Very Brief Perspectives on the “New Perspectives”

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

N.T. Wright’s Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (InterVarsity, 2009) is Wright’s latest and most definitive reply to his critics – including John Piper, The Future of Justification (Crossway, 2007) – in the ongoing debate on the “New Perspectives” on Paul. My general sense is that Wright is basically “right” in what he affirms – placing justification in the context of the Abrahamic covenant, and integrating it with the other crucial biblical themes of resurrection, adoption, the Spirit, and eschatology – but less than “right” in what he denies or appears to downplay: imputed righteousness, penal substitution, the active obedience of Christ, and righteousness as a moral quality (vs. “covenant faithfulness”) for both God and man.

Wright’s reading of Romans and Galatians and the other Pauline epistles is certainly correct in calling fresh attention to Paul’s situating of justification squarely in the context of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen.15), and seeing this covenant as fulfilled in Christ, the true “seed” of Abraham, who fulfills the covenant through his atoning death and resurrection from the dead. Justification is not only a “courtroom” or forensic reality, but also dynamically and integrally connected with the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom.4:25) and the reception of the Holy Spirit through faith in the crucified and risen Messiah (Gal.3:2). The justified ones, who receive the Spirit, are indeed seen to be the true sons of Abraham, and heirs of the promise (Gal.3:26), full members of the one people of God. Systematic theologians need to give fresh attention to these important biblical-theological connections being highlighted by Wright and other “New Perspective” exegetes.

On the other hand, Wright seems to over-react to the “merit-theology” of late medieval Catholicism that constituted the historical context in which the Protestant reformers formulated their understanding of justification. The context in which Luther and Calvin read and applied the book of Romans was not a first-century context in which the main issues were the observance of circumcision and dietary laws as conditions of table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles; their context was one in which categories of merit, indulgences, purgatory, the sacrifice of the mass, and the grounds and nature of forgiveness of sins framed the burning soteriological issues of the day. As an exegete Wright is “right” to focus on the biblical texts in their first-century contexts; Luther and Calvin, as historical and systematic theologians, were right in applying the texts to the issues and categories of their own sixteenth-century time and culture. (At the very end, though, Wright does say that “Everything that Luther and Calvin wanted to achieve is within this glorious Pauline framework of thought” [as Wright understands it], p.252.)

The concept of imputation is well grounded in Paul (e.g., 9 occurrences of logizomai, “credit” in Rom.4). The “righteousness of God” indeed includes “covenant faithfulness”, but this expression of God’s righteousness is more fundamentally and essentially grounded in the eternal character and nature of God himself as a just and morally perfect being. This “righteousness of God” is expressed in scripture in many texts (e.g., Ps.9:8; 98:9; 99:4; 103:6) that portray God as the righteous judge who condemns the guilty and vindicates the innocent. The concept of righteousness is in fact connected with obedience in the Law of Moses (Deut.6:25: “If we are careful to obey all this law … as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness”). At the human level righteousness can indeed describe a person’s moral and ethical character (e.g., Cornelius as a righteous Gentile, Acts 10:22). Christ did in fact obey all the divine requirements of the law of Moses, and our mystical union with him (“in Christ”) is the theological reality on the basis of which both the active and passive obedience of Christ can be credited to the believer.

Some of Wright’s critics have suggested that his highly nuanced reading of Paul’s doctrine of justification is so complicated that it is too difficult to preach and teach in the church. There may be some truth in this criticism. We could do well to follow the apostle’s own example of how to preach justification, as depicted by Luke in Acts 13:37,38, during the first missionary journey in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch: “… through Jesus the forgiveness of sins in proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.” Indeed, the “cash value” of justification is that through faith in Jesus Christ, as God’s crucified and risen Messiah, our sins are forgiven, and God the righteous judge declares us “not guilty” in the sight of the law. This is indeed good news for those who are welcomed back to the family of God as his forgiven sons and daughters, given the gift of the Spirit, and made heirs of all the promises given to Abraham, the father of us all.

