The Upper Register

The Crucified King

Jeremy R. Treat, The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology (Zondervan, 2014)  

Jeremy Treat is Pastor for Equipping and Theology at Reality LA in Hollywood. This book is his PhD dissertation written under the supervision of Kevin Vanhoozer at Wheaton College with guidance from Douglas Moo. The foreword was written by Michael Horton. This treatise comes with excellent credentials.

Treat’s quest in this book is to reconcile and harmonize two key New Testament themes that have often been separated – the kingdom of God and the atonement accomplished by Christ – and to do so using two methodologies that have also tended to be split apart – biblical theology and systematic theology. He sets the question before himself in the opening page of his introduction:  “This book seeks to provide an answer to the following basic question: What is the biblical and theological relationship between the coming of the kingdom of God and the atoning death of Christ on the cross?” (p. 25).

After an introduction which lays out the question and defines key terms, the book is divided into two sections, corresponding to the two methods used.

Part I is Biblical Theology and contains five chapters.  Chapter 1 is an overview of the Old Testament motif of “victory through sacrifice,” beginning with the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 (the seed of the woman who crushes the serpent’s head but whose heel is bruised in the process). Treat rightly argues that the grand narrative of Scripture, from Adam to Israel, is the key narrative context for understanding the coming of the kingdom of God. Chapter 2 focuses on the Suffering Servant in the prophecies of Isaiah. Chapter 3 is a magisterial tracing of the theme of the crucified King in the Gospel of Mark. Chapter 4 is a more exegetical examination of several key passages in two New Testament books that show the interlocking nature of the cross and the kingdom:  Colossians and Revelation. Chapter 5 is a summary of Part I. Here Treat summarizes his thesis:  the kingdom is telic, and the cross is central. In other words, the kingdom is the telos or goal of God’s purpose in creation and redemptive history, but the kingdom comes through the atoning death of Christ. The cross is the pivot-point or hinge that effects the shift from the old age under the reign of sin, death, and Satan to the new creation or the eschatological kingdom of God.

Part II is Systematic Theology and contains five chapters. Chapter 6 deals with two topics related to Christology:  the two states of Christ (the humiliation and the exaltation of Christ) and the three-fold office of Christ (prophet, priest and king). Treat argues that an over-compartmentalization of the two states of Christ has misled theologians into thinking that the kingly office of Christ begins with his exaltation, thus missing the reality that Christ reigns on the cross (as demonstrated in his earlier survey of Mark’s Gospel in Chapter 3). Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the conflict in contemporary theology between those who advocate a Christus Victor theory and defenders of the penal substitution theory of the atonement. In a nutshell, he argues that both motifs are necessary and essential for a right understanding of the kingdom, but that they must be seen in their proper relationship and order:  the penal substitutionary death of Christ is the means by which Christ accomplishes his victory over Satan, delivers us from Satan’s power, and effects the transition of the ages that inaugurates the kingdom of God. Treat summarizes this as “Christus Victor through penal substitution.” Chapter 9 is a critical examination of Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of the kingdom of God. Chapter 10 is a conclusion.

One thing I liked about the book is that Treat does a particularly good job of interacting with N. T. Wright’s thought. Although Treat is appreciative of Wright and is in some ways even in agreement with Wright on the main point (that Jesus brings the kingdom by way of the cross), he also sees the areas where Wright’s theology is lacking and in need of correction. Treat focuses on presenting his thesis in positive terms and avoids undue polemics. Nevertheless, if you read the footnotes carefully, you can see the points where Treat takes issue with Wright or would want to tweak Wright’s thought in a more orthodox direction. For example, he writes: “Although Wright acknowledges some form of penal substitution, it plays little role in his telling of the story of redemption or connecting kingdom and cross. I see penal substitution (as integrated with Christus Victor) being essential for relating kingdom and cross.” (p. 247 n1). For more criticisms of Wright, see Treat’s comments on pp. 29 n25, 132 n9, 133-34, 138 n36.

I highly recommend this book. In terms of his success in answering his question (What is the relationship between the kingdom and the atoning death of Christ?), I think that Treat has nailed it.

