A Jedi-Knight Mastery of Pauline Theology

The last part of Wright’s chapter 6 is his section on Ephesians. My comments here will be more scattered than extensive, for reasons that will probably become obvious.

First, we are to page 151 and it has been striking just how little interaction with John Piper there has been. This book has been a good overview or summary of Wright’s views on this general subject, but it has not really been much of a specific response to Piper.

Second, as the book goes on it becomes more and more apparent that Wright is detaching himself from the constraints established by categories like “old perspective” and “new perspective,” and appears to be heading off to a simpler-to-maintain “Wright perspective.”

“Ephesians 2.1-10 is the ‘old perspective’: sinners saved by grace through faith. Ephesians 2.11-22 us the ‘new perspective’: Jews and Gentiles coming together in Christ” (p. 144).

“Ephesians leaves us, breathless perhaps, with a sense that there are indeed properly Pauline perspectives out beyond the antithesis of the old and the new. It isn’t just a matter of getting the two of them in proper balance. Rather, when they are allowed to come together and knock sparks off one another, or perhaps when they are allowed to grow together within their full exegetical context, they belong within a larger vision of Paul’s gospel and theology than much of the discipline of Pauline studies, and much of the preaching of Paul in a variety of churches, had ever envisaged” (pp. 150-151).

All of which strikes me as an indication that Wright is packing his boxes in preparation for a move and no, not from Durham. It was a metaphor.

Wright believes that Paul wrote Ephesians, but he also believes that it doesn’t matter all that much. “Thus, whether it be by Paul or someone writing in his name does not particularly concern me at the moment (though my instincts and judgment, like those of my teacher George Caird, incline me in the former direction” (p. 144). The reason it doesn’t matter is because if the letter were by an imposter, it was an imposter who had a perfect eye — like someone who could make a living knocking off Rembrandts because he was just as good.

“Even if this text is secondary, it was written by someone who knew Paul’s mind very well and stood close to him in many important respects” (p. 144).

Well, except for the respect that Paul had a dogged loyalty to honesty and the truth. The Paul I read would rather die than write a letter that he signed someone else’s name to. But apparently this character knew Paul’s theology inside and out, and he had this Jedi-knight mastery of Pauline theology even though he was a skunk and a liar. Moreover, he pulled off this astounding forgery (is there another name for it?) under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, if indeed the 66 books of the canon are inspired. But of course, once we set down this road, it might turn out not to be inspired at all. On that one, we will have to await the judgment of our Enlightenment masters in the academy — after all, they were the ones who exposed this pious fraud in the first place. Wright doesn’t agree with them that it was a fraud, but he does grant the academy the right to conduct such investigations, as can be seen in his treatment of the pastorals. The principle appears to be that old fashioned lying is okay just so long as an academic thousands of years later attaches the word deutero- to the sham. And if you can get Christians to accept that kind of reasoning, you clearly have your academic mojo going, and your scholarly chops are hotter than a two-dollar pistol. So to speak.

Other than that, I don’t have a lot to say about Wright on Ephesians — other than to say that I agree that the book powerfully addresses the salvation of individual sinners, that it powerfully addresses the reconciliation between Jew and Gentile, and that it powerfully invites us to an astoundingly higher cosmic perspective of God’s purposes for humanity in His plan of salvation. Here is a “perspective” for you, but I don’t know what to call it exactly. The day is coming when all the saints will have this perspective, and we will be able “to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:18-19).