Precisely out of his fathomless love the creator God sent his own Son not simply to share in the mess and muddle of our human existence, but to take upon himself the task of being the place where God would pass judicial sentence upon sin itself, sin as a fact, sin as a deadly power, sin as the poisonous snake whose bite means death itself. –N.T. Wright
Restoring Genuine Humanness…
N.T Wright says:
But the whole point of the Gospels is that the coming of God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven is precisely not the imposition of an alien and dehumanizing tyranny, but rather the confrontation of alien and dehumanizing tyrannies with the news of a God—the God recognized in Jesus—who is radically different from them all, and whose in-breaking justice aims at rescuing and restoring genuine humanness…
N.T. Wright Clarifies…
When I used the word ‘basis’ (as I obviously did — when I was preparing for the conference I was surrounded by unopened boxes and all the stuff of moving house, so couldn’t check; and I knew I hadn’t taken the theological position that the Piperites were accusing me of), I was not meaning it in that strict and narrow sense. I was using it in the way people speak of being justified in the present ‘on the basis of faith’–which a lot of people do say without intending any heresy!, but which we know is shorthand for ‘on the basis of God’s action in Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, and by the work of the Spirit through the proclamation of the gospel which leads to . . . faith’. Phew! In other words, I wasn’t meaning ‘this and only this, without reference to Jesus and the Spirit’. I was meaning — as I make abundantly clear in several passages — that Paul insists in Romans 2 and elsewhere that ‘to those who by patience in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life’. Again and again over decades I have stressed to students, readers, and anyone else who will listen, that this isn’t a proposal for a Pelagian-style self-effort moralistic auto-justification, such as everyone from Augustine to Luther and beyond declared to be off limits. It’s a way of saying — which Paul then elaborates as the letter goes on — that when the Spirit works in someone’s life the transformation which is effected will show up in a changed direction, a different tenor of life, which, even though not perfect (Philippians 3.12-16), nevertheless indicates the work of the Spirit.
{HT: The Ugley Vicar}
Peter Leithart’s Critique of Wright vs. Shreiner debate
At ETS last week, the Toms – Schreiner and Wright – debated Paul and justification, along with Frank Thielman. The discussion was illuminating on many points, but on one central point it frustratingly kept missing the point.
Schreiner accused Wright of a false dichotomy between soteriological and ecclesiological emphases in Paul, arguing for a both-and instead of an either-or. Amen! But Schreiner himself pretty much kept the dichotomy intact, simply tilting the balance over in favor of soteriology rather than ecclesiology.
The debate ended up a fruitless debate over “emphasis” and “priority,” and was really a debate about individual v. corporate emphases in Paul. Schreiner, as a Baptist, naturally wants to put the individual front and center; Wright, as an Anglican, has a more churchly reading of Paul.
Two responses: Why are we using systematic theological terms like soteriology and ecclesiology to expound Paul in the first place? Did he think in those terms? And, more importantly, the only way to really break through the dichotomy that Schreiner rightly rejects is to raise questions about the category of “individual.” If persons are relational, then there simply is no non-corporate salvation, nor non-soteriological corporate life in Christ.
Wright the VanTillian
Stewart summarizes:
Wright stresses that ʻwe cannot stand outside our own worldviews, any more than we can see without our own eyes.
Story or Propositions?
Wright does not discourage either philosophical reflection upon the biblical story or systematic theologizing. What he does reject is beginning with theological propositions and moving to the story, rather than approaching theology from the foundation of story.
N.T. Wright and Worldviews
Robert Stewart summarizes N. T. Wright’s view of worldviews by stating that for Wright “worldviews are never understood individually until they have first been understood corporately.”
N.T. Wright on Pentecost
There’s an old chorus which begins, ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in his wonderful face’. That’s a great invitation, but sadly it goes on ‘and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.’ There is a truth in that, but actually in today’s gospel a very different note is sounded: when we look fully at Jesus, risen, ascended and glorified, and when Jesus sends his Spirit on his people, then the things of earth will be seen in a new, sharp and properly disturbing light. And instead of escaping from the world, retreating like an embarrassed chameleon to one colour-field only, we are sent into the world, not to take on its colour but to reveal the new combined reality of heaven and earth, to live in that reality – which we do in sacrament here, and in service outside – and to declare to the awkward and unready world that Jesus is Lord. Pentecost is the end of the great cycle of events that began with Advent; but it is of course the beginning of the new world, the world of God’s kingdom, of his combined heaven-and-earth reality, the world in which, by praise and prayer and prophecy, we are now called to live without embarrassment and to love without measure.
Debating the New Perspective
In light of John Piper’s eight-month leave of absence from his ministry beginning in May, Dr. Tom Schreiner will be taking his place in the November debate at ETS. Shreiner will replace Piper in a debate against Bishop of Durham, N.T. Wright.