N. T. Wright's reformulation of justification

N. T. Wright’s long-awaited Paul and the Faithfulness of God is out now. It is so big the publisher had to break it up into two volumes totaling 1,696 pages. I haven’t bought it yet, much less read it, but I plan to do both as soon as possible. I’m sure everyone will be talking about it at SBL in Baltimore in two weeks.

In this post, I’m focusing on Wright’s view of justification as expressed in his publications up to this point, obviously not taking his latest book into account. He may have modified or clarified some things there.

It’s important to keep in mind that justification is only one aspect of his thought. I’m sure he gets frustrated when people only nitpick at that one issue and ignore the rest of his “grand narrative” proposals regarding Jesus as the Messiah (= true Israel) who fulfills the Abrahamic covenant. That theme is obviously far more important to him than getting the technical details of justification right.

But the details of justification are important because they directly relate to assurance, the question of how I as a sinner can be accepted before a holy God. The Bible teaches that we must be righteous in order to stand accepted before a holy God (Rom 2:13), and lacking such righteousness (Rom 3:9-20), it is only to be found in Christ who is our righteousness (Rom 3:21-26; 10:3-4; 1 Cor 1:30; 2 Cor 5:21; Phil 3:9).

But for Wright, the question of righteousness – how can a sinner be righteous before God? – is irrelevant. To use Stendahl’s phrase, it stems from the introspective conscience of the West and has little to do with Paul’s concerns. The search for assurance before a holy God is a subsidiary crater to the much more massive crater created by God’s faithfulness to his promises to Abraham, and the resulting formation of the multiethnic people of the Messiah who embody and extend God’s faithfulness to the world.

I have a theory that I would like to throw out there, but I think the best way to understand Wright is to take the classic Reformed definition of justification and see what Wright does with it. My theory is that he affirms the first half of the definition, rejects the second half, and replaces the second half with the issue of covenant membership in order to tie it into his grand narrative of God’s covenant faithfulness.

The classic Reformed definition is summarized by Calvin: “Justification consists in the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ” (Institutes 3.11.2). The same two-part definition is given in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 33):  “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”

My theory is that Wright affirms the first half of justification – the forgiveness of sins. But he rejects the second half – the imputation of the righteousness of Christ – and in its place he puts the declaration of covenant membership.

Why does he reject the second half, the positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness? First, he doesn’t accept the interpretation of the classic proof texts used in Reformed theology. But second, he just doesn’t believe that it is necessary. He doesn’t believe that we need a positive righteousness to be accepted before God. As long as we are forgiven, our acceptance is by his grace, without the need for the law to be fulfilled positively so that we might be reckoned as perfectly righteous in his sight.

Here are some quotes by Wright to provide evidence for my theory.

What Saint Paul Really Said (1997)

“If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom” (p. 98).

“If we leave the notion of ‘righteousness’ as a law-court metaphor only, as so many have done in the past, this gives the impression of a legal transaction, a cold piece of business, almost a trick of thought performed by a God who is logical and correct but hardly one we would want to worship” (p. 110).

“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 … It was about God’s eschatological definition, both future and present, of who was, in fact, a member of his people” (p. 119).

1 Corinthians 1:30 “is the only passage I know where something called ‘the imputed righteousness of Christ,’ a phrase more often found in post-Reformation theology and piety than in the New Testament, finds any basis in the text. But if we are to claim it as such, we must also be prepared to talk of the imputed wisdom of Christ; the imputed sanctification of Christ; and the imputed redemption of Christ” (p. 123).

“New Perspectives on Paul” (2003)

This was Wright’s lecture at the 10th Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference in 2003. It was published in Justification in Perspective, ed. Bruce L. McCormack (Baker, 2006).

“What, then, about the ‘imputed righteousness’? This is fine as it stands; God does indeed ‘reckon righteousness’ to those who believe. But this is not, for Paul, the righteousness either of God or of Christ except in a very specialized sense … Only two passages can be invoked in favor of the imputed righteousness being that of God or Christ. The first [1 Cor 1:30] proves too much, and the second [2 Cor 5:21] not enough” (p. 252).

“Is there, then, no ‘reckoning of righteousness’ in, for instance Romans 5:14-21? Yes, there is; but this is not God’s own righteousness or Christ’s own righteousness that is reckoned to God’s redeemed people but, rather, the fresh status of ‘covenant member,’ and/or ‘justified sinner’” (p. 253).

