That’s not to say that the New Perspective is unimportant, just that there is nothing that I would write about it that hasn’t already been (better) said/written regarding the way it misunderstands sin, God, and people. (Other than that, it’s really good stuff). If any of you are interested in the details of the “New Perspective” argument, please go to www.thepaulpage.com, because for our purposes, the particulars of what N.T Wright and co. have discovered in relation to rules of table fellowship in 1st century Palestine, while helpful in a social-studies-fair sort of way, is not as important as the profound misunderstanding of the Gospel that the larger movement reveals. I’m sure that not everyone will agree with my assessment, and I look forward to hearing what you think.
When reading proponents of any of these supposedly “new” takes on the Gospel, its clear that they all spring from the same fountainhead of righteous indignation. Fed by disillusionment with the church universal, these movements claim to have found a new way of understanding Christianity and want to rescue the Gospel from narcissistic, individualistic, a-political, a-communial, “Western” people, who have overemphasized “Luther’s understanding of Justification.” This (perceived) over-emphasis, it is argued, has been the cause of everything from church disunity to global warming.
While I admit that it may be reductionist to lump all of these movements into the same camp, church history does show that there has been, essentially, only one argument against the Gospel message from its inception: preaching Justification by Faith alone will bless sin, increase lawlessness, and let people “get away with murder.” Based upon this fear, it is argued that the Gospel must contain the imperatives necessary to answer Francis Schaeffer’s famous question, How Then Shall We Live? In every instance, these imperatives eventually become standards by which one can know (in the words of Heidi) if he/she is either “in or out.” In his book What St.Paul Really Said, renowned Anglican theologian N.T Wright states, “Justification is not a matter of how someone enters the community of the true people of God, but of how you tell who belongs to that community”(119). This is no mere semantic debate; at stake here is the very understanding of the relationship between God and man. It is my contention that these arguments, in all forms, rest on a misunderstanding of the distinction between the Law and Gospel.
Dr. Mark Mattes, in The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology, explains:
That people are unaware that they are under God’s wrath does not mean that they are unaffected by it. That people substitute creatures as their ‘higher power’ in place of the creator implies by definition that they subordinate themselves to an idol and suffer the consequences of separation from their true source of life. They thus experience God’s wrath, which hands them over to their sin. This wrath, for Europeans and North Americans, is finally nothing other than the apparent meaninglessness of it all—and ‘eternal recurrence of the same’ (Nietzsche) outside of Christ. . .”(183)
This is the missional understanding of the Law that forces a rejection of the New Perspective and all other such iterations of the “Gospel,” on the grounds that they do not do justice to the place where people actually live. In contrast to much of (what passes for) contemporary theology–which sees the Cross as more of a metaphor/motivational tool than a continuing reality–what we’re trying to do here is re-focus the wonderful, hopeful, life-giving message of the Gospel on the specific areas of human experience that the are most universally affirmed and easily verifiable: longing, fear, despair, disillusionment and loss.
In the last paragraph of Chapter 5 of the AA Big Book is the following statement, “In this book you will read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves”(70-71). This counterintuitive pattern of complete surrender preceding victory has been so successful that it has spawned countless other groups aimed at helping the oppressed find freedom. It is no coincidence that the founder of AA was a Christian, the Rev. Sam Shoemaker. AA is so successful is because it encapsulates and communicates, in non-religious language, the message of the Gospel. As Jesus says in John 12:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”(ESV). The death to life pattern of AA forces the alcoholic to admit defeat, to die so that he/she can be freed. For the Christian, this posture of defeat, of utter helplessness, forces complete reliance on the mercy of God founded on the promises purchased by the Cross.
This is the Gospel; this is the message of the Bible. It is not abstract. It is not conceptual. It is the “old, old message,” continually proclaimed, that, “if anyone sins they have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.” This is the message for Peter who cried out “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man”(Lk 5:8) and Paul who asks, “Oh Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”(Rom 7:24). The promise of the Gospel assures us that that the words of Isaiah 42:3 still stand, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. . .”(ESV).
Thanks be to God.
COMMENTS
18 responses to “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”
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Jady,
This is excellent! Thanks for this post– you said it better than I could have. I will be forwarding this to many of my friends in ministry.
COlton
Jady,
This is such a good post. There is nothing to add to it. Thank you!
Sean
JDK, thanks for the post. I agree that we ought not put our imperatives before our indicatives, but this is not to deny our imperatives is it? What do you do with the myriad exhortations to a certain type of response to Christ in scripture? I feel like your gospel/law discussions leave you no room to talk about response and life. While I may not agree with the so-called “new perspective,” I still think you have a long way to go in terms of wrestling with passages in Ephesians, 1 Peter and elsewhere. Great post, but write a follow-up on how the reformed deal with these other texts.
Jady,
Great post. You have truly seen through the illusion of righteousness to the core of the problem with the NPP.
