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The Old Paths and the New Error: Why the New Perspective on Paul Undermines the Gospel of Grace · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. Today we're opening up a file
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  that on the surface, well, it looks like a really dusty
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  academic debate, something about 1st century history.
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  It sounds like the kind of thing that just stays locked away in a
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  university library, you know? Something for the specialist.
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  But once you actually peel back the cover, you realize it's it's
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  a battle for the very heart of the Christian faith.
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  We're talking about the new perspective on Paul.
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  That's right. And I think for a lot of people,
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  the moment they hear a phrase like new perspective on Paul or
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  MPP for short, they might just, you know, tune out.
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  Yeah, their eyes glaze over. Exactly.
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  They think, OK, this is for the guys in the ivory towers with
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  the the tweed jackets and the elbow patches.
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  But this is not just some little skirmish over footnotes or or
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  Greek prepositions. This touches on the article upon
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  which the Church stands or falls talking about justification.
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  That's it. It's the question of how a
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  person gets right with God. And what's so fascinating is
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  that the traditional view, I mean the view of the
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  Reformation, the view of guys like Luther and Calvin, it all
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  starts with a very specific question.
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  It's the question of the terrified conscience.
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  It asks how can a Sinner, a guilty person like me, stand
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  righteous before a holy judge? Right, it's a vertical question.
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  It's between the individual soul and God.
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  It's the kind of question you ask yourself at 3:00 in the
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  morning when you wake up, and the weight of your own moral
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  failures and the absolute holiness of the God you're going
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  to meet one day just hits you. But this new perspective comes
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  along, and it's really been gaining steam in the last few
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  decades. And it basically says, hold on,
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  you've got the question all wrong.
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  They argue that Paul wasn't asking that theological question
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  about how to get to heaven. They say he was asking a
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  sociological question. A who question, not a how
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  question. Exactly who belongs to the
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  Covenant community? It changes the central problem
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  from how can I be saved to who are the people of God?
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  And that one shift changes everything.
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  I mean, you change the question, you are inevitably going to
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  change the answer. And that's really what we're
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  here to unpack. Today.
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  We're going to look at the origins of this whole movement
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  and we're going to try to steel man their arguments to see what
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  they actually get right. Because to be fair, they do get
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  some things right, of course. But then we're going to take the
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  MPP and we're going to put it on trial.
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  We're going to test it against Scripture and we're going to
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  test it against the Westminster Confession because at the end of
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  the day, we have to know, does this theory actually hold water?
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  That's the mission for this deep dive.
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  We need to reach a verdict. Does the new perspective offer
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  us some helpful historical context, or does it end up
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  undermining the gospel of grace by shifting our confidence away
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  from Christ's finished work and back onto our own faithfulness?
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  OK, so let's get into The Time Machine.
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  We need to go back to 1977. Star Wars is in theaters, disco
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  is dying, and a scholar named EP Sanders drops an absolute
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  bombshell of a book. It's called Paul in Palestinian
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  Judaism. Why was this specific book The
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  detonator for this whole debate? This book really was a seismic
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  event in biblical studies. I mean, you can't overstate it.
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  Before Sanders, the general consensus, what we might now
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  call the old perspective or the classic Protestant view, was
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  pretty straightforward. The idea was that Paul was
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  fighting against Jewish legalism.
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  Right that they were trying to earn their way to heaven.
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  Precisely. The view was that 1st century
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  Judaism was a religion of merit. You had to earn your salvation.
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  It was seen as being very similar to how the reformers
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  like Luther viewed late medieval Roman Catholicism.
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  You do the works, you earn the points, you climb the ladder,
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  and you get into heaven. It was a merit ladder, a
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  performance treadmill, and Paul comes along and just kicks it
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  over and says no, get off the ladder.
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  It's by grace. That's the classic
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  understanding. But Sanders comes along and he
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  says that's a caricature. He says it's a profound
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  misreading. He dives into the actual Jewish
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  literature of the time, you know, the Mishnah, the Dead Sea
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  Scrolls, the Apocrypha. And he argues that Judaism was
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  not a religion of earning salvation from scratch.
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  He basically says we've all been reading Martin Luther's struggle
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  with the Pope back into the Apostle Paul's struggle with the
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  Pharisees. He essentially accused the
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  entire Protestant tradition of projecting its own baggage onto
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  1st century history. So his claim is that the Jews
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  did not believe they were saving themselves by works.
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  That seems like a massive revision of history It.
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  Was it was huge. He argued that the Jews knew
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  they were chosen by grace. They understood that God picked
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  Israel out of all the nations not because they were bigger or
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  better, but just because. He loved them, so grace was the
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  starting point. Yes.
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  So Sanders coined a term that you absolutely have to know if
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  you want to understand this debate.