“When we talk of God’s vindication of someone, we are talking about God’s declaration, which appears as a double thing to us, but, I suspect, a single thing to Paul:  the declaration (a) that someone is in the right (his or her sins having been forgiven through the death of Jesus) and (b) that this person is a member of the true covenant family” (p. 258).

“These two things – declaring sinners to be in the right, with their sins forgiven, and declaring someone to be a member of the single multiethnic family – go very closely together in Paul’s mind … Thus God’s declaration of forgiveness and declaration of covenant membership are not ultimately two different things” (p. 259).

“Paul does not say that God sees us clothed with the earned merits of Christ. This would be the wrong meaning of ‘righteous’ or ‘righteousness.’ … I suspect that it was the medieval overconcentration on righteousness, on justitia, that caused the Protestant Reformers to push for imputed righteousness” (p. 261).

Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (IVP, 2009)

“It is God’s faithfulness to his promises to Abraham that, as in many passages of the Old Testament, is the key central meaning of ‘God’s righteousness.’ The section which began at Romans 3:21 did not finish at Romans 3:31; it merely sets up the fuller exposition of the same point, the dikaiosynē theou. The tragedy of much Reformation reading of Paul is that, by using the language of ‘God’s righteousness’ on the unnecessary project of ‘finding someone’s righteousness to impute to the believer’ as though ‘righteousness’ was that sort of thing in the first place, and as though the theological point were not already taken care of ‘in Christ,’ this entire point was not just sidelined but binned” (p. 217).

“Forgiveness – the non-reckoning of sin – is thus right at the heart of the larger picture which Paul is sketching, but we must not for that reason ignore that larger picture” (p. 221).

“We note in particular that the ‘obedience’ of Christ is not designed to amass a treasury of merit which can then be ‘reckoned’ to the believer, as in some Reformed schemes of thought” (p. 228). “This is, theologically and exegetically, a blind alley” (p. 231).

His interpretation of Romans 10:4: “The Messiah is the culmination of the Torah, so that there may be dikaiosynē, covenant membership, for all who believe.” This verse “gives off its full resonances not within the Lutheran scheme whereby the law is a bad thing abolished in Christ, nor within the Calvinist scheme whereby the law is a good thing which Christ obeyed and thus procured ‘righteousness’ (works-righteousness, we note) to be then ‘imputed’ to those who believe, but within Paul’s own Jewish framework of thought, the narrative of God and his faithfulness to Israel which has reached its destination in the Messiah” (p. 244).

“Justification is more than simply the remitting and forgiving of sins, vital and wonderful though that is. It is the declaration that those who believe in Jesus are part of the resurrection-based single family of the one Creator God” (p. 248).

“Justification: Yesterday, Today, and Forever” (2010)

I was at the ETS Annual Meeting in Atlanta in 2010 and I heard Wright’s address to the society in which he defended his view of justification. He dismissed as “medieval” the view that humans lack righteousness, but, oh, Jesus has a bunch of extra righteousness lying around, so, here, take some of his and get the righteousness you need to go to heaven. This misunderstanding, he argued, is derived from the medieval mistranslation of “the righteousness of God” as iustitia Dei.

Here is how it came out in the published version: “As applied to humans the best rendering [of dikaiosynē] is ‘covenant membership.’ … What then does it mean, within the lawcourt setting, for someone to be ‘righteous’? Simply this:  that the court has found in their favor. It means that they have been declared to be ‘in the right.’ They have not been granted or imputed a ‘righteousness’ which belongs to someone else … God as the God who made the covenant with Abraham declares that someone is a member of that covenant … To think otherwise—to insist that one needs ‘righteousness,’ in the sense of ‘moral character or repute’ or whatever, in order to stand unashamed before God, and that, lacking any of one’s own, one must find some from somewhere or someone else—shows that one is still thinking in medieval categories of iustitia rather than in biblical categories of lawcourt and covenant” (JETS 54.1 [2011], pp. 56-7 emphasis mine).

In conclusion, it seems to me that Wright wants to affirm the first half of the classic Reformed definition of justification, the forgiveness of sins through the death of Jesus (although even here, his position on how the death of Jesus brings about forgiveness is unclear). But the second half of justification, the positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness, he flatly rejects as a “blind alley.” He thinks this whole project of looking for righteousness is an “unnecessary project,” a medieval error that has been “binned” by his covenantal “grand narrative” paradigm shift. He grants the forgiveness of sins, but the real weight of his understanding of justification shifts to being declared to be a member of the covenant people of God. 

