Review

Rating: 10

Reading a book by NT Wright on Justification and then hearing his critics is like listening to a majestic symphony and then hearing someone complain about the parallel fifths.

There’s a lot to process in Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision and I can’t recap everything I’ve thought and experienced over the past 3 weeks as I’ve read it. I will say this, however, NT Wright is one of the most gifted authors and biblical theologians of our era and to dismiss him is to our detriment. For starters, I cannot fathom the criticism that this book has received from some critics about Wright’s insistence upon the importance of the end of exile narrative in Paul particularly and the New Testament as a whole. If exile makes you uncomfortable, don’t blame Wright, blame Paul or John or Matthew or Jesus. Or the “Reformed” criticism that he receives for holding a view of the Law that is Reformed! You would think that they have never read Psalm 19 or 119 or any of Romans!

Wright also does an admirable job including the oft-neglected person of Holy Spirit in the discussion of Justification. The person and work of Holy Spirit is a major theme in Paul (and in Calvin!) and his work is, unfortunately, ignored in large part.

Are there things in Wright’s book that I still need to process? Absolutely. His recasting of imputation language scares me a little and I’m unable just yet to see how “you can get there a better way and do justice to the text” as he says. Of course, some of this is due to Wright being from a different theological tradition than myself and using terms in different ways. And that’s okay. Not every Christian needs to have Westminster definitions in mind when doing theology.

Using words in different ways is an area where Wright and his critics often talk past each other and it’s unfortunate. Wright attempts to come up with what he considers a “Pauline” definition of justification and his critics fault him for not using their definition of justification – though they (should) readily admit that everything that they mean when they use the word can’t be plugged into every instance in the Bible. That’s not the way theological technical terms work.

The short review goes like this:
Do I agree with every jot and tittle of Wright’s exegesis? No. But he’s more “Reformed” than most of his critics give him credit for.
Are there some major flaws? Sure. Leaving out the Davidic Covenant is a huge omission, in my opinion. (Though, you can’t say everything when you say anything…)
Has Wright left orthodoxy behind? Absolutely not.
Is it valuable for Christians from all traditions to read Wright? Absolutely.