Christopher, for me the question almost always goes back to anthropology. The third use presumes that believers respond to the law in a way different from non-believers. Is the justified person ontologically different than unbeliever? And therefore does the demand of God function in a different way for the justified? I think that if we take seriously the idea that righteousness is imputed, rather than a product of infusion (or incorporation, as the NPP would say), then the believer never ceases to be ungodly, and is always justified as ungodly. Otherwise God’s grace would cease to be of importance in the present. The believer may understand the imperatives as the total demand for obedience, but such obedience is always beyond what can be accomplished inherently.
Ministers are such big-hearted people. Clerical hearts are torn to shreds by the desire to see people free from suffering.
If someone seems to ache because the law has condemned them, ministerial types are so loving that they would rather toss out the law than see the person hurt a moment longer.
The third use of the Law (being also the principal use, and more closely connected with its proper end) has respect to believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already flourishes and reigns. For although the Law is written and engraven on their hearts by the finger of God, that is, although they are so influenced and actuated by the Spirit, that they desire to obey God, there are two ways in which they still profit in the Law. For it is the best instrument for enabling them daily to learn with greater truth and certainty what that will of the Lord is which they aspire to follow, and to confirm them in this knowledge; just as a servant who desires with all his soul to approve himself to his master, must still observe, and be careful to ascertain his master’s dispositions, that he may comport himself in accommodation to them. Let none of us deem ourselves exempt from this necessity, for none have as yet attained to such a degree of wisdom, as that they may not, by the daily instruction of the Law, advance to a purer knowledge of the Divine will. Then, because we need not doctrine merely, but exhortation also, the servant of God will derive this further advantage from the Law: by frequently meditating upon it, he will be excited to obedience, and confirmed in it, and so drawn away from the slippery paths of sin. In this way must the saints press onward, since, however great the alacrity with which, under the Spirit, they hasten toward righteousness, they are retarded by the sluggishness of the flesh, and make less progress than they ought. The Law acts like a whip to the flesh, urging it on as men do a lazy sluggish ass. Even in the case of a spiritual man, inasmuch as he is still burdened with the weight of the flesh, the Law is a constant stimulus, pricking him forward when he would indulge in sloth.
—–Calvin, Institutes Book 2:7:13
Fantastic Post Jady! Christopher, I would only add that I think Calvin may have been wrong about there being a 3rd use of the law and was surely wrong about the 3rd use being the primary use. But, thank you for bringing up, ad fontes, this important distinction between the “Reformed” and “Lutheran/Protestant” perspectives. There are all too many qualified observers/contributors to this blog. I will let them say more if they wish.
Dear Christopher,
Your comments depict clearly the differences between the “Reformed” understanding of the Law and what I would argue is the more Cranmer-Anglican/Lutheran perspective. The question, as Todd so succinctly and insightfully put it, always hangs on the question of Christian anthropology. I do believe that Calvin is right, that the Law should certainly be experienced and viewed differently from a Christan perspective; however, I disagree with the assertion that there could be some sort of Christian noetic appropriation of the Law that allows him/her to somehow “use” it to further his/her own (supposed) pursuit of righteousness.
As St. Paul says, “the Law kills, but the spirit brings life.” Daily, we are not “using” the Law to further our own conception of holiness; rather, the Law is constantly being used, by God on us, to bring us ever closer to a place of complete reliance on his mercy and grace.
While I respect Calvin and have a lot of sympathies with many Reformed doctrines, I am certainly not a Calvinist, and I think that this question regarding the Law and its primary use provides a clear area of disagreement.
Your response helps clarify the distinction better than I could have hoped to!
I appreciate your insight and look forward to posting something on how to deal with the imperatives, but I think that Todd seems better equipped than me to do that question justice!
Fondly,
Jady
I’m pushing you guys because I’m trying to understand where I stand as well.
I’m uncomfortable with Calvin on the issue of the Third Use of the law (hence the post), but I’m also uncomfortable with views like the one set forth here that seem to run roughshod over so much imperative talk in scripture.
I’m trying to find a middle way through. Is there a middle way? Is there a way to maintain our Law/Gospel distinction without abandoning our call to be and act a certain way in the world?
How do we do this while upholding positive imputation language, without falling into discussions of ontology? I would assume Barth has some answers, and perhaps Calvin does too, but I don’t know where to look. Any thoughts?
Christopher, I’m not sure Barth will help us out on this one- although he clearly favors Gospel, then law. If you want, I can email you a more developed answer, but the result of Gospel/law is soteriological chaos. Because there is no actual plight (law) from which to be saved, one must say that they are saved already. One is not under the dominion of death, the devil, or even Adam, but all humanity is in Christ. If law does not come before Gospel, then the salvation has no clear meaning.(Gal. 3:24).
