GETTING THE GOSPEL RIGHT
Assessing the Reformation and the New Perspectives on Paul
By Cornelius P. Venema. Banner of Truth. 92 pages. £5.50
ISBN 0 85151 927 X
Martin Luther described the doctrine of justification by faith as the belief by which the church stands or falls. Given its central place in evangelical belief its comes as no surprise that from time to time it comes under some form of attack.
During the last few decades that attack has come in the guise of ‘New Perspectives’. Its origins can be traced back to E.P. Sanders’s seminal work Paul and Palestinian Judaism, in which Sanders argued against the common misunderstanding (in his view) of Judaism in the New Testament period as being one driven by ‘a righteousness of works’. He argued instead that the contemporary literature reflects a belief in salvation by grace, but one that stayed in the covenantal community by obedience to the law. This he dubbed ‘covenantal nomism’. More recently this thesis has been developed by two notable British scholars, J.D.G. Dunn and N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham. Dunn argues that Paul’s main objection to Judaism was its Jewish exclusivism, and that the works of the law served as boundary markers, not that keeping the law was a means of procuring God’s favour. Wright takes this further and cites perverted nationalism as the problem Paul addresses, especially in Galatians, and that the ‘righteousness of God’ refers to God acting on behalf of the needy, not something which is imputed to Christian believers. For Wright the main issue is not a soteriological one (how are we put right with God?), but an ecclesiological one (to which group do we properly belong?).
