I hit “Fast Reply” - kind of ironic that it took me a while to find the reference.
[quote author="NTW"]One of Paul’s key phrases is ‘the obedience of faith’. Faith and obedience are not antithetical. They belong exactly together. Indeed, very often the word ‘faith’ itself could properly be translated as ‘faithfulness’, which makes the point just as well. Nor, of course, does this then compromise the gospel or justification, smuggling in ‘works’ by a back door. That would only be the case if the re-alignment I have been arguing for throughout were not grasped. Faith, even in this active sense, is never and in no way a qualification, provided from the human side, either for getting into God’s family or for staying there once in. It is the God-given badge of membership, neither more nor less. Holiness is the appropriate human condition for those who, by grace alone, find themselves as believing members of the family of God
(NTW, What Saint Paul Really Said, p160).
Then also what has already been quoted,
[quote author="NTW"]Present justification declares, on the basis of faith, what future justification will affirm publicly ...on the basis of the entire life.
(What Saint Paul Really Said, p129)
Let me try to unpack these two statements briefly.
i. Faith = Faithfulness = faith in Christ plus obedience (ie., holiness) = the badge (or sign?) of membership in God’s people. It’s the thing that demonstrates a person is part of God’s people.
ii. Because faith in the present demonstrates membership in God’s people that means God has (already) declared that the Christian is part of God’s people in the present. But faith is also faithfulness - obedience or holiness is an integral part of the definition of faith. Thus, future justification, at the end of time, means God will affirm (declare again??) publicly on the basis of the Christian’s life of faith/faithfulness/holiness
iii. So, although NTW protests against the criticism that his schema smuggles in ‘works’ via a back door, I don’t think he can escape that charge, given his comments above.
Jason, thanks for the clarification but it appears you’ve gone beyond what NTW has said.
[quote author="NTW"]One of Paul’s key phrases is ‘the obedience of faith’. Faith and obedience are not antithetical. They belong exactly together. Indeed, very often the word ‘faith’ itself could properly be translated as ‘faithfulness’, which makes the point just as well.
You’ve incorrectly generalised NTW’s very often to suggest that he always equates faith with faithfulness. That is where your logic has gone astray.
isn’t the truly Reformed thing to do to constantly question our doctrines in the light of Scripture.
Sounds brill.
Please supply three examples of how we ought to question the divinity of Jesus in the light of Scripture.
Of course we should question it in the light of scripture. I don’t know what you mean by examples. But as reformed Christians we should question the meaning of divinity in light of scripture, and yes, Jesus in light of scriture, and scripture will clearly tell us (I think) that Jesus is divine.
I’m struggling to understand what your question and its implication. Should we not question our doctrines in the light of scripture? Should I not question justification and faith in light of scripture?
I’m struggling to understand what your question and its implication. Should we not question our doctrines in the light of scripture? Should I not question justification and faith in light of scripture?
My point is that, once you have come to the point
*not only*
of deciding to give your life to the Lord Jesus through the confession of your rebellion and by the forgiveness of your sins (ie you are now a baby Christian),
*but also*
have reached the level of theological sophistication of understanding what it means to be Reformed, Protestant, and evangelical,
*and then in addition*
having thought through the issues prayerfully, with reference to Scripture, and in the context of reasonable and even good Bible teaching over a period of time
*then it follows that*
there are certain issues such as the divinity of the Lord Jesus that are, let’s face it, settled and not up for grabs, especially if you want to call yourself Reformed.
To suggest otherwise is just gameplaying,
And I’m arguing that a Lutheran understanding of justification is one of those things that is not up for grabs—at least if you want to keep claiming you stand in the Reformed tradition.
One of the consistently irritating things about NT Wright is his faux wounded air that occasionally comes out at the times when he is being critiqued for his non-Reformed view of justification, while he is still trying to place himself within the Reformed tradition.