Because the Christian remains subject to sin (the flesh), I think the Christian is still entirely subject to the law in its totality. The Law is abandoned not as invalid. But because the Christian remains subject to sin, the law also incites rebellion (Rom 4:15,5:20,7:8-9). In this way, the law alone is insufficient to move the human heart to love (which is the intended aim of the law). But grace accomplishes what the law cannot. As Tim Keller says “It is only grace that frees us from the slavery of self” (185). The Gospel is the great enabler and only changer of the human heart. The law produces both overt and covert rebels.
Right. My question is then, given grace, given the gospel, what now? Clearly, there’s a life to be lived into.
How does this happen? I’m assuming we would say it happens as a result of the Spirit dwelling in us, but what does that mean? If it’s not some sort of ontic transformation, what is it? Are we puppets post-grace?
Dear Christopher,
I don’t think its fair to characterize this position as one that is “running roughshod” over the imperatives; rather, I would argue that I’m taking the imperatives at face value as opposed to weakening them.
While you may not agree, Lutherans and we “Law/Gospel” people have had to read the same bible (albeit not normally the Geneva:) as Calvinists have, and have understood the imperatives in a different way, and have not simply chosen to ignore large swaths of scripture.
Anyway, there’s a lot more to be said on all of this, but for the time being, I don’t think that there is a middle way, and history seems to prove that. Maybe we’ll find one? I don’t know.
But, I do know that these are the very type questions that help clarify and distinguish what, I would argue, are two fundamentally different ways of viewing the Christian life.
Interestingly enough, Anglicanism w/its 39 Articles represents the only ecclesiological/doctrinal attempt to formulate a “middle way” between Geneva and Wittenburg, which is why people like me and those in REFORM can co-exist!
Fondly,
Jady
As far as what’s next, I would generally say discipleship- not in a moral boot-camp kind of way, but more in a picking up your cross and dying daily kind of way.
“True discipleship means to be called every day out of what has been, into a fresh service, continually to hear the Gospel as at first, and to give up all in order to remain only with Jesus. Here in a revolutionary way piety is defined as reliance.”
great quote, todd– where is it from?
It’s from a Essay by Ernst Kasemann titled “The Gospel and the Pious” from: Australian Biblical Review, 30 O 1982, p 1-9.
Fair enough, but it still seems like a radical redefinition of what seems very clear in scripture and the early church.
Choi gave me Zahl’s book, so I’ll get back to you once I’ve interacted with that.
In the meantime, hop over to my blog and read the lengthy Tim Keller quotation I’ve posted. I’d be interested to get your perspective(s).
Cheers,
c
Dear Christopher,
I’ve read the quote you posted, and there is certainly nothing that one should or could disagree with in it; however, the problem that we keep running into here is the question over how best to enable the Christian response.
Yes, the Gospel is not all about being justified and forgiven; nevertheless, that is the ground out of which the acts of Love spring, and the means for daily commitment.
No one here is arguing against the need, hope for, or existence of “good works.” The question is one of the “enabling word.”
Looking towards the Trinity for some sort of “worldview” or conceptualizing some form of “Heaven on Earth” in order to frame your life are, in my opinion, abstractions.
What’s not an abstraction is the daily awareness of my inability to love God, to serve Him, or to love my neighbor as myself. In light of this inability, the message of the Gospel–just that I’m justified and forgiven–is actually the fuel for my life and work. What that actually looks like remains to be seen, but the charge that “simply preaching the Gospel” allows for moral and spiritual quietism– well, that’s just not true.
And by the way, Tim Keller kept the descriptions of what a Christian “should” do sufficiently vague as to be general principles of good works. Saying that Christians should work for radical justice, usher the kingdom, etc., is the same as “You should have no other gods before me.” All are true, all are good, but how (and who) can fulfill them?
The message is that they are fulfilled, that Love has come (to quote Derek Webb), and that out of our justification (while we were yet sinners), we have the freedom to live.
Christopher,
Sorry to get into this so late, but I have been trying to think through the same issue you have, namely how does one square Law/Gospel theology with Paul’s “imperatives”.
I think that in many cases, Paul’s imperatives can be read helpfully as those attitudes of heart that will be naturally engendered by understanding the law and the gospel. Thus, for example, in Romans 12-15, Paul seems to speak not of specific “actions” or “laws”, but rather of things like humility, genuine love, non-judgmentalism, passivity and freedom, the kinds of things that no one can “do,” but which spring naturally from being “killed” by the law and “raised” by the Gospel.
After all, when you understand your status under the law, you will be humble and non-judgmental. When you understand the riches of God’s grace in the Gospel (in spite of your wretchedness), genuine love for God and neighbor will be kindled, as well as freedom. When you come to see that you can do nothing and that Jesus has done everything, passivity will result.
The problem is that when people read verses like “conform no longer, but be transformed…” they think that Paul is talking about ethics, but he is not. Rather, he is outlining a completely different, radically gospel-centric view of realty that comes about through God’s working of the law and the gospel in our lives. Also, he’ s not talking about something we do, but about what God does to us (“be transformed”).
Anyway, I hope that helps.
rj