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  Covenantal Gnomism. Covenantal gnomism?
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  OK, that sounds incredibly dry, but you're saying it's the hinge
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  of the whole argument. Let's break that down.
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  It is the hinge, and it's actually a fairly simple formula
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  when you get down to it. Sanders argued that the Jewish
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  view was this You get into the covenant by grace.
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  That's God's election of Israel, but you stay in the covenant by
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  obedience to the law. The nomism part comes from
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  nomos, the Greek word for law. OK, so let me try an analogy
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  here. It's like, imagine getting a
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  membership to a very exclusive Country Club.
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  The membership itself is a gift from your wealthy father.
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  You didn't pay for it. You didn't earn it.
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  You walked in the door for free. That's the grace part.
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  But to keep the membership, to stop them from revoking your
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  card, you have to follow the house rules.
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  You have to wear the right blazer, pay your monthly dues.
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  Don't mess up the golf course. That's the obedience part.
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  That is a very, very helpful analogy.
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  That's it in a nutshell. You get in by grace, but you
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  stay in by works. And because of this framework,
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  Sanders argued that Paul could not possibly be attacking works,
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  righteousness or the idea of earning salvation from square
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  one. Why not?
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  Because in his view, the Jews didn't believe in earning
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  salvation. They believe they were already
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  chosen. They were already in the club.
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  So when Paul attacks works, Sanders says he must be
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  attacking something else entirely.
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  And that is where the other big names in this movement come in,
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  right? Because Sanders was the
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  historian, the one who looked at the Jewish sources, but he
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  wasn't really an exegete of Paul's letters.
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  Exactly. So then you get guys like James
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  DG Dunn, and Dunn takes Sanders historical framework and applies
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  it directly to Paul's letters. He zooms in on that critical
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  phrase. Works of the law you're going to
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  move. That's the one.
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  For centuries, Protestants understood works of the law to
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  mean anything we do to try to merit God's favor.
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  Moral obedience, Charity. Religious rituals.
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  All of it. The whole merit ladder.
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  Right. But Dunn says no.
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  In the context of the 1st century works of the law refers
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  specifically to and this is another key term, boundary
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  markers. Boundary markers.
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  OK, so we're talking about the things that made Jews look
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  different from Gentiles, the things that mark them out as a
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  distinct people. Exactly.
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  Circumcision. The food laws, observing the
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  Sabbath. Dunn argues that when Paul
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  condemns works of the law, he's not saying you can't earn your
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  way to heaven. He's saying you don't have to
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  become a Jew to be a Christian. He's fighting against Jewish
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  nationalism and ethnic exclusion, not moral legalism.
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  Wow, OK, that is a crucial distinction, isn't it?
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  In the old perspective, Paul is fighting the idea that I can be
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  good enough for God. Yes, a vertical problem.
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  In the new perspective, Paul is fighting the idea that only Jews
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  can be the people of God. A.
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  Horizontal problem, right? And then NT Wright comes along,
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  and he takes us even further. He's probably the most popular
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  and influential voice for the NPP today, and he reframes what
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  justification itself even means for right.
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  Justification is not primarily about a judge in a courtroom
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  pardoning a criminal. It's more of a declaration of
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  membership. It's God looking at a group of
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  people and saying, these are my people.
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  It's vindication. He links it to the idea that God
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  is showing the whole world who is truly in his family.
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  So to just try and summarize the new perspective before we
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  critique it, first 1st century Judaism was not about earning
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  salvation, it was this covenantal gnomism.
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  Correct? Second, Paul wasn't fighting
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  legalism, he was fighting Jewish nationalism.
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  And 3rd justification is mainly about who belongs to the church,
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  the covenant community, not just about how an individual Sinner
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  gets right with God. That's a very fair summary, and
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  you can see why it's an attractive summary for a modern
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  audience, can't you? It focuses on these big themes
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  of inclusion and unity, which are very popular themes in our
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  culture today. OK, now before we start taking
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  this apart, and we are going to take it apart, we need to be
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  fair. We want to steal man.
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  Their argument. What did the new perspective get
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  right? Because they're not just making
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  this up out of thin air. There must be some truth to what
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  they're seeing in the text. No, they're not, and we have to
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  be honest enough to admit that the Reformers and maybe
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  Protestants since then have at times caricatured 1st century
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  Judaism. It wasn't purely a cartoon of
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  Pelagian moralism where every single person was walking around
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  saying I am earning my salvation purely by my own strength.
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  That's just not historically accurate.
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  Right. I mean, they had the Psalms,
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  they had a concept of grace. They had the entire sacrificial
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  system, which is built on the idea that you need atonement for
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  sin. They knew they needed
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  forgiveness. If you just read the Old
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  Testament, it's full of God's mercy.