[For occasional notes on recent books and articles on theology, ethics, and current affairs, see my page at twitter.com/drjackdavis]

Codex Moment

By Sean McDonough, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

Regular readers of Every Thought Captive are likely interested, in one way or another, in the intellectual life of the church (anyone who wandered to this url while looking for Jonas Brothers ringtones or Red Sox updates can just consider all of this a kind of field trip to the Boring Zoo). So they may be less surprised than others that I recently found great inspiration in an article on early Christian use of the codex by Graham Stanton in his book Jesus and Gospel.

The title of the article is “Why Were Early Christians Addicted to the Codex?”¹ It refers to the remarkable early Christian preference for book-like documents (codices) over the generally more popular scroll form. He puts forward the thesis that the church’s addiction to codices stemmed from its prior use of codex-like notebooks which “were used by the very first followers of Jesus for excerpts from Scripture, for drafts and copies of letters, and perhaps even for the transmission of some Jesus traditions” (Jesus and Gospel, p.6).

Stanton’s thesis seems quite plausible to me, but his precise reconstruction was not what struck me. It was instead the image of these early Christians – apostles, associates, couriers, scribes – running around the Mediterranean with their back-pack full of sermon notes and Scripture passages and who knows what else…rather like the modern-day seminary student (without the laptop). The church was not only thinking and preaching about the revelation of God in Christ from the beginning – they were also engaged in at least a simple form of academic endeavor involving the written word.

None of this will be particularly earth-shattering to even the beginning seminary student: Paul’s note in 2 Tim. 4:13 (“When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments”) is enough to let us know of the importance of written documents in the early church. But there was something about the sheer physicality of Stanton’s discussion – the wax tablets and leather thongs and papyri – that brought home to me the reality of early Christian scholarly work.

Scholarship is not always valued in society at large, and sometimes it is valued even less in the church. We can often have the haunting feeling (especially when we are convincing ourselves that looking at the Greek text is not critical for this sermon preparation, or that no possible good could come from my memorization of hollow Hebrew verbs) that Christian academic work is a late, unnecessary addition to the pristine faith, a kind of luxury option that ought to be eschewed in favor of more pressing matters.

It is encouraging to know that right from the beginning Christians have been doing what most of us reading this column are doing: laboring for the gospel by our careful preservation of the gospel tradition. It may involve literal note-taking in little books not all that different from the ones used in the first-century; or posting some relevant biblical background on the church web-site; or writing a lengthy monograph on verbal aspect in Koine Greek. Scholarly work is not all the church should do; but it is a vital part of the life of God’s people. It is a privilege to teach at an institution where that tradition is maintained.

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¹ You can get at least a taste of the article at http://books.google.com/books?id=A7wNGMrAiD0C&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=stanton+why+were+early+christians+addicted+to+the+codex&source=bl&ots=2302WSOs_0&sig=qiNHpTozF_IA2dm_FVGgo-oUSMg&hl=en&ei=-d9xSvjgA47aNri76LAM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1.

Reflections on a Teaching Trip to the Philippines

By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

Jeff Arthurs and I just returned from a 10-day trip to Quezon City (part of Greater Manila) in the Philippines. We each taught a course at CBS-Asia (Conservative Baptist Seminary – Asia). Jeff taught Advanced Preaching and I taught Introduction to New Testament Theology. We also gave a day-long seminar on The Pastor as Preacher and Theologian. (Jeff also spoke at the dedication of the seminary’s new facilities and preached twice on Sunday.) It was my first time in the Philippines and I thought I would share some observations about ministry there. I am still processing my cultural observations. Filipinos are very friendly people and extremely service oriented. They seem especially interested in pleasing and serving Americans (perhaps other Western Europeans as well). Jeff and I were greeted with great enthusiasm wherever we went (especially the local McDonalds [where we could find a free WiFi connection], where we were met by a chorus of “Good morning, sir!” from the employees, as well as having the armed security guard opening the door for us and greet us). (Manila seems to have more McDonalds per square mile than any other place I know of.)

We attended (and Jeff preached at) a Baptist church on Sunday that felt just like many Baptist churches in the States. Everything was in impeccable English (the church has separate English and Tagalog services), and the music was familiar to me from contemporary worship experiences in the U.S. The style was mainly contemporary, although perhaps slightly less “seeker-friendly” than many American churches using contemporary worship styles). Visitors were asked to identify themselves by standing up and then the congregation sang a song of welcome to them. (I noticed at least one visitor who indicated they would prefer not to stand and receive the attention.) I felt as though I could have been almost anywhere in the United States (which made me wonder whether and/or how a church might incarnate the gospel in distinctively Filipino manner). I wish I had had the opportunity to attend the Tagalog service to see what that was like.

