-14). It seems to me that Paul was equally pessimistic about the fate of his “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3), though his quotation of Isaiah 59:20 in Romans 11:26 suggests that he held to the hope that following judgment—following the “punishment” of the war—all Israel would repent and be saved.1 It didn’t happen, and both Jesus and Paul were proved right.

There is also in scripture the prospect of a final restoration of all things—leadme.org (what a name to give your son!) points this out and draws the conclusion that this “involves the reconciliation of each human soul”. But I wonder whether that conclusion can be defended exegetically. Colossians 1:19-20 is the obvious text to consider here:

because in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile all things to him, making peace through the blood of his cross, through him whether things on earth or things in the heavens.

The idea of cosmic reconciliation achieved through the cross is not easily accommodated into Paul’s thought, though Romans 8:19-21 certainly has a bearing on the matter.2 But the point to note is that this reconciliation is framed precisely in cosmic rather than human terms.

In Ephesians 2:11-22 it is Jews and Gentiles who specifically are reconciled and find peace through the cross. In Colossians 1:15-20 it appears to be the larger structures of the cosmos that are reconciled: “whether thrones or dominions or sovereignties or authorities” (1:16). This is in some sense an extension or expansion of the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles in the renewed people of God, but neither here nor in Romans 8:19-21 do we clearly have the thought that the restoration of the cosmos includes the “salvation” of all people.

In John’s symbolic vision of the new heavens and new earth it appears that the unrighteous, those whose names are not written in the book of life, “the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars”, are explicitly excluded from the restored cosmos. This may raise numerous other questions about the “ethics” of final judgment, but it is difficult to reconcile with the “beautiful heresy” of universalism.

• 1. See The Future of the People of God, 136.
• 2. See J.D.G. Dunn, The Epistles to Colossians and to Philemon (Eerdmans, 1996), 103 n. 45.

The Ethical and Redemptive Aspects of the Kingdom of God

"My contention would be that kingdom goodness is done
by kingdom people who live under King Jesus." - Scot McKnight

While understanding Scot's purpose in saying this and wanting to sympathize with his purebred insistence upon the Kingdom concept that only Kingdom people living under King Jesus can do Kingdom goodness, my personal position would be more on the other side of this statement....

...That God's Spirit rests upon all mankind, and that anyone who does the will of God (or the will of the Father for those Christians amongst us) may commit true Kingdom goodness. It's not so much the vessel that pours out God's goodness and ethics, but the Spirit Himself, through his vessels, be they beggarly or redeemed.

Conversely, we all know examples of redeemed Christians who do not commit acts of Kingdom goodness (which is where I feel these arguments again fall down here, however much I would wish to side with these sentiments). These believers are ones who lapse, or fail in their faith, do not trust God's leading, and submit to the spirit of man, the flesh, the devil, and sin. (I will avoid for now any discussions of a believer's positional justification / sanctification in Christ as versus a believer's practical failings and sins in his faith that reflect more his own spirit than that of Christ's work on the Cross).

However, I do agree with Scot in his distinction between God's ethical Kingdom and God's Redeemed Kingdom... there is a difference of residents in this concept. God's ethical Kingdom is inhabited by all mankind, some who will do God's will and some who will not. Just as in God's redemptive Kingdom there will be some who will do God's will and some who will not. HOWEVER, the main distinction here is that those in God's Redeemed Kingdom are just that - residents redeemed in Jesus' atonement and resurrection who have acknowledged their sin and need of a Savior.

Why do I say this? Because it correlates with one of the major themes of the Bible, that of "God's Remnant." Throughout both Testaments it can be seen that those believers who follow God through faith and obedience are designated by God as His sons and daughters. And that those who do not follow God through faith and obedience are not His sons and daughters. And by-and-large that group of spiritually faithful are usually less in number than those found in society at large, and are therefore known as the remnant of God for that very reason.

In the OT those believers exhibiting Abraham's faith were of God (I should someday like to better explain the importance and meaning of the Abrahamic Covenant, for it is very important indeed!).... In the NT that Abrahamic faith is crystallized into God's Son Jesus so that Jesus' Jewish disciples (Matthew, Mark, Peter, James, John, etc... and later, Paul in place of the appointed apostle Stephen whom he had stoned to death by Jewish fiat) went throughout the ancient Jewish world proclaiming the very personage of Christ in the Jewish synagogues.

Why? So that Jewish believers everywhere may worship God through His sent Messiah/Savior Jesus who completed their Covenants and Exile. For it was in Jesus that (1) the Jewish Covenants - the Abrahamic, the Mosaic (known as the Old Covenant), and the Davidic - found their conclusion through Jesus' divine Personage and work of Redemption. And it was also through the personage of Jesus that (2) Israel's spiritual exile from God concluded into assemblies of believers known as the Church. So then, in Jewish terms, Jesus is the end of the Covenants and the end of Israel's exile from God. Which explains John the Baptist's earlier mission to the Jews before Jesus; then Jesus' mission to the Jews; and then the disciples missions to the Jews before they went to all the world to bring in (reap, harvest) non-Jewish societies of Samaritans and Gentiles as the adoptive children of God.

In review, the Kingdom of God is a blood-bought Kingdom of faithful believers known as the remnant of God who are to live according to God's new charter called the New Covenant; are Covenant purchased and inscribed in Jesus; and avow to all the ethics and goodness found in the Kingdom. But more than that - these very same believers proclaim the Covenant-Maker, Christ Himself, through their lives, their work and duties, their worship and fellowship, and in their very acts of love, mercy, and righteousness.

