The three pillars of the New Perspective on Paul are as follows according to Lee Irons who wrote a blog post for Logos on May 28th of 2019 (which appears to be no longer available). However, Thomas Schreiner wrote a great review of Irons’ dissertation on The Gospel Coalition’s website (click here for that). Irons writes of the pillars of the NPP:
1.) E.P. Sander’s revised view of Judaism as a non-legalistic pattern of religion called “covenantal nomism,”
2.) the argument that Paul’s polemics against “works of law” is not a critique of salvation by human effort but rather an attack on Jewish exclusivism and pride, so that the phrase refers to the Jewish boundary markers (circumcision, food laws, Sabbath) that distinguish Jews from Gentiles, and
3.) the interpretation of Paul’s DIK-language in covenantal terms, so that the verb “justify” means “to reckon someone to be a member of the covenant people of God” and the noun “righteousness” means “covenant faithfulness.”
Of the three foundations, I would like to initially and briefly address the first two:
Covenantal Nomism
This first point, I believe, is a reading back into the beliefs of Second Temple Jews the views of 21st century Protestant Evangelicals. John Piper, in his book, “The Future of Justification,” where he addressed the NPP, stated that N.T. Wright’s views in this regard was unclear and confusing at best. Wright’s NPP is not helpful, not because it denies a protestant view of justification outright, but because it makes distinctions that are not helpful or they may even be dangerous.
Piper explained that it is as if Dr. Wright is making the same mistake that generations of religious people from the dawn of time have made, and that is that we confuse grace with semi-pelagianism in the hearts and minds of those who profess faith, in this case the faith of the Second Temple Jews. Of course, Catholicism does this. They talk a lot about grace, but it is in the context of “me coming part way to meet God who imparts grace to meet me there.” It is as if semi-pelagianism is always confused with a true understanding of the grace of God. That is the trap of all the world religions and cults. There is talk about grace, but you only receive it via ceremonies and sacraments. But all the while, none of them will say that it isn’t “true grace” that is being given.
Dr. Cara in the book, “The Doctrine on which the Church Stands or Falls,” talks about the assertion by E.P. Sanders that covenantal nomism is the main belief of the era, and hence Paul’s opponents were merely exclusionary in their religion. Cara cites many texts, among them Sirach 11:26; 16:14; 29:12; 31:10-11; 34:26; and 51:30 as texts on which it appears that works-righteousness is in fact the foundation for salvation. Sirach 51:30 says, “Do your work before the appointed time, and in God’s time he will give you your reward.” Sanders dismisses this because he asserts that the author of Sirach does not believe in an afterlife.
However, Cara says that it is a small jump in the culture or the reader’s thoughts to go from “this doesn’t apply to an afterlife” to “this is the basis for my afterlife as well as my life now.” Cara goes through many other texts, some of which could theoretically be taken either way, but I personally would like to point out that it has been the presumption of every human heart on some level since the beginning that “I am better than what I really am.” I can be right with God on my terms. I can recompense Him for my sins. This is the conclusion of every false religion. Why would Second Temple Judaism be excluded from this? It is clear that not all of these people were this way, but why would it not be to the extent that such people were not actually Paul’s or even Jesus’ opponents?
Sanders’ typical response to many such passages as are found in the Testament of Abraham, 2 Baruch, and the Psalms of Solomon, among others, is that “any time he sees mercy form God owing to repentance, he assumes the document has no works righteousness. For me, Sander’s analysis overplays his covenant background and ignores the potential of semi-Pelagianism,” as Dr. Cara says.
Works of the Law
Following quick on the heals of this understanding of Second Temple Judaism is the understanding that “obviously, Paul’s opponents must have been exclusivists such as Jews who believed that only Jews could be reconciled with God. Sanders, Dunn, and Wright assert that the Jews had the right religion and understood that they were saved by grace but maintained in works (actually, that isn’t really Protestant at the surface level either). The problem is that they just wanted it to be only for them (the Jews). Hence, they asserted the need for circumcision, dietary laws, and rituals like the Sabbath.
My own view on this is that this is the whole point of semi-Pelagianism. They require certain rules, rituals, dietary laws, or the like in order for a person to be right with God or justified. Either I do not understand the NPP well enough to see how they nuance around this apparent conflict, or I am in fact seeing exactly the problem. And there are a diversity of views among its adherents.
Justification
Now to get to the point, because of all of the above, Paul’s “dik” language (this root word being the Greek root for “righteous”), which features so prominently in Romans and others is understood differently. This word is the root of all kinds of forms for New Testament words translated justify, righteous, unrighteous, just, accountable, etc. It is highly concentrated in chapters 3 and 4 of Romans where Paul expounds on the sin of humanity of both Jews and Greek as well as the righteousness that is found in Christ that Abraham had.
Wright et al. assert that the “righteousness of God” is simply His covenant faithfulness, and that righteousness cannot be imputed and float to the other person like a gas. This he expounds on in his book, “Justification,” and elsewhere. So, he goes on to contend that the sin of the sinner is imputed to Christ on the cross, but it cannot be accurately stated that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the saint. Also, the justified person is the one more accurately made a part of the covenant community of God as opposed to being made right per se.
Andrew Naselli in chapter six of “The Doctrine on which the Church Stands or Falls,” addressed the book of Romans as it is used as the basis of a Reformed view of Justification. He argues for the sinner’s need for the righteousness of God because he or she is condemned. He does this by overviewing the book of Romans. Of note, is his understanding of Romans 2 where he writes that it could legitimately be said that Paul either argues that 1.) no one can be saved because no one can be right before God, or 2.) the unjust are condemned, and the righteous are justified. He says that neither interpretation is illegitimate or contradicted outright by a harmony of other scriptures. However, N.T. Wright seems to make much of Romans 2, but he seems to take it out of context and apply his eschatological views of justification to this passage. Whereas, Naselli suggests that this is more appropriately seen as affirming that all flesh will be condemned because no one really can be justified by his goodness as this flows naturally into the surrounding context and into chapter 3 of Romans.
Lee Iron’s dissertation on this orthodox concept in current academia is intriguing. He is asserting that even if a number of the early church fathers viewed the righteousness of God as infused, while others saw it as forensic, the prevailing definition of it was that it referred to the norm of God’s standard. It referred to His own state of being right not his covenant faithfulness. He also does some myth-busting regarding Hebrew parallelism and whether the nearness of words should make them the same or very similar in meaning. This very point is used in the NPP proponents to say that God’s righteousness refers to His covenant faithfulness because of the juxtaposition of these words. Perhaps the most critical argument that Irons puts forth is that the Old Testament shows that God’s righteousness is distributed. Yet, he very firmly shows it as a norm, rather than a quality of covenant faithfulness. Schreiner explains that anyone who wants to propose that the righteousness of God still refers to His covenant faithfulness must deal with Irons’ dissertation first. It is the definitive resource for this issue.
Conclusion
This is a very complicated issue, but I have found it edifying and encouraging for me in that I see the seductiveness of semi-Pelagian heresy. I do not think that N.T. Wright et al. are outright heretics, but I see this view of theirs muddies the clear waters of the doctrines of grace. It makes us slaves of academic nuance that serves to confuse more people than it helps, which was John Piper’s argument (though I disagreed with his definition of God’s Righteousness also). I hope to study this much more.
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