The music at the dedication of the seminary facilities consisted mainly of hymns (with, as I recall, an older worship chorus or two [from the 60’s or 70’s] mixed in). During our time at the seminary, when we were not teaching the language tended to consist of Tagalog with English phrases (and Spanish loan-words) sprinkled in. I wonder how many churches in the Manila area have services that are more or less completely in American English and how many have worship services in Tagalog (or separate services in each language, as at the church we attended).

The area where we stayed and taught had several huge, modern shopping malls, but was also full of signs of serious poverty. Shanty towns and modern apartment and other housing are found beside each other. Christian cults have very large followings. At least one heterodox church (denying the deity of Christ) broadcasts its message 24-7 on multiple TV channels and has a huge and impressive church building in the city. We were told that since these groups tend to vote as a block their votes are eagerly courted by politicians, giving them greater political influence than their numbers would normally merit.

The students in our courses traveled from significant distances to spend a week in Quezon City, taking eight hours of class each day. I was impressed by their dedication and hard work and the sacrifices they were willing to make for the sake of their theological and pastoral training. Biblical theology was a new discipline for them but they were eager and enthusiastic students. They asked great questions and demonstrated the qualities of passionate and critical Christian minds.

CBS-Asia has a gifted, creative and dedicated leadership team and what seems to be an effective strategy for providing its pastors with a serious theological education. They have a main campus and a series of Regional Training Centers to which its faculty travel to provide pastors and other leaders with more local access to such training.

Pastors and seminaries in the Philippines certainly need tremendous wisdom and integrity to serve as effective and godly leaders (and places of pastoral formation) in a place with as many social, cultural and spiritual challenges as the Philippines. Discerning how to preach and incarnate the gospel message in such a culturally diverse environment marked by such radical socio-economic, linguistic and other differences is a great challenge. Those committed to the advancement of God’s kingdom purposes in such contexts certainly deserve our prayers as well as whatever other support we might offer members of our extended family in Christ. It was a privilege to work with and learn from such godly and committed servants of Christ during our time there. May God continue to use them to advance the cause of Christ in biblical and Spirit-empowered ways that might serve as an example to others around the world as well!

Above Reproach

By Maria Boccia, PhD
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology and
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling at the Charlotte campus

I don’t know about the rest of the country, but here in Charlotte, one cannot turn around without reading or hearing something about the exploits of South Carolina’s governor, Mark Sanford. He got into the news because he disappeared for five days without letting anyone know where he was going. Turned out, he flew to Argentina for a tryst with his mistress. Now, there is an urgent investigation of his performance as governor, calls for his resignation, and speculation about the state and future of his marriage. After several weeks of this, he refuses to resign, and says that his spiritual advisor has helped him see the light, that he has violated God’s law, but intends to reconcile with his wife. And, he will not resign because God works all things together for good.

God works through broken people. Aaron made the golden calf, and later God called him to be Israel’s first high priest. David committed adultery and murder with Bathsheba and God called him friend and made David and Bathsheba ancestors of Jesus. Peter denied Christ three times, and Jesus called him to feed his sheep. Paul persecuted the church, and God made him the apostle to the gentiles and writer of much of the New Testament.

And yet. James warns that leaders of the church, teachers in particular, will be held to a greater judgment, and cautions against too easily taking on these responsibilities. In 1 Timothy and Titus, Paul gives instructions about the leadership of the local churches in Ephesus and Crete. He says leaders of the church are to be above reproach. For example, in Titus Paul writes:

An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. (Titus 1:6-9, TNIV)

How do we understand these disparate lessons from Scripture, and how do we apply this in the life of the church, in the face of struggling and/or fallen leaders? Do we embrace fallen leaders and encourage them to continue their ministries or disqualify them because of their error?