Why? As witness and testimony to Jesus who is God, and came to redeem mankind, who is Love, Mercy and Righteousness in-and-of Himself. His children do as their Father does. Not because we have to. But because we are. And must. And follow our newly redeemed natures over the fallen nature still inscribed within us. That disturbs and mars the Image of God in us; that corrupts the spirit of Christ present; that groans the Spirit of God who indwells his faithful. It is a life-long battle that God wants to win because God's nature knows no darkness. He is light and light has no communion with darkness. It is powerless before He who is Light and Love. And man's fallen nature, even when redeemed, struggles with perfection until death comes and God takes him home to eternal rest, peace, light and joy, to be with his Spirit eternally.

So then, these are the Kingdom residents the Bible speaks of... they are God's adopted children who testify of their Savior; who live as a true Kingdom community of redeemed sinners; and who exhibit and obey the ethics of that Kingdom community. This Kingdom community is now known as the Church universal until that era passes when, in the future, Jesus returns (in an event called the "Parousia" in theological terms) to rule directly. At which point the Church era becomes the Kingdom era. And as the Church era uplifted the OT era from a Jewish monarchy to a fellowship of believers in Jesus. So the Church will be uplifted itself from an era of persecution and oppression to an era of freedom and liberty when Christ comes back to rule. (We call this an "eschalation" that is not-so-much "circular" as it is a "stretched, upwardly spiraling, coil" of historic proportions accounting for the linear movement of time, and the forward movement of God's spirit upon his creation to redeem it from sin. It also where we get the word "eschatology" which speaks of the end-times, the times to come when Jesus returns).

But God's rule is perfect. Which rule the Church attempts to live under and exhibit. Thus the Church is an "upside-down" Kingdom. Whose Kingdom characteristics or elements are not self-laudatory qualities. They seek the best from others, give fully of themselves to the "redemption" of other men and women found both in the body of Christ or outside the body of Christ. Jesus follower's (or born-again believers) are to be selfless in their service of God's love to all mankind. Love is what God is. And love is what God's children are, and are to be, however imperfectly we share God's love.  And then, in the Kingdom era to come, this service will be perfected, as it were, into all the realms of man's societies, man's rulings, man's communities. Love will flow throughout the world and with it, Truth and Justice.

Meanwhile, God's Spirit rests upon all men's hearts and kingdoms everywhere, including the very nature of man himself through God's Image and Pervasive Presence. And because of these truths we will witness the ethics and goodness of God's Rule (or Kingdom) even within the world of men, despite the interruptions of man's fallenness, sin and devil. Thus, that portion of society not submitted to God's work of redemption through His Son Jesus, though residing as God's creation (and who may be pervasively known as God's "children" through God's very act of creation itself) are not known by God as His redeemed remnant (or, redeemed "children"). The importance is more than colloquial, it's very meaning carries eternity in it. And by import, our eternity starts now, in this life. Today. Within linear time and space. Within our personal histories to one another as to God Himself (which has been Rob Bell's main argument in the book, Love Wins).

And so it can be said, the Kingdom of God has come to men and women, even though it has always been present through God's creational acts from Genesis forward, and in His very-present Sovereign activity working within our fallen, self-willed, sinful worlds. Including the sinful "will" or "bent" of the creative order itself (see link here). Further, the Kingdom of God comes especially through Jesus who is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant in His person as Suzzerainty-King; who is the fulfillment of the Mosaic (Old) Covenant's High Laws and Standards as both Priest and Lamb; and, who is the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant as man's Lord and King.

It is in Jesus that a NEW Covenant is made with mankind, and more specifically, with the remnant of God who follow Jesus by faith. It is a New Covenant established in Jesus' bodily death and resurrection which fulfills all previously existing Covenants of God with His people. In essence, it is enlivened (as it always as been enlivened) through God's faithful remnant to all men or women everywhere (whether believing or not) who enact its charters of goodness and mercy, regardless of Covenantal (or Testamental) era. For God's rulership has always been present whether man has submitted to it or not. It is in the goodness of God - in His Love for His creation - that He continues to "redeem" our worlds of sin back to its once pristine order of holiness and fellowship with Himself. Which is what I think Scot McKnight is getting to in his earlier statement and can now be more fully appreciated in its ramifications.

For God's Kingdom is "here, but not fully." A heavenly Kingdom that lives in tension with the corporate kingdoms of men as well as in tension with the personal kingdoms of men's hearts. It calls all men everywhere to seek Jesus and become one with the rest of their spiritual brotherhood of blood-bought believers through faith in Christ. This is the call of God by His Spirit to convert and follow, to obey and believe, to count the cost and know it as nothing short of marvelous, majestic, sublime. And this then is what is meant by God's REDEEMED Kingdom as versus God's ETHICAL Kingdom. It has all the heart and none of the constrictions of God's blessed Being and fellowship. We are part of Him now. And part of God's Worlds already here and growing in fulfillment to His will. 

Thanks Scot for bringing this important distinction back before us!

- RE Slater

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Steve Jobs’ Legacy: Kingdom Work?

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/11/03/steve-jobs-legacy-kingdom-work/#more-21972

by Scot McKnight

November 3, 2011

The word “kingdom” is perhaps the flabbiest term being used by Christians today. In fact, many who like “kingdom” would rather they not be called “Christians.” This good word of Jesus’, which he inherited from his scriptures and from his Jewish world, has come to mean two wildly different things today: for some it means little more than personal redemption, that is, it means submitting personally to God as your king and Lord. Let’s call this the redemptive kingdom. For yet others it means the ethics connected with the kingdom, that is, it means wherever there is peace, justice, goodness, freedom, liberation … you name it … there is kingdom. Let’s call this the justice kingdom.

