Then Learn from the Baptist

Let me begin my discussion of this next chapter in Piper with a caution for any defenders of Wright who think that Piper is “missing it,” or “not understanding,” or anything along those lines.

This chapter is discussing issues right at the heart of the Reformed understanding of how the gospel works. Piper is arguing diligently for that traditional understanding. He is a Baptist pastor, steeped in the Reformation tradition, and he is engaging an Anglican scholar of the first rank, who is, at the very least, putting these things in a different way. There are countless places for this discussion to go off the rails, but Piper doesn’t allow that. He raises all the concerns that you would expect him to raise. But he does it carefully, with all sorts of qualifications. He asks Wright to tighten up his definitions, or to make something more clear, or to qualify something else. He is very clearly not in a “rush to judgment” mode. He is not flinging charges of heresy about. He is not demagoguing this, not even remotely.

I make this observation as someone who has been in the receiving end of many reckless charges on this very same subject, and I say this as a Presbyterian who has been catching it from fellow Presbyterians. And to these critics on their “the gospel is at stake” jag, which apparently means that all deliberation and care can be thrown to the winds, I have this to say. If you want to know how a Presbyterian theologian should approach this subject in critiquing others, then learn from the Baptist. This is not to agree with Piper at every point, but it is to say that his interaction is helpful, not destructive, and it is just the kind of thing we should be trying to encourage. So, for the Wright fan base, yes, I think there are some things Piper is missing here, some of which will come up in this post. But this is how it ought to be done. There are “inflammatory” lines from Wright that Piper cites, but then goes on to show why they need to be taken in a more contextual and nuanced way.

The locus of discussion in this chapter is whether or not Wright is saying the same thing about imputation as the Reformed are, only in different language. By the end of this chapter, it seems clear that he is not. It is also equally clear that he is not applauding the efforts of the “unaided works of the self-help moralist” (p. 119). Wright is trying to function with different categories entirely — the merit of good works for the individual doing them is not in view for him at all. Whether this works is a separate question, but it is clear what Wright intends to reject.

Piper says that the main difference between them here is the fact that Wright denies that the (active) obedience of Jesus is imputed to the believer. He provides a diagram that contrasts them this way:

1. Faith/baptism > Union with Christ > Imputation of Christ’s death, obedience, and resurrection > Assurance of final vindication;

2. Faith/baptism > Union with Christ > Imputation of Christ’s death and resurrection > Assurance of final vindication.

The first is the traditional Reformed view, and the second is Wright’s. The reason Wright rejects the imputation of Christ’s obedience has been discussed earlier — obedience of one person not being a gas that can float across the courtroom to another. The problem here is that death and resurrection are not gasses either. The central question is this: how can anything pertaining to one person be credited to another? The answer is found in covenantal headship, but once Christ is our federal head, there is nothing of His that is not ours also, and that would include His obedience. But this leads to another point, which is actually the central one. When I say “ours also,” what do I mean ours? Who is that talking about?

At one point Piper alludes to this, the issue that I believe is the nub of this particular discussion. “Wright does not come to terms with the fact that Paul threatens baptized professing Christians not just with barely being saved, with with not being saved at all in the last judgment (Gal. 5:21; 6:7-9; 1 Cor. 6:9)” (p. 118). He mentions it, but doesn’t develop it as I believe it needs to be developed.

In other words, we have to keep in mind that there are two kinds of people within the Christian church — the saved and the damned. Among the sons of Isaac were a host of Ishmaelites. Among the sons of Jacob were a host of Edomites. And yet, in another sense, all the Ishmaelites were descended from Isaac. What profit is there in being a Jew? Much in every way. Spiritual wisdom on this subject is absolutely dependent upon holding both these truths. The death, obedience, and resurrection of Christ is “ours also.” When I say “ours also,” and then look around the church, who is included? Who excluded? Are all baptized individuals included in one way, with some of them excluded in another? Yes.

Wright is correct that different views of baptism have contributed to the confusion.

Now here is the interesting deal. I agree with Wright, over against Piper, that Paul is expressing a realist theology of baptism in Romans 6. Paul is talking about water baptism, and he presses the force of this in his argument — “how can we who died to sin (in our baptism) still live in it? What are you guys doing? Weren’t you baptized?” But I agree with Piper (and with Paul) that lots of people in possession of this baptism (concerning which I advance a realist theology, although I would use the word objective instead of realist) are living like the devil, and that something must be done about it. Paul insists upon the objective understanding in the first part of Romans 6, and he starts attacking sin in the Romans by verse 12.

I have heard Wright describe Marcus Borg as a “confused Christian.” In other words, Wright looks to Borg’s baptism to make this charitable assessment. Piper would look at Borg’s denial of pretty much everything, and say, “If he’s a Christian, then I’m a Hottentot.” My point is that if we are to take the teaching of the New Testament seriously, there is a sense in which they are both right.

A Pauline (and realist) view of baptism has to be held in tension with Paul’s view of sin within the covenant people, and right next to it. In other words, it is “your baptism was into Christ’s death, therefore abandon every form of death.” It is not “your baptism was into Christ’s death, and so we will hope the best for you regardless of what you say or do.” In other words, Wright needs to do more than have amicable debates with a friend who is a “confused Christian.” He needs to recognize that the New Testament takes an extremely dim view of such false teachers, and that Borg is presenting himself as a slave to sin, “which leads to death” (Rom. 6:16), and is active in leading others into that death.

In other words, Paul uses his objective view of baptism to assail sin and unbelief, not to make room for it.

This is the reason historic evangelicals are nervous about realist views of the sacraments. Carnal people like to think that taking the covenant sign on is the same thing as being faithful to that covenant, or is somehow getting them “part way there.” But let me return to my old standby illustration of marriage. An adulterer is a husband, and we can say that he is guilty of adultery precisely because he is married. If he were not married, it wouldn’t be adultery — he couldn’t be sinning against his wife if he didn’t have one. But if I have a friend who let me know that he was off to see his mistress, and I let him go without confronting him because “at least he’s married,” I would be guilty of the most fundamental covenantal confusion possible. His marriage vows should be used as the basis of the confrontation (as Paul does in Romans 6), not as an excuse for doing nothing. But of course, if I went the baptistic route, that would not be any more helpful. “He is clearly being unfaithful to his wife. That must mean he is not really married, at least not in God’s sight.” The former problem assumes that marriage vows destroy the possibility of adultery; the latter assumes that adultery destroys the possibility of marriage.

So I believe that Wright is correct about Romans 6:3 and that Piper is wrong. I believe that Piper is right about Romans 6:16, and that Wright is wrong. Now what are we going to do?