Thanks to everyone for the good discussion in the previous Wright post. This will be an attempt to clean up a few details there (due no doubt to my infelicities of expression), and so my review of the next chapter will have to wait.
I believe that some of our difficulty here is semantics. I quite agree that the form of Pharisaical works-righteousness was not the same particular form that it took in a medieval monastery. Mark Horne suggested that the essential problem for the Pharisees was arrogance in their election, as seen by Paul’s warnings to the Christians in Romans 11. I quite agree with this, but what exactly is wrong with arrogance? At the end of the day, what is it?
Since God is not that way at all, and to be that way is a rejection of His character and related standards, it is always a substitution of man’s works for God’s, of man’s standards of righteousness for God’s. This results in a contempt for others, which the Pharisees of Jesus’ day most certainly had. “And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised other” (Luke 18:9). Notice that phrase in themselves.
The standards vary, but the sinful heart is always Pelagian. The central standard is the same — the way that seems right unto a man, but which leads to death. Men differ on how they define righteousness, but the essential thing is always that they get to define it. Whenever they do so in rebellion against the way God defines it, the result is legalism. The various legalisms on the market can look quite different . . . but they all smell the same.
Some Christians are legalistic about make-up and movies. Others are legalistic about baptism and Bible-reading. Among the Reformed, we have people who trust in themselves that they are righteous, despising others, because they alone among men smoke cigars and believe in free grace. In fact this can be the most pernicious form of legalism — the human race is so screwed up that we can turn anything into a form of works-righteousness. We can be proud of our doctrinal understanding that we musn’t take doctrinal pride in anything. So the fact that NPP writers have shown a first-century acknowledgment of the grace of God is utterly beside the point. The Jews killed Jesus because they thought their notion of righteousness was better than His, and God left their house to them desolate because He judged their standard of righteousness actually to have been a moral inversion. That is what I understand works-righteousness to be.
On the question of imputation, I don’t think this is an example of me talking past Wright. I think it is an instance of Wright talking past Wright. He clearly believes in penal substitution, but rejects what he calls imputation of righteousness. But unlike a financial fine or debt, the only way to take on the guilt of another is through imputation . . . either that, or another process that is virtually identical to imputation called by another name. It is clear that Wright believes in the imputation of the passive obedience of Christ, to use our vocabulary. Christ paid the penalty for my rebellion, and I am invited to act as though I had paid that penalty . . . which I have done, in Him. I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live (Gal. 2:20).
Wright even believes in the imputation of the active obedience of Christ . . . although he says that he is rejecting it. God’s plan was to put the world to rights through Israel (p. 46). The way He was going to do this was through Israel finally doing it right. Now Israel finally did it right through the perfect, sinless life of Jesus. Jesus in His baptism was Israel. Jesus in His forty days in the wilderness was Israel. Jesus in His conquest of the land, driving out demons, was Israel. Now, how do I get to be in that Israel? How do I get to glory in what He did? Why does the credit of Israel finally “doing it right” accrue to me? The answer to that question is found in the glorious word imputation.
Which leads to my last point. Although he doesn’t say so explicitly here, I believe that Wright is actually kicking against a particular form of the imputation calculus — the idea that somewhere there is a reservoir of merit, and that withdrawals are made from it from time to time in order that we may pay our debts. But let’s forget about merit. Suppose for a moment that we are not talking about the imputation of merit, but rather the imputation of obedience. The former is medieval; the latter is Hebraic and covenantal. Not only do I believe it is fully consistent with what Wright is saying, I believe that it is what he (in essence) is saying.