Before I raise my hand and speak from the floor in a way that many simply don’t like, I want to make two things clear: Yes, the kingdom needs to be connected to the redemptive powers at work in this world, and this can be found at times in Jesus’ teachings when he says things like

“if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28).

And Yes there is an ethical dimension to this term, besides ideas like righteousness and zealous commitment and joy (as in Matthew 13), but also flat-out ethical categories like justice, as in Romans 14:17 - but which has much less support in the language of the Bible:

“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” So, Yes, it is reasonable to see a redemptive kingdom and a justice kingdom.

My beef today is that too many today have abstracted the ethical ideals from Jesus’ kingdom vision, all but cut Jesus out of the picture, and then called anything that is just, peace, good and loving the “kingdom.” The result is this equation: kingdom means goodness, goodness means kingdom. Regardless of who does it.

My contention would be that kingdom goodness is done by kingdom people who live under King Jesus. I applaud goodness at large. This is not a question of either/or but whether or not all goodness is kingdom goodness. Some say Yes, I say No.

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Please refer to my earlier observations at the beginning of this article.

- RE Slater

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Here’s a really good example and I use this post on a blog because the author sent it to me and because it’s a great example of what we are talking about. I’m not picking on this piece and don’t want this conversation to be about this piece or about what this author says about Steve Jobs. I only want to show how goodness or usefulness and progress in society is sometimes called “kingdom.” In fact, Steve Jobs denied Christianity and was a Buddhist. This guy says Steve Jobs’ contribution to our society was kingdom.

In his words:

There are hundreds of millions of people who can trace a tangible improvement in their livesdirectly to the labor of this man. In reflecting on that, without adequate mental categories for it, erroneous conclusions abound. Whether one concludes that Steve Jobs was a demigod, or that his life’s work to revolutionize the way people can interact with information was a petty and trivial waste of time, there seems to be a lot of confusion. I decided to write this essay because I think that the reflexive eulogizing of those hundreds of millions of people has roots in something more profound than delusional worship of the creator of the smartphone. 

Why did Steve Jobs’s life work strike such a personal chord with so many people? I’d like to suggest that the answer has to do with the kingdom of God….

At the risk of over-simplification, the kingdom of God is the realm where God’s will is done—where things work the way God wants. It requires some vivid imagining for people stuck in a bitterly broken world to conceive of such a kingdom. But if you let your mind roam, you might be able to sketch some outlines. Start with the obvious: no more meaningless suffering, no more inexplicable pain. No more sickness, no more death, perhaps not even any decay. Purpose and meaning are woven into the fabric of all experience. Work is productive. Love is the prevailing character of all interaction. Everything works the way it’s supposed to, for everyone. And at the heart of it all, there is perfect goodness—a person of inexplicable beauty and wisdom and perfection, sustaining the economic, social, physical and spiritual dynamics of all that takes place. In other words, words can’t do it justice, but it’s good.

But what does Steve Jobs’s life have to do with this kingdom? One of the things that Jesus taught was that the kingdom of God was “at hand.” Again, this probably means a lot of things, among them that people are called to participate in bringing the kingdom of God with us, “on earth as it is in heaven.” To labor with the goal of making things work the way God wants. Whether by taking a stand for social justice, or by fighting oppression and poverty, or by opposing all things that set themselves up against the way of God. By unlocking the spiritual and psychological chains that stunt people, or by pointing people to the path of freedom and maturity, or by working for the restoration of the natural world. By pleading with God to set things right in individual instances, and once and for all. The way I see it, Steve Jobs did this type of work.

For the immensity of his impact on modern life, he participated in the work of the kingdom in a small, but noteworthy, manner. He recognized the importance, and profound good, of having access to information – for solving problems, for connecting with other people, for experiencing music, for creating. You might say he recognized that, in the kingdom of God, the barriers to information and communication would be dissolved. And he realized the poignancy of creating truly beautiful tools for people to use for these purposes. Jobs was, to borrow a phrase from philosopher Dallas Willard, “free and powerful in the creation and governance of what is good.”On Tuesday night people publicly recognized, at the rate of 10,000 per second, that this was the story of Steve Jobs’s life.

Get out your Bible and find the references to kingdom and you will discover that it refers to a society in which God’s will is done, with Jesus as the King, where the Story of Israel finds its completion in the Story of Jesus and where that same Story of Jesus shapes everyone. Kingdom refers to that Davidic hope for the earthly world where God sets up his rule in the Messiah and where people live under that Messiah as God’s redeemed and liberated and healed and loving and peaceful and just people.

Yes, feeding the poor is good and it is God’s will for this world, whoever does it. But “kingdom” refers to that special society that does good under Jesus, that society that is buried in his death and raised in his resurrection and lives that Story out in our world today. It makes no sense to me to take this word of Jesus that he used to refer to what God was doing in and through him at that crucial new juncture in time and history and use it for something else.

At this point I want simply to mention that when the early Christians did “good” in society, they didn’t call it kingdom work but “doing good” or “benefaction” and 1 Peter has a few examples of this, including 1 Peter 2:13-15:

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. [Italics refer to those words of benevolence in the public realm.]