Quick Thoughts on ETS - correction

So here are some quick thoughts on ETS. Sorry for taking so long to get around to this.

The three plenary speakers were excellent. I thought Tom Schreiner did a marvelous job defending the traditional Reformation understanding of justification against N. T. Wright. He was gracious but forceful and pretty much dismantled N. T. Wright's position.

N. T. Wright was his usual witty self. But he did not impress me with his defensiveness and constant references to how he has been unfairly criticized on blogs or in hearsay reports of oral criticism muttered by faculty at a certain Southern Seminary. Scholars interact with published criticisms, not things heard through the grapevine. I would have had more respect for him if he had taken the high road of Schreiner and simply stuck to the arguments rather then mucking about in the ad hominem stuff, e.g., telling his critics to "get a life." 

One comment N. T. Wright made was quite enlightening -- and here I paraphrase from memory. He dismissed as "medieval" the view that humans lack righteousness, but, oh, Jesus has a bunch of extra righteousness lying around, so, here, take some of his and get the righteousness you need to go to heaven. This is all derived from the medieval mistranslation of "the righteousness of God" as iustitia Dei. (Compare his statement that it is "a Latin irrelevance" in What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 103).

Of course, that is a caricuture of the Reformation view, but the fact that he can be so dismissive and casual about his rejection of it is troubling. In my view, the heart of the matter rests on the question: Does God require perfect righteousness in order to admit anyone into heaven? Wright seems to be saying No to that question. The Pauline and Reformation understanding of the gospel says Yes -- and since none of us have that righteousness, God has graciously provided it in Christ. Not by "the righteousness of the law" (i.e., inherent righteousness) but by "the righteousness of faith" (iustitia aliena).

My paper critiquing the view that "the righteousness of God" is a cipher for "God's covenant faithfulness" went well. It was in one of the breakout sessions with maybe 15 people in attendance. Of course, no one important was there, as expected, but I enjoyed the time and felt that those present did as well.

Oh, one last morsel. In another breakout session, Mark Seifrid said that N. T. Wright's theology is not evangelical. That got everyone's attention. What he meant by that is that for Wright, faith is merely the badge of membership in the people of God. For Paul, the NT generally, and the Reformers, faith is the empty hand, the receptive instrument, by which we rest upon and receive the righteousness of Christ. In my view, any position which takes that precious reality and turns it into something as cold as "the badge of membership in the people of God" distorts the gospel and cannot be called evangelical.

[Correction and retraction 12/10/10: I originally wrote, "Mark Seifrid said that N. T. Wright is not an evangelical." Dr. Seifrid wrote, via his colleague Dr. Jim Hamilton, to say, "I didn't say that Tom Wright is not an evangelical.  I said that his theology is not evangelical." I want to apologize for misrepresenting Dr. Seifrid. I also would like to apologize to N. T. Wright. I wasn't attempting to judge N. T. Wright's spiritual state or personal relationship with Christ. So I have also rephrased my last sentence to reflect that.]

I am reminded of this remark by Calvin in the section on justification: "It is, indeed, an easy matter for these indolent rabbis to carry on such discussions sitting in their soft chairs under the shade, but when the supreme Judge shall sit on his tribunal, all these blustering dogmas will behoove to disappear. This, this I say, was the true question: not what we can fable and talk in schools and corners, but what ground of defense we can produce at his judgment seat" (Institutes III.xiv.15).

Hebrew Parallelism and the New Perspective on Paul

“What does Hebrew parallelism have to do with the New Perspective?” you ask. Quite a bit, actually. Let me explain by starting with the New Perspective end of the equation. One of the pillars of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) is the view that δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in Paul is a cipher for “God’s covenant faithfulness.” N. T. Wright is a well-known advocate of this interpretation. For example, in his recent book on justification, he writes:

“We can say with extremely solid assurance that ‘God’s righteousness,’ in Paul as in the Psalms and Isaiah, regularly refers to God’s own righteousness, not in the medieval senses which iustitia Dei generated, but in the Old Testament and intertestamental sense of ‘the covenant faithfulness of God’” (Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2009], 164).