He is entitled to attack the Reformed view of justification, of course, and he does so consistently and regularly. But he needs to drop the pretense of actually critiquing the Reformation understanding from within the movement. Maybe a lot of difficulty could be avoided if he was a bit more honest about not actually being Reformed in his theological understanding of justification (or church for that matter, or Scripture).
Then we can get to the meat of the debate and start asking whether his non-Reformation understanding of justification, which has many similarities to the Roman Catholic position, is an advance on the Reformed understanding of justification.
Hey Geoff, If I can suggest this gently, maybe this is the time where you do need to start doing some homework and reading the many primers that are available on NT Wright, both as linked on this and the other thread, and as available for example in the Briefing #229 and #230 (little plug there).
isn’t the truly Reformed thing to do to constantly question our doctrines in the light of Scripture.
Sounds brill.
Please supply three examples of how we ought to question the divinity of Jesus in the light of Scripture.
Gordon - you seem to mean ‘question’ in the form of ‘subject to withering and annihilating critique’. I mean to say that I must always examine my doctrine in the light of Scripture. In this sense, I continue to question the divinity of Jesus by reading scholars such as Hurtado and Bauckham, who have offered fresh insights into the biblical text. And yet I still affirm the Nicene Creed. Is there something wrong here? My questioning of the text is about honest searching. Inasmuch as Wright is seeking to honestly search, why can we not affirm that? If Scripture be perspicuous on the matter, then what have we to be afraid of his questions?
In the end, we affirm the divinity of Jesus because that is what Scripture says. If Scripture didn’t say it, I wouldn’t affirm it. I don’t see how that is radical - it is the very same procedure by which we argue our respective points on such contested issues as baptism, church governance and the like. The epistemological order on any doctrine is from Sola Scriptura as the basic foundation. Isn’t that what we mean by saying a doctrine is biblical?
Hey Geoff, If I can suggest this gently, maybe this is the time where you do need to start doing some homework and reading the many primers that are available on NT Wright, both as linked on this and the other thread, and as available for example in the Briefing #229 and #230 (little plug there).
I do see a need for this yeah. I’m off to college next year, so I’ve decided within myself that I’m not going to accept NT Wright’s view until I have a firm understanding of the traditional view of justification and faith. Hopefully 4 years of college will be able to help me do this.
So no matter how good NT Wright’s argument is, or even if he is right, I’m not going to change my mind until I understand my current position even better.
I’m not going immerse myself just yet in NT Wright either (unless it’s his stuff on Jesus, which I here is super), I was just keen to know what the implications of his thoughts on justification and faith are, which I am no closer to understanding.
So do Roman Catholics - believe faith is purely dependent on God’s grace (although they have a system of grace totally different from the Reformed view, and from NTW’s view of grace).
Without going too far off topic, for the broader discussion, it is probably worth clarifying that the normal Roman Catholic meaning of grace is significantly different to the Reformed meaning of that word.
In conversations with RC people, being aware of this difference can reduce the amount of speaking at cross purposes.
Ray Galea has a worthwhile section discussing this in his book:
Nothing in My Hand I Bring
Jason and others, NT Wright seems to want to redefine the meaning of some of our key Bible translation terms, does that also apply with the meaning of the word grace?
I do see a need for this yeah. I’m off to college next year, so I’ve decided within myself that I’m not going to accept NT Wright’s view until I have a firm understanding of the traditional view of justification and faith. Hopefully 4 years of college will be able to help me do this.
So no matter how good NT Wright’s argument is, or even if he is right, I’m not going to change my mind until I understand my current position even better.
Hi Geoff,
Look forward to meeting you when you get here (Moore I assume?) next year.
I wrote my New Testament essay this year on NT Wright’s understanding of Romans, and my advice is to take the various primers that are around the net with a grain of salt. I’ve read Wright at some length now and I’ve found that quite a lot of the primers written from the ‘reformed’ perspective don’t do him much justice. (Although there are some good ones floating around too.)
That’s not to say I agree with Wright. Going into the essay I was a little unsure of what all the fuss was about, and I might have even been leaning towards some of the New Perspective ideas. By the time I’d actually read Wright (especially his Romans commentary) I found that I had a much better grasp of the issues and a much firmer basis for my reformed understanding of justification.