 

God's Covenantal Love in Light of Paul's "New Perspective," Part 2 of 2

continued from -

NT Wright - Introduction to Paul's New Perspective, Part 1 of 2


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God's Covenantal Love in Light of Paul's "New Perspective"

by R.E. Slater, September 28, 2011

When investigating E.P. Sander/ J.D.G. Dunn/ N.T. Wright's New Perspectives on Paul (NPP, 1970's and forward) I was recently reminded of the subtle shift within church doctrine that had occurred between the eras of Augustine (400 AD) and that of the later Reformation (1500's) some 1000 years later. A shift between the ancient understanding of God's love towards man that was replaced with the Reformed understanding of God's judgment upon man. During Augustine's day all theology was centered around God's divine love not His divine judgment. By the time of the Reformation, given the circumstances and events demanding it, God was now seen to lead out towards humanity in judgment upon man's sin.

Surprisngly, I had not expect to discover this understated subjectline, but when coming upon it considered it extremely relevant to the discussions that have been occurring between Rob Bell's Love Wins book, and his accusers, who are primarily motivated in maintaining Reformed dogma and traditions that support Reformed theologies. An ideology which pervasively underlies many of today's Evangelical traditions and worship beliefs having replaced Augustine's idea of God's covenantal grace with Luther and Calvin's Reformational ideas of man's depravity (sin) and election (thus creating a post-Augustinian Reformational theology).

Consequently, Paul's emphasis upon Jesus' covenantal love (as nuanced by Augustine) was displaced over time with a re-interpretive Pauline emphasis upon man's sin and election (sic, Reformational theology). Making it no surprise to find Paul's original emphasis upon God's love "rediscovered" when returning to the mileau of first century Palistinian Judaism and its concordant beliefs (what is now being named "Paul's New Perspective"). Because it was a perspective that was lost amid post-Augustinian, Reformational teachings that had re-interpreted first-century Christian theology with a Reformational-bias towards God's judgment upon man's sin, thus creating the resultant Reformational doctrines of election and justification.

What this means is that in light of God's covenanted love to mankind - that is, His divine charter for man's redemption - God leads out with divine love. That God sees man in terms of love first, and only then in sin, second, is monumental. It is because of His love for us that God seeks our restoration back into fellowship with Himself, no less than a man or a woman would seek one another. Not in terms of deficiency, or by traits of sinfulness, but in terms of wholeness, meaning, and well-being. To know God loves us is to see ourselves as He would see (and accept us) in all of our being. Not in terms of our sin, but in terms of who we are in His image. God's covenantal love juxtapositions itself against our depravity. This was the Apostle Paul's understanding that maintained itself through to Augustine's teachings 400 years later. But by the Reformation, a thousands years after that, time and circumstance had changed our pictures of ourselves to one of a sinful, depraved race of beings living under the judgment of God. A judgment that would require a holy divine election in order to receive God's love. An election locked into the capriciousness of God's holy being that without it condemned man to a hell fire of destruction in both this life and the next.

Once Einstein was asked to define what darkness was and he reportedly stated it was the absence of light (or, I may have confused this, and it may have been "that cold was the absence of heat"). So too we may conjecture that sin is the absence of love, that death is the absence of life, that hell is the absence of heaven. These are simplistic statements but one not fully appreciated in light of the current "controversies" over how God's love "wins," or how God's person, being, presence, power, might, design, rulership "wins." But when seen as the absence of each of these qualities  (or manifestations, or whatever), we then get the opposite (that is, strictly speaking on a dualistic level which our present day Western cultural mindset seems to thrive on). And so, it is time to re-right the covenantal understanding of the church by giving precedence in its beliefs and doctrines towards emphasizing God's covenantal love first, before rephrasing it in terms of man's relationship to God's covenant, as broken and sinful.

And so, read on. And as you do, rethink why you haven't recently heard of Christ's atonement juxtapositioned around the OT Covenantal-paradigm... it used to be, but largely has become forgotten in light of Evangelicalism's persistent and opposing systematic ideas of "justification" as a Roman "penal substitutional" act necessitated by modern day Reformers. Reformers who ironically need their own doctrine reformed, having deformed Paul's seminal message of God's love sent to man through His Son Jesus Christ. Who remain presently uninformed themselves by their Reformational doctrines, rather than informed by the Spirit of God's grace.

And when re-grasping the idea of Christ's atonement as a covenant made between God and man, then re-think how God's love is the foundation and motivation for this covenant, and not how man's sin destroys it. How God's love moved him to make covenant with all of mankind through his son Jesus, so that we may have his love restored and renewed into our sinful lives. It is not a denial of the Lutheran / Reformed teachings on sin and depravity, but it is a re-framing of sin and depravity in light of who God is, what He is doing, and not as defined by ourselves, nor by how we respond.

And finally, re-think how Calvinism's ideas of election and foreordination have robbed our understanding of God's pervasive covenant of love made with all of mankind. Only-and-when the latter truth is understood can the terms of "election" and "foreordination" be then discussed. For the one precedes from the other and not the other way around! To be elected into God's love, and foreordained before the foundation of the world into the fellowship of His Trinity and with His being... these are significant, mind-blowing concepts. That God's covenant with man is undergirded by his election of man into restored relationship with Him; that He foreordained these events to become a reality made through His Son Jesus as Israel's Messiah and as the Gentiles Savior should move us to praise and worship for God's greatness and love. These are not first and foremost soteriological terms, these are covenantal terms made as a charter with all of creation, with all of mankind, throughout time without end, eternally! Praise God!

