No Need to Replace the Furniture

The next section of Wright’s book (pp. 169-176) was glorious in what it affirmed, and weirdly disappointing in what it denied. He does a fantastic job in situating the point of the discussion that swirls around “let God be true, and every man a liar.” As Wright puts it, the problem with Israel’s sin is not that they are sinful and therefore cannot go to heaven when they die. The problem is that Israel is sinful and therefore cannot be the instrument of blessing for the nations that God had promised they would be. And this is the point of Paul’s exultation — that the promise to bless the world through Israel will be fulfilled (indeed, has been fulfilled) despite the hypocrisy of every last Israelite. God will be true. I believe that Wright has it dead on here.

But he persists in acting like this is somehow inconsistent with the old perspective at the point of individuals receiving a gift of righteousness, while at the same time tipping his hat (in an odd backhanded way) to the old perspective.

“We in our turn may well have ignored elements (not non-Jewish elements, of course, but elements of Paul’s inner dialectic) that the ‘old perspective’ was right to highlight and which it has been right stubbornly to insist on, even if sometimes feeling like Canute with the waves of the sea washing around his throne” (p. 171).

Wright’s summary of Paul’s argument at this point on pp. 175-176 is enormously helpful. And not one thing in it is inconsistent with the obedience of Jesus Christ being imputed to the individual believer. Moreover, not one thing in it is inconsistent with Paul maintaining that this obedience is imputed to the individual believer.

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” (Rom. 3:21-22).

Wright wants the two instances of the righteousness of God here to refer simply and solely to God’s grounded intention to be true to His covenant, even though every man is a liar. He is treating the righteousness of God in this sense as something like an incommunicable attribute. But let’s try this out with a test drive of the language, first with an incommunicable attribute, and then with a communicable attribute of God.

Suppose Paul referred in passing to the “omnipresence of God without the law,” or the “omnipresence of God which is by the obedience of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” That would be just plain weird. God is omnipresent period. Why bring in the phrase “without the law” unless it is somehow coming to us? And in the second phrase, the statement asserts that the omnipresence is unto all and upon all them that believe. And that is weird also, because omnipresence cannot be.

Now make it the love of God. The “love of God is manifested without the law.” Now it is clear that an attriute of God is being communicated to us in some fashion. The same when we say “the love of God which is by the obedience of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” The love of God is clearly coming to us, becoming a possession of ours in some sense, and the instrument for bringing this about is faith. And there it is — put the righteousness of God back in there, and it is upon all and unto all who believe.

Put all this together, and you have Paul asserting, in the middle of his argument that God is going to be righteous and true even though all Israel is false, that this covenant righteousness of God is embodied in the faithful obedience of Jesus, and this faithful obedience of Jesus (which manifests the righteousness of God) is to be a possession of ours by faith.

Wright wants to give some place to the old perspective. “We begin to realize at last how the emphases of the old and new perspective belong so intimately together” (p. 175). Amen. But I want to say it more strongly than Wright does. The beating heart of the old perspective — the imputation of the obedience of Jesus Christ — is something that Paul plainly and explicitly taught. I say this, not resenting additional perspectives that Wright offers. If I hire someone to come paint my house I don’t expect them to replace all the furniture.