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  Exactly. So the NPP is correct to push
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  back on that caricature, and they're also correct to remind
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  us that the social context of Paul's letters is huge.
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  When you read Galatians or Romans, that tension between
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  Jews and Gentiles is jumping right off the page.
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  It's not just a backdrop, it is the presenting issue in many
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  cases. Let's take the Antioch incident
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  in Galatians 2. This is a massive moment in the
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  early church. You have Peter the Apostle
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  eating with Gentile believers, probably having some pulled pork
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  or something that was definitely not kosher.
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  And then some guys from James from the Jerusalem church show
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  up and Peter gets scared and he withdraws from eating with them.
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  Right. And you have to ask, why did he
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  withdraw? It wasn't because they were
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  having some abstract theological debate about the order of
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  salvation in the order of salutis.
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  No, it was about table fellowship.
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  It was about who you can sit down and eat with.
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  It was a social issue. It was, and the new perspective
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  is genuinely helpful here because it points out that the
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  works of the law, like food restrictions, we're functioning
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  as literal walls to keep Gentiles out of the fellowship.
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  And that helps explain why something like circumcision was
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  such a massive deal. I mean, to us it seems strange
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  that they were so obsessed with a surgical procedure.
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  But in that context, it wasn't just a religious ritual.
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  It was the badge of the tribe. It was the entry ticket.
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  If you didn't have it, you were not on the team.
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  So credit where credit is due, the new perspective helps us see
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  that boundary marker aspect of the law.
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  It fleshes out the 3D World that Paul was living and ministering
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  in. The problem though, and this is
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  really where the train comes off the tracks, is the danger of
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  overcorrection. Right.
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  Just because the social context is true, it doesn't
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  automatically mean their theological conclusion is true.
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  It feels like they found a new hammer, the hammer of sociology,
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  and now every single text looks like a nail.
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  That's a perfect way to put it. The central error of the New
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  Perspective is that it uses these historical insights as a
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  controlling framework. They let the sociology swallow
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  the theology whole. They take a background issue,
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  Jew versus Gentile inclusion, and they make it the main point
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  of the gospel itself. They try to force a sociological
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  reading onto texts that are clearly about salvation, sin,
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  wrath and grace. OK, so let's test that theory.
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  We're going to do an exegetical deep dive.
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  Now we need to look at the text of Scripture and see if the NPP
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  theory actually holds water. Let's start with that
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  foundational claim by Sanders that 1st century Jews were not
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  legalists and didn't believe in earning salvation.
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  The best place to go for that is the words of Jesus himself.
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  Just look at Luke chapter 18, the parable of the Pharisee and
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  the tax collector, and notice who Jesus tells this story to.
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  Luke says he told it to some who trusted in themselves that they
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  were righteous and treated others with contempt.
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  OK, let's just pause there. Trusted in themselves that they
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  were righteous. That already sounds a lot like
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  legalism to me. It does, doesn't it?
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  And then look at the Pharisees prayer.
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  He stands up and he says, God, I thank you that I am not like
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  other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers or even like this tax
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  collector. So he starts with comparison and
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  then he lists his resume. He says I fast twice a week.
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  I give tithes of all that I get. Notice what he's boasting about
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  there. Is he boasting about his
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  ethnicity? Is he saying thank you God that
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  I am a Jew and not a Gentile? Is he waving his boundary marker
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  flag? He mentions he's not like other
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  men, which certainly implies A separation, but the core of his
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  boast, the ground of his confidence, is his moral
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  performance. Fasting and tithing.
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  These are not just ethnic boundary markers, these are
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  works of merit. He is presenting his resume to
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  God. He thinks he's putting God in
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  his debt with his performance. And he clearly thinks that that
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  resume is the reason he is accepted by God.
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  Exactly. Jesus is showing us in no
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  uncertain terms that self righteousness was a real and
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  present danger. The reformers did not invent the
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  idea of the self-righteous Pharisee.
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  Jesus described him perfectly. If Sanders were completely
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  right, this Pharisee in Jesus's parable shouldn't exist.
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  But he does. And then notice the tax
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  collector. He doesn't ask for inclusion.
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  He doesn't pray. Lord let me into the community.
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  He won't even lift his eyes to heaven.
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  He beats his breast and says, God be merciful to me, a Sinner.
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  He's asking for propitiation. He's asking for mercy on a
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  vertical level between him and God.
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  He knows he's guilty. And Jesus says that man went
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  home justified, not the other. So right there in the Gospels,
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  coming from the mouth of Jesus, we see the traditional view of
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  justification, guilt versus mercy, merit versus grace
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  clearly displayed. That's a very strong point.
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  OK, let's move to Paul test case number 2, the book of Galatians.
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  We mentioned the Antioch incident, but let's look closely
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  at Paul's response when Peter withdraws from the Gentiles.