Consequently, we must place God's Word first, our doctrines second. God's revelation first, our words second. We must understand Scriptures biblically first, and less so systematically and/or dogmatically. The entirety of this blogsite has shown the importance of this again, and again, and again. Remember what you are reading. Put it together in your hearts and souls. Don't let these ideas be so soon displaced by another teacher, prophet and soothsayer, no matter their popularity and the reception of their sheep-like followers. Remember God's words. Remember the Spirit's teachings. Be a shepherd and not a sheep. Learn to lead and no longer follow. Learn to discern God's word, to carry it in your hearts and being, and to desire strong meat and no longer milk. Stand up, and in love, declare God's love in every way possible, in every way imaginable, to the glory of the Almighty.

RE Slater

September 28, 2011

 

 

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Further Necessary Observations and Conclusions

RE Slater, September 28, 2011

In light of NPP I have overlooked a couple of important developments, but these will become evident when reading through this document. Those several issues are as follows:

One, a re-appreciation of late Judaism and how God worked within the Old Covenant using Israel's ideologies of culture and customs pertaining to worship and faith practice to percolate their faith and faithful observance. And as a subsequent idea, how the Americanized gospel of today's evangelical modernism must relax and allow for cultural accommodations of the gospel within global heritages and customs (rather than the older missiological idea of Westernizing the gospel through Inquisitions, crusades, martyrdom's, banishings, and pulpiteering).

Two, a further point of NPP is that of its emphasis on faith-works as a natural response and outflow of God's renewing love restored into an individual's life or a tribal customs. It yet maintains the Protestant standard of faith-alone without works, but also restores the practice of having gracious works in one's Christian life. Thus the emergent Christian Church's emphasis on "cup of cold water" ministries both individually and corporately alongside the older denominational dogmas of holiness and righteous living. Of orthopraxy over orthodoxy.

God's Covenant to all the Nations

Three, one might even take the added step of visualising NPP as it moves towards Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy beliefs and practices to make allowance for the variety of human apprehensions of the gospel of Christ which view faith through the actual performance of worship and good works. You see this in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faith, but yet, Reformational Protestantism's declaration by-faith-alone, though true, may not fit all men and women's expressions using this dogmatically declared abstraction. As example, the early church's practice of baptism was once synonymous with a declaration of faith but in modern times we have separated the faith act from the baptismal ceremony. So too have evangelicals separated the decision of faith from the actions of faith. Whereas in biblical times it was more common to see faith expressed alongside of, and in conjunction with, acts of faith. How much more likely then is it that an individual's believing faith-act be similarly declared as a sinner's faith decision once-and-for-all-time?

The Abrahamic Covenant
enacted by faith

Our Western understanding would divorce this behavioral practice for many so that abstract concepts like "faith alone" remain bare of meaning for many poeple unless translated first into "faith-acts" which at that self-same moment gives birth to one's decision of "faith." As example, Abraham declared his faith, but he also acted on his faith by hearing God's calling to leave Ur of the Chaladees and proceed into the wildness laced with Mesopotamian caravan routes. Without his faith he may not have left Ur; but without leaving Ur his faith was yet an "un-faith." He had to act. Which is what both the Old and New Covenants of God require of us to do. To submit to them and to act upon them through observation of their Convenantal requirements. The old covenant seemed full of requirements, and yet, as Jesus remarked, there was but two... "Love God and love one another." Supremely summed up in the New Covenant made in his blood. So then, we see that faith is barren without action, and action is meaningless without faith. So then, lets give our non-Reformational brethren some credit and behave our over-eager doctrines a little more contritely before those that differ from our own.

Four, moreover, this latter understanding, is actually the real understanding of those "faith-alone" Christians who, when practising their faith, who actually renew their faith, making it real for both themselves and those around them whom it affects. It is not a foreign concept at all. Just not one understood in this manner. And thus, the matter of linearity is eclipsed (the idea of which comes first, faith or act) within the greater substance of the very faith-act itself. For how would one know if he or she is of faith unless it is revealed and practiced (per James, Paul, etc)? If there is no change in our demeanors then the reality of our faith is on paper without subscription, without conviction, without transformation.True reformation is transformation in action.

Fifth and lastly, to Scot McKnight's concluding remarks at the end of this document, I wish to add the above observations and summarizations as further commentary to Sanders, Dunn, Wright's initiating works. Further, Tim Gombis has just released a book on this very subject of NPP, and so I would recommend it as a further iteration to today's modernistic, evangelistic mis-apprehension of God's covenant in his son Jesus in the links just below. However, as Andrew Perriman observes, Gombis did not go far enough in his evaluations and differentiations with modern day evangelicalism, being found in the heart of evangelicalism himself.

May God's grace and peace be yours,

RE Slater
September 28, 2011


Tim Gombis - The Paul We Think We Know

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/07/tim-gombis-paul-we-think-we-know.html

Why Tim Gombis Doesn't Go Far Enough

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-tim-gombis-doesnt-go-far-enough.html

 

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Understanding the New Perspective on Paul

http://www.vanguardchurch.com/mcknight_npp.pdf

by Scot McKnight

www.jesuscreed.org

August 6, 2007

This document is found at www.vanguardchurch.com/mcknight_npp.pdf

This series was originally published at www.jesuscreed.org

Beginnings: E.P. Sanders

In Christianity Today (CT), Simon Gathercole of Cambridge University has a lengthy and fine study of the good and bad of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) (see “What Did Paul Really Mean?”, Christianity Today, August 2007). What is the New Perspective on Paul? The most significant development, outside of historical Jesus studies, in biblical studies in the last 50 years. Today I want to begin at the beginning and see if I can explain it. I will continue this throughout the week as we take a readable look at the New Perspective and hope to stand next to Simon’s piece in CT.

