I agree with you about their view of grace. I do, however, think that what the NP is saying could help in understanding a few passages. I try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I think the NP and imputed righteousness are both excessively legal in their view of grace.

Thanks for the input. I enjoy “talking” to you about these things. I think i read the same article on Justification that you did.

If nothing else…this new book by Wright solves very little, and the debate will continue for quite some time! There is lots of food for thought here.

As for his view that deliverance from the penalty and power of sin comes through Resurrection, and not justification – well, justification comes through His Death and Resurrection. Justification is rooted in His Resurrection. I myself don’t ever recall thinking of my justification and His Resurrection as disconnected. All of us in FG know that His Resurrection, and not just His Death, was necessary for our justification. He was raised for our justification (Romans 4:25). And we all know that His Death and Resurrection continues to sanctify us experientially if we keep believing (1 Cor 15:2). So of course our rescue comes through His Resurrection. Perhaps most of us stressed His Death and Blood Atonement to the point where it seemed we were neglecting the Resurrection’s role and power in these areas.

I am not saying that I agree completely with Wright. Like you, I am not completely happy with his treatement of good works following faith, eternal rewards, and the terms “salvation” and “wrath.” I actually think his case would be strengthened quite a bit by the way we understand such terms.

Similarly, however, after I read this book (and several of his others over the past year or so), I am beginning to think that his view on justification would fit well, and possibly even strengthen, a “Free Grace” perspective.

He needs our view on salvation, wrath, and eternal rewards, and our case might be strengthened with his view of justification, while avoiding the mistakes he makes about works following faith…though really, his point about works is that they follow faith in the Holy Spirit…which is different, and which I could probably agree with.

I am very pleased with how he deals with the forgiveness of sin, and am pondering the idea that the biblical teachings of “resurrection” and being “in Christ” accomplishes what theologians have attempted to do through “imputed righteousness.”

Wright would be perplexed by our view of rewards, since he focuses on covenental and ecclesiological issues. It’s always one extreme or another, even in our camp. Wright focues on covenant and ecclesiology, which admittedly we are often prone to ignore, but he goes overboard and denies imputational righteousness. He never fully deals with the sin issue. We on the other hand understand imputational righteousness , and go on to ignore coventantal matters (only we don’t necessarily reject them, we just don’t focus on them).

Thanks for the link. I read the review…which is of Wright’s book “What Saint Paul Really Said” and not his more recent book, “Justification.”

Reviews like this are exactly why Wright wroke this more recent book. He is making an attempt to clarify what he believes Paul teaches about justification, especially in passages like Romans 3:21ff. I read again the passage in “Justification” about Romans 3:21ff (which the reviewer mentioned) and I think Wright’s book clears it up beautifully (cf. pp. 201-210).

As I read the review, and compared it with what I read in Wright, it appears to me that the reviewer has not fully grasped Wright’s point. And this, of course, is one main point in Wright’s new book.

Part of the problem in this whole debate, I think, is a failure on all sides (Wright as well?!) to properly define “salvation” and “wrath” in Scripture (and Romans in particular).