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  Paul doesn't just say, hey Peter, stopping so mean we need
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  to be more inclusive. No, he doesn't appeal to
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  tolerance or social harmony. He appeals immediately to the
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  doctrine of justification. He confronts Peter and then says
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  to the Galatians, We know that a person is not justified by works
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  of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
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  He moves instantly from the social symptom to the underlying
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  theological disease. And then in Galatians chapter 3
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  he drops the hammer. Galatians 3 verse 10.
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  For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.
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  Now, if the NPP is right, why would they be under a curse?
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  Is it because they're being nationalistic?
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  Is racism the curse Paul is talking about?
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  That's the problem with the NPP reading, isn't it doesn't fit
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  the text. Paul explains why they are under
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  a curse. He quotes from Deuteronomy.
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  He says it's because curse be everyone who does not abide by
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  all things written in the book of the law and do them.
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  All things. That's the key, isn't it?
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  Not just some things, not just the boundary markers.
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  It is the absolute key. The curse is not falling on them
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  because they're using the law to exclude Gentiles.
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  The curse falls on them because the law, by its very nature,
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  demands perfection. It demands you do all things,
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  and the whole point of the gospel is that nobody can do all
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  things. This is a vertical legal claim.
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  It's about the unbendable standard of God's perfect
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  justice. So Paul is not saying the law is
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  bad because it creates social boundaries.
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  He's saying the law is bad as a way of salvation because you
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  cannot possibly keep it. Precisely.
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  It's not about the boundary of the law, it's about the burden
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  of the law. Paul's logic is devastatingly
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  simple. If you want to use the law to be
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  righteous, you have to keep it perfectly.
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  You can't. Therefore you are cursed.
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  Period. Yeah.
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  And then he says if righteousness could come through
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  the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
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  If the problem was just bad table manners or ethnic
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  exclusion, Paul's entire argument about the curse and the
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  death of Christ makes absolutely no sense.
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  OK. Let's go to the big one, Romans.
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  The MVP often argues that Romans is largely about how to unite
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  the Jewish and Gentile believers in the church at Rome, and that
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  is certainly part of the pastoral situation.
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  But how does Paul start the letter?
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  Where does his argument begin? He doesn't start with the
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  problem of social exclusion, he starts with the problem of
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  divine wrath. Romans one verse 18 For the
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  wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
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  and unrighteousness of men. All ungodliness, not just Jewish
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  ungodliness or Gentile ungodliness.
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  It's universal. It's universal.
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  He builds this massive courtroom case against the entire human
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  race. He indicts the pagans in Chapter
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  1 for idolatry, for sexual immorality.
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  Then he turns the spotlight and indicts the moralists and the
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  Jews in chapter 2. And where does he land in Romans
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  chapter 3, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole
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  world may be held accountable to God?
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  The whole world, that scope is just massive.
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  It's not about 1 ethnic group. That is the scope.
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  The fundamental problem is not that the lunch tables are
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  segregated in the church cafeteria.
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  The problem is that the whole world stands guilty before a
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  holy judge. And the solution Paul proposes,
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  justification, is the remedy for that wrath.
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  He uses the word Hillisterian propitiation in Romans 3.25.
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  That means a sacrifice that turns away wrath.
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  A sacrifice for sin, not a seminar on diversity and
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  inclusion. Right.
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  If the problem is just sociological, why do you need
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  blood atonement? Why do you need a propitiatory
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  sacrifice? You need blood because the
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  problem is vertical guilt and the holy wrath of God against
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  sin. The NPP in a way trivializes the
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  problem and therefore it has to trivialize the solution.
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  Let's look at one more test case before we move on.
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  Philippians, chapter 3. This is Paul's personal
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  testimony. He lists his confidence in the
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  flesh, and he does list the boundary markers, doesn't he?
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  Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the
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  tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of Hebrews, the MPP would say, see,
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  that's it. That's what he's rejecting his
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  Jewish privilege. But you have to keep reading.
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  He doesn't stop there. He also lists his moral
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  achievements. He says as to zeal, a persecutor
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  of the church, as to righteousness under the law,
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  blameless. He's claiming he was a high
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  performer. He wasn't just born right, He
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  acted right. He checked all the boxes.
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  And what does he do with all of it?
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  The ethnicity and the morality. He counts it all as loss.
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  He calls it rubbish. The Greek is scuba LON, which is
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  much stronger. It means dung.
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  Exactly. And notice the great exchange he
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  proposes. He wants to be found in Christ,
• 18:24
  not having a righteousness of Mayaw that comes from the law,
• 18:27
  but that which comes through faith in Christ.
• 18:30
  The righteousness from God that depends on faith.
• 18:32
  He's not just trading a Jewish badge for a Christian badge.