The opposition to certain elements of the NPP has become so fierce for some that denominations have gathered to see if pastors who represent that denomination adhere to the NPP or not — if they do, they’re out.

The NPP begins, oddly enough, with a public lecture on 4 November of 1982 by my then-mentor in PhD studies, Jimmy Dunn. I didn’t hear it; but I heard plenty about it. It was published the next year and it changed NT studies by giving a handle to what was going on. But it took awhile for what was going on to take on the name “The New Perspective.”

What was it that Jimmy said? In 1977, five years earlier, E.P. Sanders published Paul and Palestinian Judaism and Jimmy basically captured the shift in perspective that Sanders unleashed in his expression “new perspective on Paul.” At the time, nearly everyone was captivated by Sanders but there were voices like this: “Let’s not get too excited” or “He’s basically right but that’s not the whole story” or “This is so innovative we have to think about this some more” or “There are some problems here but I’ll have to do some careful work in Judaism to show it.” Some said, with Dunn, “The tide has changed. We have entered a new world.”

Here’s what Sanders in essence said:

1. Judaism was not a religion of works where if you built up enough credits you’d find final approval with God. Paul can’t be understood saying that about Judaism.

2. Turning Judaism into a “works” religion flies in the face of all of Jewish scholarship, emerges from Luther’s problem with the Catholic Church and gets imported onto Paul, and is out of touch with the vast bulk of ancient Jewish sources. (Sanders allowed some, but not much, works-type religion in Judaism.)

3. Judaism’s understanding of salvation (which is a Christian way of capturing the reality) is rooted in two themes: God’s election and the covenant. God chose Israel and this gave Israel salvation; Jews were not worried about final redemption and were not striving to gain eternal life by accumulating merit. The Covenant is the foundation of all of Jewish religion. To suggest that Jews were accumulating merit because this is human nature is not true according to Sanders.

 

Israel's reaffirmation of God's Covenant

4. The Law, or [the] observing and obeying [of] the Law, is how Jews “maintained” their relationship to the covenant and God and not the way of entering into that covenant. To say Jews followed the Law to get salvation misses why Jews loved the Torah.

5. Righteousness describes behavior that conforms to that Torah.

Thus, Sanders put all this together in what he called “covenantal nomism” — a covenant that creates a community called to obey the Law (nomos); any offense of the Torah requires appropriate sacrifice and atonement. Those who live this way — within the bounds of the Torah — are righteous.

This basic set of factors is at the heart of the New Perspective on Paul. Sanders himself proposed that Paul believed the Church had entered into the eschatological day — he called Paul’s theology participationist eschatology. But Sanders’ proposal on Paul wasn’t his major contribution.

It was Jimmy Dunn who took Sanders’ view of Judaism and gave us a new Paul and a new understanding of Paul’s relationship to Judaism and therefore a new perspective on Paul.

[Note to CT: I see resemblance in the caricatures of Beza, Luther, Calvin, Wright and Sanders, but that picture of Jimmy Dunn looks more like Bruce Chilton than Jimmy. Anyone else observe this?]

Second Phase: James D.G. Dunn

Today we will look at the second phase of the New Perspective on Paul. The first phase is the work of E.P. Sanders in 1977. The second phase was the work of Jimmy Dunn, and that began in 1982 and came to full fruition with his pumpkin book, The Theology of the Apostle Paul, in 2000.

Dunn basically agrees with Sanders on Judaism: election-based, covenant-shaped relationship for Israel with God to whom God gives the Torah to know how to live as God’s people.

Where Dunn shifted things was with Paul, and he argued at first that Paul’s problem with his Judaizing opponents (not the same as “Judaism” as a whole) was that they were constructing a nation-based righteousness, a nationalistic righteousness, that kept Gentiles out because it was simply a nation’s faith.

Over time Jimmy shifted his language to the “sociological markers” of a community so that “works of the Torah” were not “merit-seeking works” but “boundary-marking works.” That is, the Judaizers were trying to make the Gentile Christians become Jews [Judaizing, Proselytising]. The “works of the Law,” then, were not merit-shaped works but specific things like sabbath, food laws and circumcision. (Think concretely, Jimmy was asking us to do, when we get to this expression “works of the Law.” Avoid thinking of the expression the way Augustine and Luther and Calvin do.)

For Paul, one was a member of the Church, the people of God, by faith and not by works (by adhering to such things as circumcision, sabbath, and food laws — the works that separated Jews from Gentiles). So, Paul’s idea of faith was the way all people — [both] Jews and Gentiles — could gain access to and enjoy the saving work of God in Christ.
 

Teaching God's Covenant to
future generations

Fundamentally, Paul’s mission was to form a new people of God, the Church, on the basis of faith and because it was by faith and not works (boundary markers) it was a people of God that could include Jews and Gentiles. Justification was God’s work of declaring and making righteous those who had faith in Jesus Christ.

Much more could be said, but our focus this week is on the core issues that are causing a stir for so many.



Third Phase: N.T. Wright

The first phase of the New Perspective on Paul was E.P. Sanders; the second was the work of James Dunn; the third phase is the work of N.T. Wright, whose earliest book was a study of Paul and who then began to unleash his massive set of volumes on Christian Origins and the Question of God.

[Note added: As Tim Gombis reminds us in a comment, it is not like 1-2-3 in the relationship of Sanders-Dunn-Wright; it is not that Sanders said it, Dunn then added, and then along came Tom Wright to add some more. The relationship of these three scholars can be said to be post Dead Sea Scrolls and part of the awakening to Jewish sources of the 70s. The three are actually dialectically related to one another and they sharpened one another’s ideas in mutual interaction and debate. When it comes to formative writings, writings that shaped us, the relationship can be reasonably said to be Sanders-Dunn-Wright.]

