Grosey's Messages

WHY WRIGHT IS WRONG ON JUSTIFICATION Doing a bit of work on Romans 3v21-25, including reading NTW commentary in NIBC. Wright is at one level immensely insightful. He rightly emphasises the way that God has fulfilled his covenant promises to Abraham and his people in Jesus the Messiah. Jesus has done what faithless Israel failed to do, thus bringing the promised blessings/future. He is clear that the death of Jesus is a sacrifice of atonement that propitiates the wrath of God, as well as expiating and removing sin. On the cross sin is punished and justice done. Jesus’ death is a ransom paid to set his people free from their slavery to sin, accomplishing what is pictured in the redemptive-martyrdom imagery of Isaiah 40-55, Daniel & 2 & 4 Maccabees. He gets that justification is a forensic declaration of status, a declaration of innocence in a law court and of covenant membership on the basis of faith alone. In these regards he affirms classic protestant/evangelical convictions, but argues for them on a deeper covenant basis and more precise exegesis of the text that does not just see it as using the terminology of an abstracted systematic theology. This is why I appreciate him and learn much from him. However, I think he gets the basis of justification entirely wrong. He argues that justification is the ‘verdict of righteous to be issued in the future on the basis of the totality of the life led is brought forward into the present.’ I don’t think there is anything that would suggest this in the passage, or indeed anywhere in Paul/NT. Justification is based solely on the faithfulness of Jesus and the removal of the condemnation that sin deserves (propitiation and expiation) through the cross. It is a declaration on the basis of present faith in Jesus, trusting his sacrifice for us (in his blood), and the life led in the future contributes nothing to this verdict. Whilst justification as a judicial verdict of status is not based on a person’s future works, a person who is justified will live a different life because justification is always accompanied by redemption (freeing from sin) and regeneration (new life in Christ) that enables mortification of the flesh. This is the result of salvation in a holistic sense of that term, not the basis for justification. Our future works in some sense reveal that we were justified by faith, but they do not in any way contribute to it. The future post-conversion/post-justification works are evidence of our salvation not the basis for it. Justification is the verdict of the future final day of judgement brought into the present, but it is a verdict delivered now on the basis of the work of Christ alone, which results in future works that are the fruit of it not the basis for it. In this respect Wright gets justification wrong, and it is a serious error.

# posted by Groseys messages @ 8:31 AM