Theology for the Masses

Having surveyed the story of God in the Bible, I began to work towards a definition of the gospel. Starting in the Old Testament and moving into the New Testament, I looked at how the Gospels and Acts looked at the gospel. Then we moved into Paul and how he looked at the gospel. Having done that and really tried to expound what I mean by the gospel, I want to conclude this series with a final post that simplifies the gospel definition and speak to the response of faith and repentance to the gospel. Hopefully this series has been helpful to those who have read it because it has been helpful to me in trying to re-articulate the gospel in light of my paradigm shift away from so much of the traditional Protestant justification = forgiveness of sin = gospel. Reading the story of Jesus by Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts, and John has really altered the way I read the New Testament as a whole. Reading the story of Jesus against the backdrop of the story of Israel has changed how I read the Bible as a whole, God’s story of creation and redemption. continue reading…

In my previous post I defined the gospel in terms of how the Gospels and Acts looked at the gospel. That is to say, they viewed the gospel as God fulfilling his promises made to Israel to establish a new creation by his Spirit, ruled by his Servant-King from the house of David, ending Israel’s exile, and drawing the Gentiles out of their pagan darkness into the light of this new Israel in this new creation. God fulfilled these promises by raising up Jesus of Nazareth, who came and took dominion over the present evil age and creation, offered up his life as an atoning sacrifice for his people’s transgression, and was resurrected as the firstfruit of the new Spirit-wrought creation and the king over that new creation.

Now how does the Apostle Paul fit into this picture? When one reads his letters one does not see a lot of talk about a kingdom. He rarely speaks about Jesus earthly life and ministry, his teachings and healings that demonstrated him to be the Spirit-indwelt Servant-King from the stump of Jesse. Paul speaks minimally about the kingdom, though it is not absent from his theology. He talks about the gospel in terms of Jesus’ person, death and resurrection and their meaning. He is combating a certain form of Judaism that requires Gentiles to convert to Judaism to be accepted into the people of God. So how does his battle’s over the meaning of justification and the gospel fit into the picture seen in the gospels? continue reading…

But the great story of Scripture, from creation and covenant right on through to the New Jerusalem, is constantly about God’s overflowing, generous, creative love – God’s concern, if you like, for the flourishing and well being of everything else.  Of course, this too will redound to God’s glory because God, as the Creator, is glorified when creation is flourishing and able to praise him gladly and freely.

- Wright, Justification, p. 70.

The above was one small part of of Wright’s critique of the Piper/Reformed notion that God is primarily concerned for his own glory, which Wright rightly calls divine narcissism.  For Wright (and for God), διακαιοσύνη θεοῦ is an “outward characteristic of God, linked of course to the concern for God’s own glory but essentially going in the opposite direction, that of God’s creative, healing, restorative … love on undeserving people, undeserving Israel, and and undeserving world.” [1]

I think discussion by Wright is especially interesting in light of the Volf quote we talked about a while back.

1. p.70-71 [↩]

In my quest to gain a whole-Bible understanding of justification I want to look at another psalm that utilizes righteousness/justification language, Psalm 82. I say whole-Bible because the Old Testament forms the background to and informs the New Testament’s understanding of justification. The theme of justification runs through the whole Bible and so I don’t want to isolate the New Testament from the Old Testament. There will be some differences between the two testaments but there will be commonality too. I go to Psalm 82 because it contains an appearance of the verbal form of sdq. continue reading…

The other psalm that I want to look at in regards to the background to justification in the NT, specifically Paul who articulated the doctrine more clearly than any other writer, is Psalm 98. This passage’s understanding of sdq is very influential upon Paul, particularly in Romans as we shall see momentarily. I have to thank Dr. Mark Siefrid for pointing me to this psalm in his book Christ Our Righteousness. I hope to show in this post that the righteousness language in the OT that forms a large part of the background of Paul’s framework is more complex than many in my own Reformed tradition often present it. continue reading…

To continue in a theme that has become very important to me, I want to look at a couple of psalms and how they understand righteousness and justice. The first text is Psalm 72, specifically Psalm 72:1-7, and I want to understand how this psalmist understands righteousness, the sdq word group. If one is to understand justification from a whole-Bible perspective, then seeing how the sdq word group, or righteousness-language, is employed is key. continue reading…

I am in the middle of reading Piper’s A Future of Justification.  I have to hand it to Piper.  He is gracious in dealing with Wright, much more than the other people who agree with Piper, most of whom vilify Wright and his positions.