Wright’s books begin with is Climax of the Covenant, move to What Saint Paul Really Said, and now in Paul: In Fresh Perspective. It’s a bit hard to sum up Wright in a paragraph or two but I’ll give it a whirl and let the experts on Paul chime in for corrections and modifications.

Wright’s early work was a macroscopic understanding of Paul in light of how he understood Jewish history unfolding. His big insight, which he applied with potency and probably too often, was the theme of exile. Israel was “in exile” still at the time of Jesus and Paul — even though Israel was back in the Land, the promises of Isaiah and others hadn’t been completely fulfilled. Paul’s theology was shaped by this conviction and by covenant and by new creation.

But Wright agreed basically — as did Dunn — with Sanders’ perspective on Judaism: election-based, covenant-shaped work of God, to form God’s people to whom God gave the Torah, to show to them how to live before God in righteousness.

In other words, Judaism was a religion of covenantal nomism. It’s pretty hard to read the OT and not see the potency of Sanders’ perception of the pattern of religion for Israel.

Where Wright differed from Sanders (participationist eschatology) and Dunn (sociological markers of the Torah and community of Israel) was on how Paul reworked that covenantal nomism (Wright’s view of Paul is hard for me to bring to a single expression)... [It went something like this... At the] "end of exile," Jesus is recapitulating [(recapturing? resummarizing?)] (i) Israel’s covenantal history and their need to be “in Christ,” (ii) their yearning for new creation, and, (iii) - in his most recent augmentation - their anti-empire ideology.

The Church in Covenant Community
with the God of Israel

Justification, of course, gets revisioned in the New Perspective. Sanders isn’t known for this so much and Dunn’s view has shifted a little over time, but Wright came out swinging on this one and has recently done a little shifting as well. But, Tom said that justification described not how to get into the people of God but identified who was in the people of God. It was not a “salvation” term but a “covenant” or “ecclesial” term. It said something about who was already in and not something about how to get into the people of God.

Tom has suffered from serious misrepresentations; he has made some adjustments; and his view of justification has some breadth and depth and some width. What perhaps annoys most is that he’s intent on out sola-scripturing the Reformed camp; what annoys someone like me is that I hear too much on the part of the Reformed camp that Wright’s views are not consistent with the Reformation. How ironical is that? Isn’t the question: What does the Bible say? [and not, what does Reformed Theology say!?]

No one has captured the young scholar more than Tom Wright. One reason is because there is no one out there who writes as well; combine that with a fertile, creative, courageous mind and a life dedicated to the church and you come up with Tom Wright. Do I agree with him all the time? Nope. But, like Jimmy Dunn and Ed Sanders, I read their every word.



Correcting Some Misperceptions about New Perspective

With these three summaries now on the table, and with some fine clarifications by others, I wish now to state what we have to do when we start talking about the “New Perspective” because I’m hearing lots of things that I think are gross distortions. Simon Gathercole’s piece in CT is a nice summary; I have only little quibbles with it but I have more than quibbles with what I sometimes hear.

First, there is no official “New Perspective Institution” or “NP Denomination” that filters everything through a grid to make sure it is sound. What Jimmy Dunn called “the new perspective” was a trend emerging out of the rediscovery of Jewish sources and how Paul fit into how people were re-construing Judaism. But, there is a wild diversity out there of people who have plowed their own furrow. Please avoid saying the “New Perspective” says “X.” Try to connect with a name as much as possible.

Second, the only “new perspective” I know that can be said to be represented across the board is a new perspective on “Judaism.” There is a common thread: Israel was elected by God, brought into the covenant and given the law to regulate how covenant people live. Thus, Sanders’ covenantal nomism is a common thread — even if Dunn and Wright have modifications and differences with Sanders. Dunn’s and Wright’s modifications are really more than that: they have both investigated the Jewish sources themselves. And on top of them are all kinds of offshoots and variations, but there seems to me to be a general consensus that Judaism — and this is not the same as the “Judaizers” Paul went toe-to-toe with — was not a works-based religion but a covenant-based religion in which works played a prominent, sometimes more than other times, role.

Third, when it comes to Paul, there is wide variation in Sanders, Dunn and Wright. It is unfair to say these three are the same when it comes to what they think about Paul. I’m not sure there is such a thing as “The” New Perspective on Paul. Those who say this aren’t reading the books of these authors. Sometimes they are drawing unities that don’t exist. To speak of a unified theory of Paul in a New Perspective is inaccurate. What I’m hearing today is mostly criticism of NT Wright; what is being said about Wright would not always be applicable to Dunn and Sanders. Which means, perhaps most importantly for theological debates, that…

Fourth, there is no real “systematic theology” at work in this New Perspective on Paul. Much of the criticism I’m hearing attributes what “New Perspective” folks believe at the level of systematic theology. Sanders doesn’t care about this; Jimmy Dunn is not a systematician; and Wright isn’t really one either — they are biblical theologians and historians. NT Wright, of course, is the Bishop of Durham and that means he’s Anglican — and if anyone knows what systematic theology that is you’ll have to tell us, but the 39 Articles really isn’t a “systematic theology.” Let’s not forget this. To suggest there is a systematic theology at work here, and to suggest there is one systematic theology at work, is poppycock. Most of what I hear at this level is an invention by those who infer what the systematic theology would look like if Sanders and Dunn and Wright composed one. It is never wise to make up a theology and then criticize it.

