Josh Leim\’s blog

This page contains some of my thoughts on the ongoing debate regarding Paul and his theology – particularly, his doctrine of justification.  Most of my posts are papers or presentations I have written for classes. 

 Here is some reflection on N.T. Wright’s book, Paul: In Fresh Perspective:

 Unfortunately, in his short work, Paul: A Fresh Perspective, N.T. Wright can afford to give only a cursory nod to many important topics, and even ones he develops as main themes of the book are afforded only brief treatment.  However, two important topics emerge that, in my opinion, are critical, related concepts. The first is Wright’s idea of union with Christ (and I use our terminology here, not necessarily his), and, at the risk of sounding redundant, his “messianic Christology” (though in light of how Christology is often discussed today, outside the context of an explicitly messianic understanding, I think this phraseology might work).  He mentions his concept of union with Christ in the context of his discussion of messianic theology, and it is here that we possibly have a bit of a touching point between the Reformed concept of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and Wright’s concept of our being “in” the Messiah.  I hope to look briefly at both the positive and negative aspects of Wright regarding these theological arenas.  Speaking of what Wright calls the “incorporative use of Christos,” he says:

Paul was drawing on a theme present in the Old Testament though not so frequently taken up in the second-Temple literature, that of the incorporative King in whom Israel is summed up. ‘We have no inheritance in David, nor yet a share in the son of Jesse,’ say the rebels under both David and Rehoboam. We should not be surprised, returning to Romans for a moment, that when Paul starts and ends a long argument with a statement that Jesus is the true son of David, the true ‘root of Jesse,’ a good portion of it should turn out to be an exposition of what it means to be in the Messiah, to belong to the people who are summed up ‘in him’…he also regularly speaks of people entering into the Messiah’s people, that is, coming into Christ, as a result of which they are now in Christ, so that what is true of him is true of them, and vice versa (italics his). [1]

Importantly, Wright draws his theology of union with Christ from the Old Testament, and particularly, from the mouths of those speaking against the Lord’s anointed, David.  Wright’s emphasis here is of utmost importance as it stresses his oft heard mantra that the Covenant Lord has enacted an “Israel-shaped” salvation, and that our understanding of Christology should be formed in that particular light, and no other. Moreover, as seen from the aformentioned quotation, for Wright, and for us, union with the covenant head, God’s Messiah to his people, is the way in which the people of God appropriate the benefits of the Messiah’s work.[2]  Similarly, in our own tradition, Calvin made union with Christ central to Christian theology, saying,             

Therefore, that joining together of Head and members, that indwelling of Christ in our hearts – in short, that mystical union – are accorded by us the highest degree of importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed.  We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body – in short, because he deigns to make us one with him (italics mine).[3] 

We see here a fundamental agreement that for both Wright and Calvin, being “in Christ” was the way in which, in Wright’s terms, “what is true of the Messiah is true of us,” or in Calvlin’s terms, we become “sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed.” Indeed, at one point elswhere, Wright makes it sound as though his theology of union with Christ gives us all the benefits of imputation, saying: 

The imputation of Christ’s righteousness is one of the big sticking points for sure. I think I know exactly what the doctrine is about and I believe you don’t lose anything by the route I propose. The force of what  people have believed when they have used the idea of imputation is completely retained in what I have tried to do. Why? Because in Christ we have all the treasures, not only of wisdom and knowledge (Col.1 and 1 Cor.1), but in whom we have the entire package, meaning sanctification and wisdom, as well as righteousness. So Paul’s theology of being in Christ gives you all of that (italics mine).[4]  

Problematically, though, elsewhere Wright clearly states that it is not the righteousness of Christ that is reckoned to believers through union with him, but rather, his death and resurrection, saying, “Since what is true of the Messiah is true of his people, all those who are ‘in the Messiah’ by baptism and faith have his death and resurrection reckoned to them so that when God looks at them, he sees Calvary and Easter…This being-in-Christ, indwelt by the Spirit, is the means by which the PRESENT declaration of ‘in the right’ truly anticipates the future one” (italics mine).[5]  We would certainly agree with Wright here in many regards.  Yes, our present justification has an eschatological thrust to it, as it anticipates our future, final justification in Christ.  And yes, when we are united to Christ by faith, the Father looks on us and sees “Calvary and Easter,” that we have died with his Son and have been raised to life in him, but there is much more.  Wright does not take union with Christ far enough.[6]  Essentially, Wright truncates our union with him to dealing only with the climax of Christ’s ministry, that is, his death and resurrection.  It seems that this is largely because of his apparent agnosticism regarding the importance of Christ’s active obedience.  Yet, and here is the discrepancy, with great frequency Wright claims that the believer will be judged based on “the whole life lived,”[7] and that what is true of the Messiah is true of his people, “and vice versa.“[8]  Would not, then, the worthiness of Christ’s obedience not also have been based on “his whole life lived”?  This is certainly what Paul seems to be saying in 2 Corinthians 5.21, declaring that the sinless one has become our sin that in him we might become God’s righteousness.  Moreover, this seems to be what the Gospel writers are declaring as well, as they explicitly put forth Jesus as the one faithful Israelite not only in his obedience to God’s plan of salvation (i.e. the cross), as Wright says, but also in his earthly ministry, as in his perfect obedience during his wilderness temptation (Mt.4, Lk.4).  The Gospels go to great lengths to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of what Isaiah called God’s “righteous servant” (Isa.53.11), and as such, he is the one who can stand in where Israel (and all people), have failed, in order that he might be punished for their sin, while they inherit the benefits of his righteousness. Though there is much more to say, we must conclude here. It seems as though the breakdown in Wright’s theology of union with Christ is that he does not integrate Paul’s concept of union with Christ with the rest of the Christology of the New Testament, or, for that matter, Paul’s own Christology (e.g. 2 Cor.5.21).  As stated before, the Gospel accounts testify to the importance of Christ’s active and passive obedience, as does the book of Hebrews (e.g. Heb.4.15), that make him our perfect substitute, and therefore through union with him, the Father sees not our sin, but his righteousness upon us.  

[1] N.T. Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 46.

[2] Elsewhere Wright develops this more: “I might be prepared to say ‘imputation’…in a passage like Romans 6, where the logic runs: by baptism, you are ‘in Christ’; therefore what is true of Christ is true of you; therefore, specifically, his death and resurrection are true of you…the ‘reckoning’ thus takes place within, and as a part of, incorporation into the people of the Messiah.” This is taken from an online question and answer page, available athttp://home.hiwaay.net/~kbush/Wrightsaid_March2004.html as quoted in Rich Lusk, “Bombing the Theologian’s Playground: An Extended Review of N.T. Wright’s Romans Commentary,” 36 n.67, available at http://www.trinity-pres.net/essays/bombing-theologians_Wright-review.pdf.

[3]  John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), III.xi.10.; cf. also Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, reprint 2001), 32-34

[4] From Travis Tamerius, A Reformation & Revival Journal. Interview with N.T. Wright, Part Two, Reformation and Revival Journal 11:2 (Spring 2002): 137-54, as quoted in “N.T. Wright – A Westminster Seminary Perspective” by Douglas Green, 4 n.13, available at http://phil.mpc.org.au/articles/green.pdf.

[5] Cf. http://home.hiwaay.net/~kbush/Wrightsaid_March2004.html as quoted in Lusk, 36.

[6] Cf. Green, “A Westminster Perspective”, 7.

[7] Wright, Paul, 57.

[8] Ibid., 46.