Ironically, as Piper is explaining Wright’s position, I am finding that Piper is convincing me of Wright’s position!  As I am reading the book, I am becoming less less impressed with Piper as an exegete and a scholar of ancient Christianity.  However, he does seem to be an excellent reformationist.

As much as I think his calvinism is off, his patriarchalism is off, his Christian hedonism if off; Piper is a faithful servant of God.  You can tell his heart behind all of this – and that is refreshing.

In this post I want to move to a text that many contemporary exegetes and theologians have really disappointed me when they interpret Paul here, namely 2 Corinthians 5:21. In this post We’ll look at this text and how Isaiah 53:11 impacts the text and how we should understand Paul here in light of it.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Paul here is speaking of God’s new creation that has come into effect through the reconciling work of Jesus Christ. Paul speaks of being Christ’s ambassador, pleading with the world to be reconciled to God. He is the means by which God appeals to the fallen and sinful world to come back to God and participate in the new creation. In reconciling the world to himself, God does not count their sins against them because, employing a traditional formula, the innocent Christ has become sin for our sake so that in him we can become God’s righteousness.

Now let us note the parallel between Isaiah 53:11 and 2 Corinthians 5:21. In Isaiah 53:11, the innocent Servant was wounded and crushed for Israel’s iniquities and rebellious deeds. After the Servant suffered, he is resurrected the Righteous One and as a result the many are justified–restored to proper covenant relationship with I AM.

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In this post I wish to look at the impact of Isaiah 53:11 and Romans 5:18-19 and how they influence justification. Romans 4:25 has been shown that Paul (or someone from whom Paul adapts a traditional Christological formula) does in fact read Isaiah 53:11 into his doctrine of justification in that the resurrection of the Righteous One, Jesus Messiah, effects justification for the people of God. This follows what was seen in Acts 13:38-39 and that Jesus being the Righteous One comes from being raised by the Spirit of God, vindicated or justified in that resurrection or by that resurrection. It does seem that Isaiah 53:11 is playing a very central role in how Paul understands our justification. continue reading…

Sometimes a person can read the Scripture and completely pass over a particular text that can have massive import on shaping one’s theology and understanding of a particular doctrine. I can remember my time as an Arminian (though not a full five-pointer as I was and am Southern Baptist) skipping over John 6 and Romans 9. If I ever did read them I would just pass over them quickly and not pay attention to them. I know that Arminians can have their take on those texts but at least he or she has a theology shaped by them, mine wasn’t. The same is true for me in regards to Romans 4:25. What Paul says there is very important to shaping justification and how to understand our right standing before God and Jesus’ role in accomplishing that standing. The background for understanding this text is Isaiah 53:11 and the following is my attempt to persuade you the read to see that. continue reading…

Moving along in my dabbling in the justification passages in Paul and their relationship to Isaiah 53:11. In Acts 13:38-39, the resurrection of the crucified Jesus in an unstated way effected justification for “everyone who believes.” This parallels what was seen in Isaiah 53:11 where the “Righteous One, my [Yahweh's] servant will justify the many.” Isaiah 53:11 provided the conceptual framework for Paul to articulate justification as he did in Antioch Psidia, resurrection leads to justification. First Timothy 3:16 is another text that I’d likd to look at. Isaiah’s prophecy figures very prominently in Paul’s letter to young Timothy continue reading…

Last time we looked at Isaiah 53:11 and saw that through the resurrection of the Suffering Servant he became the Righteous One. And through this one, who is now the Righteous One, the many are justified. Now how does this provide a background for the Pauline doctrine and formulation of justification? That is the question we turn to here in the next few posts. First is the book of Acts, specifically Paul’s statements. Up first is Acts 13:37-39. continue reading…

In reading Michael Bird’s The Saving Righteousness of God, I have come to realize just how important Isaiah 53:11 is to many of Paul’s passages that formulate and utilize his doctrine of justification when dealing with his audiences and troubles, for example the Jew-Gentile divide in Romans and Galatians. I want to briefly delve into this simple text and paint a background for the many places that Paul speaks of justification that does not seem to fit neatly with the traditional Protestant view (this post follows much of what Bird said in The Saving Righteousness of God). Then in the coming posts I want to just illustrate how Isaiah 53:11 impacts those Pauline texts in his letters and in Acts that reflects this verse and understanding. continue reading…