Closer look at the stories of some of these individuals in Scripture might help. The fallen leaders in these stories go through a process of removal from leadership and spiritual restoration. For example, after Paul’s conversion he did not immediately become the apostle to the gentiles. He withdrew to Arabia for 3 years. Peter went through a restoration process with Jesus himself after his resurrection. Aaron went through serious judgment, and it was at least a year between the golden calf incident and his anointing as high priest. Still, one can feel the tension between the highest standards we are called to in 1 Timothy and Titus, and God’s grace and mercy to all sinners, including church leaders. The challenge and the solution, I think, as with many things is to find a way to hold these two things in a dynamic tension that allows God to work in our lives.

This feels like the same tension we encounter in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ teaching is directed at his followers, and he calls us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). It is an incredibly high standard. How can we, in our fallen, imperfect condition be perfect this side of heaven? We strive to be the people God calls us to be, empowered by his Holy Spirit, knowing that only in him can we be what he calls us to be. And when we fall short, we fall on the mercy of God, repent and seek reformation.

For me, when I see a situation where a leader gets into trouble, it has a lot to do with the response of the leader and the process they go through before they continue or resume their leadership. We know the tree by the fruit it bears. Do they truly get it, and repent of their sin? Do they understand the value of and pursue a course of withdrawing for a time to pursue healing? Do they show the fruit of repentance in a changed life? We can identify too many leaders of the church who, like Sanford, refuse to withdraw from leadership to pursue healing and spiritual renewal. We have a responsibility to come along side fallen leaders, to hold them accountable, to protect the people, and to restore them as much as possible. But we also have the responsibility to guard the church leadership by not restoring too quickly one who has fallen. It is in evidence of a changed life, in endurance and persistence that the truth is found.

Tenacious Faith

By Jeff Arthurs
Professor of Preaching & Communication and Dean of the Chapel

I've been a Christian since 1972—37 years! You'd think I would be farther along in the faith, wouldn't you? But as the poet Wordsworth said, "The world is too much with us." Or better, as the Apostle Paul said, "that which I want to do, I don't do; and that which I don't want to do, I find myself doing. . . . Who will deliver me from this body of death?" The answer, of course, is "God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Here is a prayer to God for deliverance. It is a sonnet. It asks the Lord for something I crave yet experience only sporadically—the happy, free, seemingly effortless faith I see in so many of my friends. Belief for them seems to be as easy as breathing, but for me it always has been a stretch.

Tenacious Faith

Tenacious faith I know and yet begrudge.
I’d like a faith of ecstasy and cheer,
Or even faith of penitence and fear
Of God, the omnipresent Father-Judge.
Easy faith, happy faith—a call,
A gift? Why not mine? My walk is fretful
Fumble-feeling, wander-wondering, wishful
Stumble-striving for that plane where Paul
(And others) seem to live ebulliently.
He (and they) feel sure that neither life,
Nor death, nor angels, no, not this world rife
With powers may undo capriciously.
Increase my faith, my Lord (I do believe).
Send rain to this dry land: revive, relieve!

The Third Little Sister of Public Commitment

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

I can’t recall the moment exactly, except that it seemed more like something that had already been going on for sometime, only it became more vivid now. It was an impression, an inner voice, perhaps, a nagging sensation that rose from somewhere within myself that finally pooled itself into a commitment. Whatever it was, it did not originate with me, that I knew somehow. At that moment, I knew I was only responding—irresistibly--to something or Someone outside myself.

To this day, I wonder how that newly formulated commitment would have grown and flourished if I had not had opportunity to give witness to it in front of that humble rural Midwestern church of mine that crisp autumn evening as a boy of seven years old. There was something about looking into the eyes of my newly formed family of brothers and sisters in Christ that made my newly shaped commitment all the more real. Like sun hitting freshly mixed cement, it fixed my response to that inner voice into something very real. And, it did something else. It seemed to leave quite an impression in the eyes of those who heard me stumble my way through a public acknowledgement of my commitment-in-the-making.

I am not sure I believe in altar calls anymore. I don’t know why, except that I probably find myself reacting to times when I have observed the whole enterprise as contrived and, at times, abused. But, if altar calls are no longer in vogue in our churches, how else do brothers and sisters in Christ have opportunity to regularly express the inner work of God in their lives for their own benefit? And, where else does the Body, in turn, have opportunity to regularly benefit from seeing faith being exercised in others?