According to Wright, in the Hebraic mindset, “righteousness” differs significantly from the Western, medieval concept of iustitia. Rather than being about conformity to an abstract norm or justice, it has to do with “covenant faithfulness.” Wright bifurcates Hebrew and Roman concepts of “righteousness.” The Western, Reformation tradition from Luther on got it all wrong because it interpreted “righteousness” in Roman rather than Hebraic categories.

But what is the basis for this view that “righteousness” in the Hebraic way of thinking has to do with “covenant faithfulness”? There are a number of arguments for this theory, but Wright appeals to the Psalms and Isaiah as the chief exegetical basis of this interpretation. Following Hermann Cremer, he is referring to the many passages in the Psalms and Isaiah where “righteousness” is used in parallelism with “salvation” or “faithfulness.” Wright argues that “the righteousness of God” contains a reference to both concepts, but the emphasis is on the latter; a fuller definition would be that it refers to God’s faithfulness to the Abrahamic covenant, which results in salvation, i.e., the defeat of evil and the restoration of creation.

Here are two examples, one from Isaiah and one from the Psalms, where these terms occur in Hebrew parallelism:

“My salvation is about to come;
and my righteousness is about to be revealed” (Isa 56:1 NASB).

“Hear my prayer, O LORD;
give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In your faithfulness answer me,
in your righteousness!” (Ps 143:1 ESV)

Thus, Hebrew parallelism – or, rather, a certain theory of Hebrew parallelism – lies at the root of one of the foundational pillars of the NPP. I say, a certain theory of Hebrew parallelism, because, as Old Testament scholars know, there are a variety of theories as to how Hebrew parallelism works. Let me briefly sketch the history of interpretation of Hebrew parallelism.

In the 18th century, the Anglican bishop, Robert Lowth, in his lectures “On the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews” (published in 1753) argued that there were three types of Hebrew parallelism:  synonymous parallelism, antithetical parallelism, and synthetic or constructive parallelism. The first two types are exemplified in Psalm 2:5-6:

A1 “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
A2 Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
B1 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
B2 But the way of the wicked will perish” (ESV).

A1 and A2 are a good example of synonymous parallelism, while B1 and B2 are clearly antithetical parallelism. Lowth’s third category was a kind of catch-all for the many instances that did not seem to be either synonymous or antithetical.

Although Lowth’s analysis was widely accepted for two centuries, in the 1980s, James Kugel and Robert Alter challenged the received Lowthian orthodoxy. They rejected Lowth’s category of synonymous parallelism, pointing out that even when the two lines seem to be saying something roughly similar, they are never perfectly equivalent, and that the difference, however small, when viewed in light of the similarity of the two lines, produces a new meaning that goes beyond what each line contributes individually.

James Kugel's label for this was “subjunction,” i.e., line B is subjoined to line A. To explain this, he invented the formula, “A, and what’s more, B.” The first line (A) is the primary statement; the second line (B) adds new information or a new perspective. (James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981].)

A few years later, Robert Alter took Kugel’s approach and moved the ball down the field a few more yards. He fleshed out the specific ways in which the B line heightens, intensifies, focuses and even dramatizes the A line. Alter speaks of “parallelism of specification” and “parallelism of intensification,” although he does acknowledge that, occasionally, one finds “static synonymity.” Alter’s main point is that “literary expression abhors complete parallelism … usage always introducing small wedges of difference between closely akin terms.” He quotes Viktor Shklovsky who wrote that “the purpose of parallelism … is to transfer the usual perception of an object into the sphere of a new perception – that is, to make a unique semantic modification.”  (Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry [New York: Basic Books, 1985], 3-26).

More recently, the Dutch scholar J. P. Fokkelman vividly explained the Kugel-Alter theory of parallelism with the helpful metaphor of binoculars. Just as binoculars provide depth perception by bringing two nearly identical but nevertheless distinct pictures together to form a new unity, so in Hebrew parallelism the similarities and the differences between the two lines complement one another, and the result is that whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Parallelism helps us to see in stereo. (J. P. Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Poetry: An Introductory Guide [transl. Ineke Smit; Louisville: WJK, 2001], 78-79.)

