Ian & Jocelyn Barker

In chapter 7, “Justification and the Church,” Wright looks at justification by faith and how it is more about the church than about salvation. I will probably do 2-3 posts on this chapter because it is so rich and new that it warrants a more in-depth look.

Wright contends that our idea about Paul and his gospel has been so shaped around justification by faith that we have lost the heart of his gospel. By starting with his gospel, you get justification “thrown in.” The church’s doctrine of justification by faith concerns itself with God’s salvation of the individual, or, how is a person saved? He believes that when it comes to how people are saved, “[Paul] does not use the language of ‘justification’ to denote this event or process” (p. 117). This process is about preaching, conviction, and “entry into the common life of the people of God” (117).

What is Wright’s understanding?

1. It is covenant language.
2. It is law-court language. It is joined to the covenant setting because the covenant seeks to set the world straight.
3. It can’t be understood apart from eschatology. By this, I believe Wright is talking about the subjection of all things to Christ.

Justification in Jewish Context

The main concern of Saul of Tarsus was the salvation of Israel. The covenant was not just so God could have Israel as His special people without regard for the rest of the world. Since the covenant promised the defeat of sin and evil, it was appropriate to use a law-court setting to see how victory was accomplished. The judge was God, it was the evildoers (pagan nations) who would be judged, and Israel would be vindicated. This “justification” was thus eschatological and could be anticipated because those who adhered to the Torah (true Israel) would be assured of being justified in the future.

“Justification in this setting, then, is not a matter of how someone enters the community of the true people of God, but of how you tell who belongs to that community, not least in the period of time before the eschatological event itself, when the matter will become public knowledge” (119).

It was not a matter of getting in or staying in the family, but a way of telling who was in. It had more to do with church than with salvation.

Tomorrow we’ll look at “Justification in Paul’s Christian Theology.”