N.T. Wright’s “What St. Paul Really Said”

In preparation for reading John Piper’s The Future of Justification, I spent Thanksgiving reading N.T. Wright’s What Saint Paul Really Said. In ten short chapters, Wright lays out his understanding of first-century Judaism and Pauline theology. The exegesis is brief (to keep the book at 183 pages) but sufficient to make the point. Here is a chapter by chapter summary of this challenging book.

Chapter 1: Puzzling Over Paul. Key thought: The 20th-century has provided an abundance of Pauline scholarship with no consensus.

• Key 20th-Century Scholars: Schweitzer (Paul is a Jewish thinker, “being in Christ” is key), Bultmann (Paul is a Greek thinker who abandoned Judaism, “man under law” plight is key), Davies (Paul is Jewish), Kasemann (Paul is Jewish but critiques Judaism, justification is key), Sanders (Paul is Jewish but, like all Jews, not a legalist).
• Paul Today: Scholars generally agree that Paul is primarily a Jewish thinker. However, there is no consensus on the center of Paul’s theology or how Paul is to be applied today.

Chapter 2: Saul the Persecutor, Paul the Convert. Key thought: Saul was a Jewish theological and political zealot who believed Israel was still in exile. He was zealous in his opposition to paganism and in his promotion of Torah.

• Saul was a Shammaite Pharisee (”a militant right-winger”) who was zealous for a political/theological revolution to defeat pagans once and for all (See Gal. 1:13-14, 1 Cor. 15:9). He promoted Torah to honor God, to identify true covenant members, and to force the coming of YHWH.
• Saul was not “proto-Pelagian” because he wasn’t primarily concerned about a timeless system of salvation. Saul wanted God to fulfill His covenant which would redeem Israel and the entire world.
• Paul maintained this zeal after his conversion but now realized that Jesus is Lord/King/Messiah and is “the true bearer of Israel’s God-sent destiny.” Paul’s conversion gave him a new vocation: to be a herald of the King.

Chapter 3: Herald of the King. Key thought: The gospel, according to Paul, is that Jesus is Lord. It is not a system of how people get saved, but it does result in salvation!

• “The gospel” in the modern church refers to a system of salvation, it is “how an individual gets saved.” N.T. Wright is okay with this, he just doesn’t believe this is Paul’s view of “the gospel.”
• “The gospel” for Paul is “Jesus is Lord.” See Romans 1:1-5. This is a combination of both Jewish and Greek influences:
  • The OT uses the term “gospel” to refer to the plight of Israel in exile. The good news is that God will deliver Israel from exile. See Isaiah 40:9, 52:7.
  • Greeks used the term “gospel” to refer to either the coming of a new ruler or the victory of a king.
• The gospel “is not, then, a system of how people get saved.” It is a proclamation that Jesus is Lord, a victorious king who delivers his people. Accepting this proclamation (i.e. believing in Jesus as Lord) results in salvation.
• The crucified and risen Jesus is at the center of Pauline theology because these events vindicate him as Lord and King of all creation. Because of this, Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.

Chapter 4: Paul and Jesus. Key thought: Paul remains a monotheist but now understands God in terms of Father, Son, and Spirit.

• Jewish monotheism (Deut. 6) “was not an inner analysis of the being of the one true God.” Rather, it asserted that God was the God of the whole world (against pagan gods) and that God created the whole world (against a dualistic worldview). In this regard, God is transcendent and imminent.
• Jesus and the Spirit give a fuller expression to the one, true God.
  • Jesus: 1 Corinthians 8:6 echoes Deuteronomy 6:4 (God=Father, Lord=Jesus), Philippians 2:5-11 echoes Isaiah 45:23 (”every knee shall bow”), and Colossians 1:15-20 shows Jesus as Creator/Redeemer. Every time Jesus is called “Lord” challenges the pagan claims that Caesar is Lord and enhances a Jewish understanding of God (since “Lord” is always “YHWH” in LXX).
  • Spirit: Galatians 4:1-7, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, Romans 8:1-11.

Chapter 5: Good News for the Pagans. Key thought: Paul views his mission to the Gentiles as a part of Israel’s purpose and promise. As a part of this mission, Paul confronts pagans with the Jewish Messiah.

• Paul confronts pagans and says “that certain beliefs were untrue, that certain practices were dehumanizing and simply wrong, and that certain styles of community life were not how the creator God had intended people to function.” The good news of Jesus was that God loved them “and longed to remake them.”
• The reason why Paul confronts the pagans is that it is a part of Israel’s purpose and hope: Israel was always intended to be a blessing to the world. So Paul did not remake the message to suit a Gentile audience, he took the prophetic message and proclaimed it to Gentiles!
• When Paul criticizes Judaism, he does it as a prophetic insider like Isaiah and Jeremiah (see Gal. 1:15 echoing Is. 49:1 and Jer. 1:5). He is not against Israelite theology, he is against Israelites who failed to fulfill their mission.
• Paul’s message to the pagans:
  • God is the creator of the whole world and, therefore, is Lord of it (Col. 1:15-20)
  • God confronts false gods: Caesar is not lord, Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2)
  • God provides the true way of being human (Paul’s “ethical” teaching)
  • God confronts pagan mythology with a story that the whole cosmos is going somewhere. The new age has begun. Evil and death will be defeated.
  • God provides true wisdom over and against pagan philosophies.