I can forward you some of his less voluminous articles if you like. I found one of his articles called ‘New Exodus, New Inheritance: The Narrative Sub-structure of Romans 3-8’ was a good introduction to his thought world. The book ‘What St. Paul Really Said’ is OK, but it dodges the issue of justification intentionally and I don’t think you’ll get a good handle on Wright from that.
You wont tackle him in 1st year anyway, they choose New Testament books that avoid New Perspective issues for 1st year.
I wrote my New Testament essay this year on NT Wright’s understanding of Romans, and my advice is to take the various primers that are around the net with a grain of salt. I’ve read Wright at some length now and I’ve found that quite a lot of the primers written from the ‘reformed’ perspective don’t do him much justice. (Although there are some good ones floating around too.)
It goes without saying that primary sources are better than secondary. However the articles by Lig Duncan, Lionel Windsor and Rob Smith that have been recommended on this and the other long thread would be good starting points.
The book ‘What St. Paul Really Said’ is OK, but it dodges the issue of justification intentionally
which is a bit of a giveaway. On a pure number-crunching grunt exercise like word count, the vocabulary of ‘justification’ is by far and away the most significant way Paul has for talking about the cross of Christ. Why avoid it?
I’m off to college next year, so I’ve decided within myself that I’m not going to accept NT Wright’s view until I have a firm understanding of the traditional view of justification and faith. Hopefully 4 years of college will be able to help me do this.
Hello Geoff,
Sounds like a good plan. I would note though that in studying the doctrine of justification by faith alone--it is important to study the original doctrine of justification by faith alone taught by Luther, the Augsburg Confession, etc--which affirms among other things, the remission of sins in Baptism, deadly/mortal sin*, and the reality of falling from Salvation (and the Anglican Homilies concur with Luther, and the Historic Church on these issues in its expounding of justification by faith alone).
*[For clarification--while maintaining that all sins are mortal/deadly outside of Christ’s Blood, the distinction between non-deadly and deadly sins (or states of sin) simply affirms the Scriptural reality that a living, justifying faith cannot coexist with certain sins--and thus,when one falls into these sins a living faith is choked and ceases.]
<i>....Moved the rest of the post to the other thread.</i>
I realize this could rapidly go off topic quickly--so to avoid any direct responses to the substance of the post on this thread--if anyone wants to discuss this further please to do so in this New Thread:
http://your.sydneyanglicans.net/forums/viewthread/2905/
(I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to respond immediately to any posts because of schedule)
Jason, you suggest NTW is guilty of smuggling in “works” (which I would call merit-based salvation) on the basis of the following point from your summary:
Jason Hobba - 24 October 2007 01:24 AM
ii. Because faith in the present demonstrates membership in God’s people that means God has (already) declared that the Christian is part of God’s people in the present. But faith is also faithfulness - obedience or holiness is an integral part of the definition of faith. Thus, future justification, at the end of time, means God will affirm (declare again??) publicly on the basis of the Christian’s life of faith/faithfulness/holiness
but following this logic I think you’ll have to make the same accusation against Jesus (eg Matt 12:36-37, John 5:28-29) and pretty much all the NT authors (Rom 2:6-10, 2 Cor 5:12, 1 Peter 1:17, 1 Peter 3:10-12, 1 John 4:17).
Jason and others, NT Wright seems to want to redefine the meaning of some of our key Bible translation terms, does that also apply with the meaning of the word grace?
Unmerited favour and peace,
Terry
Terry,
Not as far as I’m aware. He seems reformed on his expression of grace.
You’ve incorrectly generalised NTW’s very often to suggest that he always equates faith with faithfulness. That is where your logic has gone astray.
C’mon, he’s English, and, in the typically understated English way, “very often” means always! ;)
Thanks for pointing out that he uses “very often”. In relation to Romans in “What Saint Paul...”, it appears that NTW does equate faith with faithfulness.
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