• 18:35
  He is trading a self righteousness for a God
• 18:38
  righteousness. He is trading something he
• 18:40
  achieved for something he receives as a gift.
• 18:43
  That distinction between my own righteousness and righteousness
• 18:46
  from God, that seems to totally undercut the idea that he's only
• 18:49
  talking about national identity. It completely destroys it
• 18:53
  because national identity is not usually described as my own
• 18:56
  righteousness. That's moral language.
• 18:58
  That's achievement language. Paul is rejecting his own moral
• 19:01
  resume as any ground for his acceptance before God.
• 19:04
  He is saying that even his best works, his blameless status
• 19:07
  under the law, are filth compared to the perfect
• 19:10
  righteousness of Christ. So we've looked at the texts,
• 19:13
  but a lot of this debate really comes down to definitions.
• 19:16
  We've thrown around some Greek terms and we need to unpack them
• 19:19
  because the NPP redefines them in crucial ways.
• 19:22
  Yes, syntax and semantics. It sounds DRY, but this is the
• 19:26
  battlefield. You can control the dictionary.
• 19:28
  You can control the theology. Let's start with that big one,
• 19:31
  Works of the law, Aganomu. We touched on this.
• 19:34
  The NPP says these are primarily identity badges, circumcision,
• 19:38
  Sabbath, food laws. The classic Reformed view says
• 19:41
  these are any and all human efforts to obey God's law for
• 19:44
  merit. Is there a smoking gun text that
• 19:46
  really proves the Reformed view? I think Romans 4 is the smoking
• 19:50
  gun. Paul's talking about Abraham's
• 19:51
  justification, and in Romans 4, verses four and five, he used a
• 19:55
  very clear illustration. He talks about a worker, he says
• 19:58
  now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift
• 20:02
  but as his due. Right.
• 20:03
  He's talking about a job. You work a 40 hour week, you get
• 20:06
  a paycheck. It's a debt the employer owes
• 20:09
  you. It's not a gift.
• 20:10
  Exactly. Now just ask yourself, does that
• 20:13
  metaphor of wages and debt fit the boundary marker theory?
• 20:17
  If I get circumcised, does God now owe me salvation like a
• 20:20
  wage? No, that doesn't make any sense.
• 20:23
  The metaphor of wages and debt only makes sense if works means
• 20:26
  moral performance to earn a reward.
• 20:28
  That is such a clear point. The wage metaphor proves he is
• 20:32
  talking about merit, not just ethnicity.
• 20:34
  If I mow your lawn, you owe me $20.
• 20:36
  If I just wear a specific badge or a specific hat, you don't owe
• 20:39
  me anything. Right.
• 20:40
  If works just meant being Jewish or observing food laws, the
• 20:45
  illustration of the laborer earning a paycheck falls apart
• 20:47
  completely. It wouldn't make any sense.
• 20:49
  In the argument, Paul is clearly attacking the entire principle
• 20:52
  of merit of putting God in your debt.
• 20:54
  OK, next term, Faith of Christ in Greek Pistus Christu.
• 20:59
  The NPP, especially writers like right, often translates this as
• 21:03
  the faithfulness of Christ. So it's Jesus's own loyalty to
• 21:07
  the covenant that saves us. And the classic Reformed view,
• 21:09
  of course, translates it as faith in Christ.
• 21:13
  Our trust is directed toward him.
• 21:15
  It's an objective genitive for those who care about the
• 21:18
  grammar. Why does this matter so much?
• 21:20
  I mean, it sounds like a small distinction without a huge
• 21:22
  difference. Both sound holy and good.
• 21:24
  It matters because of the role of faith itself.
• 21:27
  If it means Christo's faithfulness, then the emphasis
• 21:30
  is entirely on what Jesus did. Which sounds good, right?
• 21:33
  Of course, per say by what Jesus did.
• 21:35
  But it suddenly obscures the fact that we must believe.
• 21:37
  It can turn faith into something Jesus does for us, rather than
• 21:41
  the instrument, the empty hand by which we received him and his
• 21:43
  work. But isn't there a grammatical
• 21:45
  reason, a contextual reason, to stick with faith in Christ?
• 21:48
  There is a very strong one. Look at Galatians 2.16.
• 21:53
  Paul uses the noun phrase pistas christu, faith of Christ.
• 21:56
  But right next to it in the same sentence he uses the verb form.
• 22:00
  He says we have believed into Christ Jesus.
• 22:03
  He uses the preposition us, which means into or toward.
• 22:07
  The verb clearly describes our action of believing.
• 22:10
  It defines the noun. Paul's essentially saying we
• 22:13
  know a person is justified by faith in Christ, so that is why
• 22:16
  we have believed into Christ. So he's saying, this is the
• 22:18
  instrument, this is how we grab hold of the promise.
