A review of "What Saint Paul Really Said" by NT Wright

This is the first time I've actually read NT Wright, and I have been told that his other works clarify some of my criticisms. Nonetheless, I thought this would be useful as a quick and dirty summary for those unfamiliar with Wright. I must admit that I am still confused by some of the things he wrote.. Anyways, this review was done in a huff all the way into the wee hours of Monday! So, I am sure it is really bad... :-)

Introduction

1. Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, wrote this book, to “clear a path through to the St Paul of history”. In this book, Wright wrestles with Rudolph Bultman, W. D. Davies, Ernst Kasemann, E P Sanders, and A. N. Wilson, and their conflicting portrayals of Paul. He discusses whether Paul wrote out of a Jewish or Hellenistic context, his role in the foundation of Christianity, and the centre of his theology. Wright thus paints for us a portrait of Paul, his culture, context, influences and affiliations.

2. Wright boldly claims a redefinition of the Christian message. He cuts through history and theology, and proposes a redefinition of such foundational themes of the Bible such as ‘the Gospel’, ‘the righteousness of God’, and ‘Justification’, and in the process clashes, the likes of Augustine, Luther and Calvin.

Paul writes out of his Jewish context

3. Wright argues that Paul is a Shammaite Pharisee, one of the “strictest of the strict”, zealous for Israel’s God and for the Torah. His intention was thus that he and others kept Torah so wholeheartedly, that they would be marked out as those who would be vindicated when YHWH finally acted to save his people.

4. Encountering the risen Christ, Saul of Tarsus came to see that Israel’s destiny had now been achieved in Jesus the Messiah. God had done for Jesus of Nazareth, what Saul had thought he was going to do for Israel. Thus, although Paul came to this new perspective, he remained rooted within his previous covenantal theology. In that process, Wright makes the following clarifications:

‘The Gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved, but the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ

5. Paul is of the view that what the world needed was precisely the Jewish message of God’s covenantal promise to restore Israel, fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah. Thus, Paul still maintains his (Jewish) relentless opposition to paganism, and zealous promotion of Torah observance, but with a radical change in emphasis, to see that all this fulfilled in Christ, for Israel. Simply put, Israel is redeemed in the person of Jesus, and humankind is redeemed, through Jesus, so that the image of God may be restored.

6. ‘The gospel’ is not a system of thought or techniques for making people Christians, but rather the personal announcement of the person of Jesus. Preaching the gospel, to Wright, thus means announcing Jesus as Lord of the world, and seeking to bring that Lordship to bear over every aspect of the world.

‘The righteousness of God’ should not be understood as a law-court metaphor only, but in terms of God’s covenant faithfulness

7. Following his redefinition of “Gospel”, he redefines “the righteousness of God”. Against the understanding of “the righteousness of God” as ‘imputed’ and ‘imparted’, Wright argues that God’s righteousness can only mean God’s own moral quality, expressed in His covenant faithfulness.

8. This covenant faithfulness is expressed, in God’s active power to deal with evil, to save his people, and to do so with impartiality, through delivering his people from oppression. Thus to Wright, you cannot play of God’s justice against His love. God’s justice is His love in action to right the wrongs of his suffering world by taking the weight upon Him.

‘Justification’ is not a matter of how you get saved, but how you tell who was already saved

9. A person comes into relationship with the living God when ‘the Gospel’ in terms of the Lordship of Christ is announced to them, and through this means, God works by His Spirit upon their hearts, and as a result, they come to believe the message, and they join the Christian community through baptism, and begin to share in its common life and its common way of life.

10. Thus, to Wright, ‘justification’ is redefined from how someone enters the community of God’s people, or how someone establishes a relationship with God, to rather how someone could tell that they were part of the community of the true people of God.

Evaluation and Reflections

11. Wright ably answers the charge that Paul distorts the message of Jesus, by painting an eschatological view of redemptive history, and showing the appropriate continuity between Jesus and Paul on the eschatological time-table. Although, he does present a helpful cosmic view of the continuity between God’s Covenant with Israel, and the church, which is ultimately fulfilled in the person of Jesus Chris, Wright seems to neglect the personal element of the gospel. The world is fallen because man, who was to have dominion over creation, disqualified himself through sin and rebellion. The world is “oppressed” because of personal sin. Following redemption through the blood of Christ, the blessings of redemption can flow through redeemed man to creation.

12. Wright’s redefinitions of ‘the Gospel’, ‘the righteousness of God’ and ‘justification’ are uncalled for. His argument that ‘the righteousness of God’ can only mean the moral quality that is in God, in no way ‘imputed’ or ‘imparted’ is weak, and flies against text as clear as 2 Corinthians 5:21, and Philippians 3:9. It is noble that he wants to preserve the righteousness of God as a moral quality of God, but does this necessitate cutting off the Biblical teachings of imputation and impartation?

13. His redefinition of ‘justification’ as a way of determining how one is already saved and not how one gets saved is confusing. For Wright, a person comes into relationship with the living God, by belief, baptism, and the sharing of the church’s common life. What then is ‘the message’ that needs to be believed for someone to be saved? If it is just that “Jesus is Lord”, how can that Lordship be expressed without the one Lorded over being crushed by the utter holiness of Christ in his sin? Surely Jesus is Lord, because he must also be Saviour? And because He is a mighty Saviour and Lord, who has dealt decisively with the sins of his people, does that not then free His people to live in grateful community, in life giving service, and in redemptive work for creation?

14. In conclusion, I have enjoyed reading Wright, and found him helpful in pointing us towards a bigger view of the Gospel. Yet, I am troubled, that he does not see his “expanded views” complementary to the more personal elements of the Gospel, but insists on redefining key salvific themes in Scripture. This dangerously maligns personal responsibility for sin, and the rightful righteous wrath of God against sin.