If my memory serves me right, altar calls were really more than just expressions of salvation. In my early tradition, the call to salvation was one of a trinity of pubic calls to commitment. The opportunity included not only an invitation to express one’s response to God’s call to salvation, but also to sanctification and service.

This third little sister of the altar call is what I want to focus on for a moment. How do our churches own their own leadership, not only in the present but also for the future? More specifically, to what extent do pastors feel responsible for training the future leadership of the Church? I think it is a lost art for most of us. It is no longer on the radar of many of us as we scan across our sanctuaries every Sunday morning.

By contrast, for several years I served a three hundred year old Congregational church where the two first pastors were so committed to the future of the young colonial Church, they actually built a third floor to their house to house ministers-in-the-making. So committed they were to identifying and nurturing a new generation of ministers, they gave a significant amount of their time and energy every week to teaching their young charges. Imagine the impression that must have been made in these young people when a grown person of significant stature came along side of them and affirmed in them personal and leadership qualities that they didn’t yet recognize in themselves. But, who better is there to identify these traits for ministry than those already in ministry?

I suppose the reason this third little sister of the altar call is on my mind right now is because we are midway through a Lilly-funded program that I direct at the Ockenga Institute called the Compass program. Every year we invite pastors to identify high school students who they feel might have qualities necessary for a life of full time service to the Church. And every year, we invite these young charges—twenty-seven of them--to spend one month with us to explore these potential calls of God in their lives through a rigorous three-fold, one-month experience. We put them in the wilderness (in the Adirondack Mountains), the classroom with our own faculty, and on a mission field to serve (this year in Costa Rica). And then we send them back to their home churches for pastors and lay leaders to further mentor them for the next three years as these students continue to explore God’s call in their lives.

It has been a wonderful program, in part because commitments, I think, left solely to the inner rumination of our subjective lives, often remain dormant and colorless. It is when they see the light of day, fleshed out and affirmed publicly by the Body of Christ, that they become vibrant and full of color. If you have a young person in mind that you sense has this kind of calling, give me a call at the seminary. Perhaps we can partner with you in nurturing these commitments to full life. My goodness, I think I just gave an altar call!

The Ark of God in the Hands of the Philistines

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

In recent Old Testament daily readings (I Sam.4 &5) we have stories that remind us of some of the all-time low points in the history of God’s people. The ark of the covenant in Shiloh, the center of divine worship and the place of God’s presence, has been captured by the Philistines. Thirty thousand Israelite soldiers had been slaughtered in a devastating military defeat. Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli and the corrupt religious leaders of the day, have been killed in battle. Eli the high priest, the highest level of leadership in the nation, falls dead at age ninety-eight. His daughter-in-law dies in childbirth, giving her newborn son the name of “Ichabod” – “the glory has departed” – tragically descriptive of the spiritual state of Israel at this time. Israel was not to experience such a state of spiritual desolation again until 586 B.C., when Solomon’s temple was destroyed by the invading Babylonian armies, and the people sent into exile.

These are the spiritual conditions under which the boy Samuel, the future leader of Israel was being raised. As we look around the troubled Anglican communion today, and consider the current state of the Episcopal Church, we may feel that “the ark of God is in the hands of the Philistines” and that God has written “Ichabod” across the doorways of the denomination’s headquarters.

God brought judgment on the faithless religious leaders of Samuel’s day, and is still able to do so now. The sovereign God was able to defend his own cause and honor, and to bring his ark back to a place of safety (I Sam.6). God remained faithful to his people despite their sins, and from the dark days of Eli was able to bring new hope and spiritual vitality through his faithful servants Samuel and David.

God’s call to Samuel was not to abandon the ark of the covenant and to start over, but to remain faithful to the God of the covenant who was able to bring light out of the darkness. Let us not allow the dark days in the Episcopal Church cause us to forget the lessons of this Old Testament history: the God of the covenant is able to preserve and protect his faithful people in the midst of the most desolate conditions, and bring to his people to a better place of spiritual vitality and hope.

As God’s people we are called to persevere in the midst of troubled times, for “God is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (Jude 24).