• 22:21
  If you change it to Christ's faithfulness, you lose the empty
• 22:25
  hand of faith receiving the gift.
• 22:27
  Faith becomes a virtue Christ possesses instead of the means
• 22:30
  by which we receive him. Exactly.
• 22:32
  And historically, the Church has almost universally understood
• 22:34
  this is referring to the object of our faith.
• 22:36
  We believe in Him. Let's do one more definition,
• 22:38
  justification itself. The NTP, particularly right,
• 22:42
  says it means vindication. It's a declaration that you are
• 22:45
  in the family. You belong to the covenant
• 22:47
  people. And the reform view says it is
• 22:50
  forensic, it's a legal verdict from the judge of the universe.
• 22:54
  It's the declaration you are righteous, you are acquitted.
• 22:57
  Why is the membership definition insufficient?
• 23:01
  What does it leave out? Because membership doesn't solve
• 23:04
  the problem of guilt. Imagine you're standing before a
• 23:06
  judge on trial for a capital crime you definitely committed,
• 23:10
  say treason, and the judge looks at you, bangs the gavel, and
• 23:14
  says I hereby declare that you are a member of this community.
• 23:18
  That's nice, but am I going to jail?
• 23:21
  Am I being executed? That's the real.
• 23:22
  Question. Exactly.
• 23:23
  Membership doesn't answer the charge against you.
• 23:26
  You don't need a welcome speech, you need an acquittal.
• 23:28
  You need a legal verdict that says the penalty is paid in
• 23:31
  full, the charges are dropped, and you are free to go.
• 23:35
  A Sinner standing before a holy God needs a judge to acquit
• 23:38
  them, not just a community to welcome them.
• 23:40
  The NPP definition flattens the legal urgency of the gospel.
• 23:44
  And that really brings us to the theological core of this whole
• 23:47
  debate. If we strip away the history in
• 23:49
  the Greek for a second, what is the theological engine driving
• 23:52
  the Reformed view versus the engine driving the NPP?
• 23:55
  It comes down to two very different concepts, imputation
• 23:58
  versus vindication. Let's go to the Westminster
• 24:01
  Confession here. It's the gold standard for
• 24:04
  expressing this doctrine. Westminster Confession, Chapter
• 24:06
  11 on justification. It says that God justifies
• 24:11
  believers by pardoning their sins and by accounting and
• 24:14
  accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything
• 24:17
  wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone.
• 24:20
  Not for anything wrought in them.
• 24:22
  That's a huge phrase. That means it's not about what
• 24:25
  the Spirit does inside of me, my sanctification.
• 24:28
  It's about what Christ did completely outside of me.
• 24:31
  That is the doctrine of the great exchange imputation.
• 24:35
  Sometimes it's called the double imputation.
• 24:37
  Our sin is legally credited to Christ's account on the cross.
• 24:41
  He takes our debt. His perfect righteousness, His
• 24:43
  entire life of perfect obedience to the law is legally credited
• 24:47
  to our account. We get His assets.
• 24:49
  But NT Wright really pushes back on this, doesn't he?
• 24:51
  I think he famously called imputation a legal fiction.
• 24:54
  He says righteousness isn't a substance like a gas or a liquid
• 24:58
  that you can pass across a courtroom.
• 24:59
  He does say that he finds the idea of transferring
• 25:02
  righteousness could be clumsy. He argues for vindication.
• 25:05
  Instead. He would say God vindicates us
• 25:07
  because we have the badge of covenant membership, which is
• 25:10
  faith. But then he often defines faith
• 25:13
  as our faithfulness or our loyalty to the covenant.
• 25:17
  And this is where it gets really scary, right?
• 25:19
  Right talks about a future justification.
• 25:22
  He suggests that while we are initially justified by faith,
• 25:25
  our final justification on the last day will be according to
• 25:28
  works or according to the whole life lived.
• 25:31
  And that is the trap. That is the poison pill in the
• 25:33
  system. If my final standing before God
• 25:36
  depends on my life lived, even if I say the Spirit helped me
• 25:39
  live it, then my confidence is at least in part back on myself.
• 25:43
  It introduces a lag time, a period of probation.
• 25:46
  I'm OK now, but will I be OK then?
• 25:48
  Have I been faithful enough? It sounds exactly like the
• 25:51
  Glacier Heresy all over again. Having begun by the Spirit, are
• 25:54
  you now being perfected by the flesh?
• 25:56
  It is precisely that structure. You could call it a grace
• 25:59
  sandwich. Grace starts it, and maybe grace
• 26:01
  helps finish it. But the meet in the middle is my
• 26:03
  faithfulness. And if the meat is rotten, the
• 26:06
  whole sandwich is ruined. But wait, I have to play devil's
• 26:09
  advocate here for a second. What about Romans chapter 2?
