Piper, Wright, and the great Justification fog

Many folks have been familiarized with the N.T. Wright-catapulted conversations concerning Pauline interpretation on justification. As a non-scholastic onlooker, I can only be quietly surprised at the amount of attention Wright, and the entire "New Perspectives on Paul" group has been able to draw (I'm a guilty contributor - I dropped 25 bucks on Wright's new hardcover... woops) This is not because their arguments are not illogical or even precise. For me, the entire case of justification by faith has gotten to be quite complicated, much more so than "believing" on Jesus Christ.

Of course, in his day, Edwards did not hear of the "New Persepective on Paul". But I cannot afford not to go back to Edward's summations of Pauline justification, as the Holy Spirit superintended his words 2000 years back. The question for me is If you don't count justification as an imputed righteousness in its complete whole, and everything that must be true that follows, is that another gospel? (Note, I use "gospel" in the non-Wright tradition) This is an excerpt from Gerstner's piece on Edward's beautifully clear illustrations of exactly what God and Paul meant, by justification.

So justification is righteousness, however we come by it. We do not come by it by ourselves, but by Christ. How we come by it by Christ is the question. Edwards’ answer is clear: Christ’s righteousness belongs to the faithful by virtue of their “natural union” with him. The Reformers, especially Calvin, and the Puritans, especially Owen, also saw union with Christ as the basis of justification. Edwards is, perhaps, even more precise. He observes that Christ achieves his own righteousness which, second, becomes ours by union with him. Christ “was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments through all trials; and then in his resurrection he was justified.”

Since the faith that justifies is a true faith and is seen as such by God when he justifies the believer, Edwards stresses the importance of faith’s being a working faith. “They that do truly come to Christ they at the same time take Christ’s yoke upon them.” In the application he urges his people not to trust in their supposed comings to Christ which may be nothing more than a “flush of affection.” Rather, let them examine themselves to see whether they have counted the cost, whether they are laboring under the yoke of Christ. Any other type of faith is vain, he insists.

Noted as Edwards is as a champion of solafideanism, he believed ultimately in justification by works. The only basis that justification could ever have was works or actual righteousness. Justification by faith is justification by faith in Christ’s justification by works! “If we inquire what we must be saved for or on account of the answer is it must be for works, but not our works; not any works that we have done or can do but works that Christ has done for us.” The justification of the sinner is by his union with Christ, who is justified not by faith but by works. So in the ultimate sense of the word the sinner too is justified by works — not by his own, originally and actually, but none the less his own by faith. “God acting the part of a judge determines and declares that men have a righteousness and so they are justified by their works.”

From http://www.apuritansmind.com/Justification/GerstnerJohnOnEdwardsOnJustification.htm

Let me add this though: I simply do not think anybody fully understands what it means to be justified by our Holy God. In terms of the Piper and Wright camps, I think it is difficult to argue against anything but the traditional reformed Pauline understanding of imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

One of the things I really like about what Wright says, however, is one end point which he hopes evolves from this soteriological and ecclesiological debate with Piper; that is, the returning of believers to Scripture.

If this conversation is a means to get believers to Scripture, I applaud it.