Chapter 6: Good News for Israel. Key thought: God’s righteousness (dikaiosune theou) is God’s covenant faithfulness and love, not something given to people.

• To modern ears “righteousness” means morality. To protestant ears the “righteousness of God” means a righteousness given to humans.
• To Jewish ears “righteousness” has the image of a law-court:
  • The judge: if the judge is righteous then the judge acts faithfully and just.
  • The plaintiff/defendant: if these parties are righteous then they are vindicated.
• To Paul’s ears the “righteousness of God” means “God’s faithfulness to his promises” because God is the law-court judge. It is the character of God (covenant faithfulness) and an activity of God (his acts of fulfilling the covenant). This is derived from the LXX, primarily Isaiah 40-55.
• To Paul’s ears “righteousness” for people means to be vindicated by God (see Psalm 143 which is quoted in Romans 3:20). It does not mean that they possess God’s own righteousness, but that they are declared righteous/acquitted/vindicated. This is both present and future.
• The righteousness of God (dikaiosune theou) in Scripture:
  • Phil 3:9 (dikaiosune ek theou): God declares him vindicated by God.
  • 2 Cor. 5:20-21: Paul’s ministry is to reflect and proclaim God’s covenant faithfulness.
  • Romans 1-4: Both Jews and Gentiles are guilty of sin. Jews in particular failed to be the vehicle of God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness). But God reveals his own covenant faithfulness (righteousness) in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ, both Jews and Gentiles are vindicated/acquitted (declared righteous).
• The key, especially for Romans, is that the “righteousness of God” always refers to God’s covenant faithfulness, not something given to people. Romans, therefore, is a book about God’s love (Rom. 5:6-11, 8:31-39), not a book about how to get saved.

Chapter 7: Justification and the Church. Key thought: Pauline justification is not a matter of how someone enters the community of the people of God but how you can tell who belongs to that community.

• The traditional presuppositions for justification are found in previous church controversies (Augustine/Pelagius and Luther/Erasmus) about “the question of what man must do if he is to enter into a relationship with God through Christ.”
• Paul’s presuppositions for justification are found in Judaism. Saul was not concerned about a timeless system of salvation, he was concerned about redeeming Israel. Using the law-court imagery popular in the prophets, Paul viewed justification as “God’s eschatological definition, both future and present, of who was a member of his people.” Therefore, justification is about ecclesiology and not soteriology.
• Justification in Scripture:
  • Galatians. The issue in Galatians is “should ex-pagan converts be circumcised?” or “who belongs to Abraham’s family?” (see Gal. 3-4). “Justification, in Galatians, is the doctrine which insists that all who share faith in Christ belong at the same table, no matter what their racial differences, as together they wait for the final new creation.”
  • Philippians 3:2-11. This passage is about covenant membership. To paraphrase: “I, though possessing covenant membership according to the flesh, did not regard that covenant membership as something to exploit; I emptied myself, sharing the death of the Messiah; wherefore God has given me the membership that really counts, in which I too will share the glory of Christ.”
  • Romans 1:16-17 paraphrase: “the gospel – the announcement of the lordship of Jesus the Messiah – reveals God’s righteousness, his covenant faithfulness, his dealing with the sin of the world through the fulfillment of his covenant in this Lord Jesus Christ. He has done all this righteously, that is, impartially. He has dealt with sin, and rescued the helpless. He has thereby fulfilled his promises.”
  • Romans 2-3. Who will be vindicated on the last day? It is not racial Jews (Rom 2:1-24). How can God be true to the covenant if God’s covenant people have failed (Rom. 3:1-9)? God is true to his covenant through Jesus Christ (he does what Israel failed to do) – this is the key of Romans 3:21-31. Romans 3:21-31 “is all about the covenant, membership in which is now thrown open to Jew and Gentile alike; therefore it is all about God’s dealing with sin in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, because that is what the covenant was intended to do in the first place.” All who believe in Jesus Christ will be declared members of the covenant family (declared righteous) now and in the future (Rom. 3:24-26).
  • Romans 4. This is an explanation of Genesis 15 continuing the covenant theme.
  • Romans 9-10. “The badge of membership, the thing because of which one can tell in the present who is within the eschatological covenant people, was of course faith, the confession that Jesus is Lord and the belief that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9).”

Chapter 8: God’s Renewed Humanity. Key thought: Paul promoted the reality of God’s renewed humanity available through Jesus Christ, each of which confronts pagan theology and fulfills Israel’s intended vocation.

• The center of renewed humanity: worship.
• The goal of renewed humanity: resurrection.
• The transformation of renewed humanity: holiness.
• The coherence of renewed humanity: love.
• The zeal of renewed humanity: mission.

Chapter 9: Paul’s Gospel Then and Now. Key thought: “Pauline theology…is still a vital vehicle for the church’s preaching and life.”

• The Gospel. Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord confronts the powers of the world today (such as money, sexuality, power).
• Justification. Although every single individual human must respond personally to the gospel (”nobody in their right mind would deny that”), justification creates an ecumenical community. We must remember that people are not saved by their understanding of justification, but by their belief that Jesus is the risen Lord (which, by the way, Wright suggests that requiring anything other than this confession for church membership is to relive the Galatian heresy!).
• Righteousness. God’s righteousness reveals God’s love for the cosmos.

Chapter 10: Paul, Jesus and Christian Origins. Key thought: Paul was a follower of Jesus, not the founder of Christianity.

• Wright refers to David Wenham’s Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?