• 26:12
  Paul says the doers of the law will be justified.
• 26:15
  The NBP advocates love that verse.
• 26:18
  It seems to suggest that our doing is part of the equation
• 26:21
  for justification. They do love that verse and they
• 26:23
  use it often, but we have to read Romans 2 carefully in its
• 26:26
  context. Context is King Paul is setting
• 26:29
  a trap for the self-righteous person.
• 26:31
  He's saying in essence, OK, you want to be justified by the law,
• 26:34
  fine, here's the standard perfection.
• 26:37
  The doers of the law will be justified.
• 26:40
  So then he spends the next chapter and a half proving that
• 26:43
  no one is a doer not. 1 So it's a hypothetical standard of
• 26:47
  perfection. He's setting the bar impossibly
• 26:50
  high to show them they can't clear it to shut their mouths.
• 26:53
  That's the classic Protestant reading, and I think it's the
• 26:56
  correct one. Or at the very least, we have to
• 26:59
  distinguish between the instrument of justification and
• 27:02
  the evidence of justification. Reformed theology has always
• 27:05
  said good works are necessary, but they are necessary as
• 27:09
  evidence of a living faith, not as the ground of our right
• 27:12
  standing. So the works of the fruit on the
• 27:15
  tree proving that the tree is alive.
• 27:17
  But the fruit doesn't make the tree alive, the root does.
• 27:20
  Exactly. The NPP confuses the fruit with
• 27:22
  the root. They make the fruit part of the
• 27:24
  reason God accepts the tree in the 1st place.
• 27:27
  And once you do that, you are right back on the performance
• 27:30
  treadmill of merit. I want to briefly touch on
• 27:32
  something you mentioned earlier, Federal Vision.
• 27:34
  This is where these academic ideas actually leaked into
• 27:37
  Reformed and Presbyterian churches, right?
• 27:39
  It wasn't just a debate in journals.
• 27:41
  It's split churches. Yes, tragically so.
• 27:45
  Federal vision is in many ways the NPP applied to Reformed
• 27:49
  covenant theology. They emphasize the idea of an
• 27:53
  objective covenant. If you are baptized, you are in.
• 27:57
  You have a kind of temporary conditional election, but you
• 28:01
  have to maintain your place in the covenant by your
• 28:03
  faithfulness. It essentially turns the
• 28:05
  covenant of grace into another covenant of works, just one
• 28:08
  that's a little bit easier to keep because of grace.
• 28:10
  Which brings us to the So what question?
• 28:13
  Why does this matter to the guy sitting in the Pew who has a
• 28:15
  nine to five job and three kids and is just trying to make it
• 28:19
  through the week? Why should he care about EP
• 28:21
  Sanders or NT? Right.
• 28:22
  It matters because of the doctrine of assurance.
• 28:25
  Assurance of salvation. Absolutely.
• 28:27
  If you adopt the NPP view that you stay in by your
• 28:30
  faithfulness, your conscience can never truly be at rest.
• 28:33
  You will always be forced to ask the question, have I been
• 28:35
  faithful enough with my loyalty sufficient today?
• 28:38
  Did I do enough to maintain my membership in the club?
• 28:41
  It forces your gaze inward onto your own performance.
• 28:44
  It does. It becomes a mirror.
• 28:46
  And when I look in the mirror, honestly, I see sin, I see
• 28:50
  inconsistency, I see mixed motives.
• 28:52
  Even in my best actions, if my final salvation depends on that
• 28:55
  reflection, I'm in deep trouble. I will just oscillate between
• 28:59
  pride on my good days and despair on my bad days.
• 29:02
  But the. Reformed view The view of
• 29:03
  imputation tells me to look where.
• 29:06
  Extra nose outside of ourselves. It tells me to stop looking in
• 29:09
  the mirror and to look at Christ.
• 29:11
  Is his obedience sufficient? Yes.
• 29:13
  Did He finish the work on the cross?
• 29:15
  Yes, then I am safe. I am secure not because I am
• 29:18
  faithful, but because He was faithful for me and His
• 29:21
  faithfulness is counted as mine. That is a massive life altering
• 29:25
  difference. One path leads to constant
• 29:27
  anxiety, the other leads to profound rest.
• 29:29
  And there's another danger here. We need to highlight this
• 29:32
  redefinition of faith as loyalty.
• 29:34
  If we turn faith, which is receiving and resting, into
• 29:37
  allegiance, which is doing and performing, we are turning the
• 29:41
  gospel into a new law. It sounds heroic though, doesn't
• 29:43
  it? I pledge my allegiance to King
• 29:45
  Jesus. It appeals to men especially.
• 29:47
  It sounds strong. It sounds great on a bumper
• 29:49
  sticker. It sounds masculine and robust.