Fifth, the NPP does give rise to [an] exegesis of Paul that, however, can lead to some major shifting in theology and, in particular, how to understand salvation. Next I will give a final consideration and I hope it will give us something to understand.



Augustinian Anthropology and Criticism of New Perspective

The crux of the fierce criticism of the New Perspective on Paul is what I will call an Augustinian anthropology. Hear me out because I think this is behind nearly every criticism I’m hearing of the NPP, and many times I’m not hearing that it is this that is actually prompting the criticism.

The New Covenant established
(cut) in Christ

Behind the Reformation is Augustine; behind much of modern evangelicalism, especially in the Reformed circles today, is the Reformation. Therefore, at the bottom of the evangelical movement in the Reformed circles is Augustine and his anthropology. The New Perspective, by and large, probably does not adopt a fully Augustinian anthropology but it is rare that such an issue arises in the discussion. At times I hear the NPP doesn’t have an adequate theory of sin — well, I think NPP would say “Neither does the Reformation. So there!” So, let’s dig into this just a bit today and see if we can shed some light on the NPP and help us all.

What is Augustine’s anthropology? (I’m no specialist on this, but this is how I understand it. Experts chime in.)

1. Humans are born in original sin.

2. Humans are bound to their sinful natures.

3. Humans have an incurable itch to justify themselves and seek merit [e.g. we are legalists at heart].

4. But humans cannot please God because they are bound to those sinful natures that cannot please God.

5. Humans are therefore “naturally” condemned before God.

6. They are in need of God’s awakening grace and new life — through the Holy Spirit.

7. The only way out of this condition of self-justification and merit-seeking is to surrender that selfish, proud self-image and cast oneself on God in the mercy of Christ through the regenerating power of the Spirit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[A friend and colleague, an Augustinian scholar, reworks my points into this:

I think Augustine would agree to some form of each of the statements you have listed. However, I don’t think it quite gets at the core of Augustine’s thoughts or concerns. Or to put it differently, it identifies Augustine’s positions as they emerged in his debate with Pelagians and not so much with the rest of his thought.

Both Bride and Bridegroom
say "Come"

I think he always remained a rhetorician rather than a systematic thinker, so the images he employs are often more fundamental than an abstract statement of his doctrine. In his Confessions, the guiding image is that of the prodigal son (kind of overlaid on some semi-Plotinian metaphysics). I don’t think Augustine’s first word in his anthropology is “sin”. I think it is “love.” Sin is just love gone bad — as evil is good gone bad.

So maybe to rephrase it, using the vocabulary of the earlier Augustine:

1. Humans, like God, are lovers.

2 and 3. Humans though are bad lovers, redirecting their love from God to the good things God made. This creates in them disordered desires.

4. Humans have become incapable of loving God for himself (instead of themselves) and loving other things in” God.

5. Humans are incapable of being happy, like the prodigal son who exchanged his father’s table for eating husks with the pigs. etc.]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[Per the aforementioned encapsulation of Augustine by Reformational theology re "sin" and "depravity"... ] each of these elements shapes the Reformers’ perception of the gospel, [that of] salvation, and how to understand Paul. But there is more…

Standing next to Augustine’s anthropology is the way to attack the human (is this too strong?) in preaching the gospel: show [how] humans are selfish, merit-seeking people who are in need of seeing their sinfulness and need of grace. Show them they need to trust and give up on their own works. The starting point for Reformed gospel preaching is an anthropology; that anthropology for many is Augustinian [(or is it, the Reform's view of Augustine?) - skinhead... ]; [and] that anthropology is pure selfishness.

The Law factors into this as far as I can tell in this way: the Law is how corrupted humans seek to earn favor with God; they climb the Law to find their way to God. But, Paul is interpreted to say that’s not the way; that way is legalism and death. The gospel, which this view tends to pit over against the Law in the severest of ways, is the way to redemption — through grace, by faith, and faith alone.

Man's covenants with God

If the New Perspective teaches — rightly or not — that neither the opponents of Paul nor Jews in general were merit-seeking humans, then the central foil of the gospel — how to understand the human condition and how to attack human nature — is undercut and the entire framework of the gospel is changed. Thus, the critics of the New Perspective are aiming at the soteriological framework of the NPP that they (the critics) have assumed to be right, that they have inherited from Calvin-Luther-Augustine, and which they believe was at the heart of Paul’s theology. I am not saying that all of the Reformed contention here is what I sometime ago called “grace grinding” (talking about grace but doing so only to grind a human into selfish dust), but what I am saying [is] that the Reformed tradition operates with a self-conscious anthropology that derives from Augustine (who provided an interpretive grid for the NT texts).

Stendahl and Sanders laid blame on Luther for seeing in the Judaizers the Roman Catholic Church. That may or may not be the case. What to me is the case is that the real opponent of Paul for the old perspective is not the Catholic Church but Pelagius. NPP folks need to harp less on Luther and his Catholic polemic and start focusing on Augustine and Pelagius. Did Augustine get it right? Did Augustine get it right when he saw in Pelagius the human condition writ large?

The question is this: Was this the anthropology of Paul? Of Judaism? of the Old Testament? Was Paul’s gospel shaped by this anthropology?

There are, of course, other elements, and one of them is central and I’d beg you to listen to this one: if one finds an element or two in the NPP inaccurate that does not mean that the whole thing has to be tossed overboard. I’m seeing far too many “all or nothing” approaches to this issue — from both sides.

The New Covenant of Peace and Hope
in Christ Jesus our Lord Messiah God