Joni Eareckson Tada
An Excellent New Book on Justification
If a thoughtful layman asked me what he should read to understand the doctrine of justification in relationship to the New Perspective on Paul, I would send him to Stephen Westerholmâs new book, Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme (Eerdmans, 2013). I enjoyed this book so much I found it difficult to put down. It is constructive. That is, it builds a clear and positive view of what justification is, rather than simply criticizing other views. For that reason, it provides a good introduction to the doctrine of justification itself for those who may not be clear on what Paul taught. According to the New Perspective But it is obviously written with a view to explaining and criticizing the so-called New Perspective (including Krister Stendahl, E.P. Sanders, J.D.G. Dunn, and N.T. Wright). The gist of that perspective is that the Judaism of Paulâs day was not a religion of legalism but of grace, and so, contrary to the historic view of Paul, legalism can hardly be what Paul found wrong with Judaism. His doctrine of justification must have had a different target. Therefore, the New Perspective says, justification âwas not about how sinners could find a gracious God (by grace, not by works), but about the terms by which Gentles could be admitted to the people of God (without circumcision, Jewish food laws, and the like). A new Perspective was bornâ (26). The problem, Westerholm points out, is that the views of grace in contemporary Judaism did not exclude the merit of works alongside it. E.P. Sanders himself shows that the Rabbis âdid not have a doctrine of original sin or of the essential sinfulness of each man in the Christian senseâ (33). It follows, Westerholm argues, that âhumanityâs predicament must be more desperate than Jews otherwise imaginedâ (33). Desperate for Grace This means that Paulâs âdepiction of humanityâs condition required a much more rigorous dependence on divine grace than did Judaismâsâ (34). Therefore, to show that Judaism had a doctrine of grace âis no reason to deny that Paul could have understood justification in terms of an exclusive reliance on grace in a way that was foreign to the thinking of contemporary Jewsâ (34). Therefore, Paulâs doctrine of justification did target not only a Jewish view, but any human view, that presumes to make good works any part of the ground of our being found righteous before God. âFor Paul, Godâs gift of salvation [i.e., justification] necessarily excludes any part to be played by God-pleasing âworksâ since human beings are incapable of doing themâ (32). âPaul sees the only righteousness available to sinful human beings to be that given as a gift of Godâs grace, âapart from worksâ (Romans 3:24; 4:2, 6; 5:17) â distinguishing grace from works in a way other Jews felt no need to doâ (98). What the Doctrine Means In a statement that summarizes the whole book, Westerholm writes that this historic view of justification, shared by the Reformers and most Protestants, cannot be dismissed by the claim that the ancients were not concerned to find a gracious God (how could they not be, in the face of pending divine judgment?); or that it wrongly casts first-century Jews as legalists (its target is rather the sinfulness of all human beings); or that non-Christian Jews, too, depended on divine grace (of course they did, but without Paulâs need to distinguish grace from works); or that ârighteousnessâ means âmembership in the covenantâ (never did, never will) and the expression âworks of the lawâ refers to the boundary markers of the Jewish people (it refers to all the ârighteousâ deeds required by the law as its path to righteousness). (98) And, Westerholm observes, it is, of course, right to âemphasize the social implications of Paulâs doctrine of justification . . . in his own day and . . . draw out its social implications for our ownâ (98). But we should not identify the meaning of justification with its social implications (for example, table fellowship between Gentiles and Jews in Galatians 2; and multi-ethnic implications today). No. âThe doctrine of justification means that God declares sinners righteous, apart from righteous deeds, when they believe in Jesus Christâ (99). Confusing the root with the fruit will, in the long run, kill the tree. Article by John Piper Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org