• 29:51
  But when you are on your deathbed, you do not want to
• 29:54
  plead your allegiance. You want to plead His blood.
• 29:57
  If faith becomes my loyalty, then we're right back to
• 30:00
  legalism. It might be a spirit filled
• 30:02
  legalism or a gospel powered legalism, but it's legalism
• 30:05
  nonetheless. This also seems to impact how we
• 30:08
  view the church itself. The MPP puts a huge emphasis on
• 30:12
  unity. Jews and Gentiles eating
• 30:13
  together, That's their big selling point.
• 30:15
  And unity is a good thing. The bile calls for unity.
• 30:18
  We want unity. But the MPP prioritizes the
• 30:21
  horizontal unity over the vertical reconciliation.
• 30:25
  It says the main problem is division between people.
• 30:27
  So the main solution is inclusion.
• 30:29
  Reformed theology says the main problem is vertical.
• 30:32
  We are enemies of God because of our sin.
• 30:34
  The solution is reconciliation to God through Christ, and from
• 30:38
  that vertical reconciliation true horizontal unity flows.
• 30:42
  So if you build unity on just belonging, without that clear
• 30:45
  gospel verdict of not guilty, it's fragile.
• 30:48
  It's just sociology. It's a social club.
• 30:50
  It's not the body of Christ. You can have a very unified club
• 30:54
  of people who are all going to hell together because they're
• 30:57
  all trusting in their own faithfulness to maintain in
• 30:59
  their membership. True unity is found in the fact
• 31:03
  that we are all equally desperate beggars who have found
• 31:06
  the same bread of life. And finally, what about the Law
• 31:10
  and Gospel distinction? We talked about covenant
• 31:11
  colonomism, this idea that the law is just how we maintain the
• 31:15
  relationship. Right.
• 31:17
  The NPP tends to flatten the covenants.
• 31:19
  It makes it all one big blurry relationship of grace and
• 31:22
  obedience. But when you do that, you lose
• 31:25
  the first use of the law. The mirror that kills our pride.
• 31:28
  Yes, the mirror that shows us our sin and drives us to Christ.
• 31:32
  If the law is just a maintenance plan or house rules for the
• 31:35
  club, it ceases to be the hammer that shatters our self
• 31:38
  righteousness. We stop seeing our desperate
• 31:40
  need for a Savior because we think we could probably manage
• 31:43
  the maintenance plan. We think I can handle this.
• 31:45
  I could be loyal enough. So we have covered a lot of
• 31:48
  ground here. We looked at the history, the
• 31:49
  key texts, the grammar and the theology.
• 31:53
  I think it's time to reach a verdict on the new perspective
• 31:55
  on Paul. The verdict is this.
• 31:58
  The new perspective on Paul solves a problem that Paul did
• 32:01
  not ultimately have, which is merely sociological exclusion,
• 32:05
  by removing the only solution we absolutely need, which is
• 32:09
  soteriological rescue from the wrath of God.
• 32:11
  That puts it perfectly. It fixes A secondary issue by
• 32:14
  breaking the primary central issue of the gospel.
• 32:17
  It's a very sophisticated and scholarly return to covenantal
• 32:21
  gnomism. It's a system of grace plus
• 32:24
  works. It might be dressed up in
• 32:26
  historical research and it might use the right biblical language,
• 32:29
  but underneath the hood it undermines the sufficiency of
• 32:32
  Christ and the assurance of the believer.
• 32:34
  And that's why we need to stand behind the guardrail of the
• 32:36
  confession. The.
• 32:37
  Westminster Confession refuses to mix our works with the ground
• 32:40
  of our justification. And that refusal is not about
• 32:43
  being stubborn or old fashioned. It's about being safe.
• 32:46
  The only safe ground for a guilty Sinner to stand on is the
• 32:49
  imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith alone.
• 32:53
  Our final thought for you, the listener, is a pastoral 1.
• 32:56
  The church today must be committed to proclaiming an open
• 32:59
  heaven, not just an open table. An open table is a nice idea,
• 33:03
  but if the heaven above that table is shut and barred because
• 33:06
  of our sin, the table doesn't ultimately matter.
• 33:08
  And the heaven is opened only by the blood of Christ applied to
• 33:12
  us by faith. So here is the provocation we
• 33:14
  want to leave you with when you stand before God, not if, but
• 33:19
  when, and the books are opened. What will be your plea?
• 33:22
  What will you say? Will you plead your covenant
• 33:24
  faithfulness? Will you point to your record
• 33:26
  and say, Lord, I was a loyal member of the community?
• 33:29
  Or will you abandon all of that and plead nothing but the blood
• 33:32
  of Christ? Yeah, that's the only question
• 33:34
  that will matter in that moment. Thanks for diving deep with us
• 33:36
  today on reform thinking. We'll see you next time.