As you can see, the New Perspective claim that “the righteousness of God” is a cipher denoting “God’s saving faithfulness to his covenant” rests on the outdated Lowthian theory of Hebrew synonymous parallelism. Rather than equating “righteousness” with “faithfulness” (or “salvation”), it is better to see the instances in the Psalms and Isaiah where these terms are used in parallelism as “binoculars” in which these different concepts mutually interpret one another and lead to a picture that is larger than the sum of its parts.

God’s salvation is the result of his faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham. God’s salvation is also an expression of his righteousness, because he executes salvation in a manner that is consistent with his justice and holiness; indeed, salvation itself is an essentially judicial activity, for salvation comes through judgment. For example, at the Exodus, God’s deliverance of his people was accomplished by judgment on the Egyptians. At the cross, salvation was accomplished because the judgment we deserved was borne by Jesus as our substitute.

In other words, when “God’s salvation” or “God’s faithfulness” and “God’s righteousness” are found in parallel, the conclusion we are to draw is not that the word “righteousness” itself means “salvation” or “faithfulness,” but that God’s saving activity comes in fulfillment of his covenant promises and is an expression of his righteousness. Especially in those cases where “salvation” and “righteousness” are parallel (see, e.g., Psalm 98:2; Isaiah 51:5-8; 56:1), the point is that God’s salvation has a strongly judicial dimension.

To conclude, the static Lowthian theory of synonymous parallelism has been superseded in the last 30 years by a more nuanced understanding, and this scholarly shift in the interpretation of Hebrew poetry undermines one of the pillars of the NPP. When properly understood, Hebrew parallelism provides no support for the theory that δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ is a cipher for God's faithfulness to his covenant.

2010 ETS Annual Meeting: "Justification by Faith"

This oughta be good: http://www.etsjets.org/call_for_papers

Evangelical Theological Society 62nd Annual Meeting
Atlanta, Georgia
November 17-19, 2010

"The theme for the annual meeting this year is 'Justification by Faith.' The plenary speakers will be Pastor John Piper (Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneappolis), the Rt Revd N. T. Wright (Bishop of Durham), and Dr. Frank Thielman (Presbyterian Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School). In addition to our usual plenary sessions, this year’s meeting features a two-hour panel discussion with the presenters on Friday morning."

The story that frames the atonement, part 2

Now a question may arise in  your mind, Why did God bother to go through the whole "first level" or typological fulfillment in the first place? If the "real" narrative is the Adam narrative of creation, fall, redemption, consummation, why Israel? I believe the reason is pedagogical. The Adam narrative happened too long ago and with so few witnesses. So God re-enacted the Adam narrative on the grand stage of world history in order to set the context for the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Meredith Kline put it this way:

A variety of purposes can be discovered to explain the insertion of the old covenant order and its typal kingdom into the course of redemptive history. Of central importance was the creation of the proper historical setting for the advent of the Son of God and his earthly mission (cf. Rom 9:5). In accordance with the terms of his covenant of works with the Father he was to come as the second Adam in order to undergo a representative probation and by his obedient and triumphant accomplishment thereof to establish the legal ground for God’s covenanted bestowal of the eternal kingdom of salvation on his people. It was therefore expedient, if not necessary, that Christ appear within a covenant order which, like the covenant with the first Adam, was governed by the works principle (cf. Gal 4:4). The typal kingdom of the old covenant was precisely that. Within the limitations of the fallen world and with modifications peculiar to the redemptive process, the old theocratic kingdom was a reproduction of the original covenantal order. Israel as the theocratic nation was mankind stationed once again in a paradise-sanctuary, under probation in a covenant of works. In the context of that situation, the Incarnation event was legible; apart from it the meaning of the appearing and ministry of the Son of Man would hardly have been perspicuous. Because of the congruence between Jesus’ particular historical identity as the true Israel, born under the law, and his universally relevant role as the second Adam, the significance of his mission as the accomplishing of a probationary assignment in a works covenant in behalf of the elect of all ages was lucidly expressed and readily readable.

Much more than the works-probation aspect of Jesus’ task was included in the revelatory design of the typal kingdom. It prepared a public context in world history in which the meaning of Jesus’ mission as a whole might be communicated effectively.

[Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2006), 352-3.]

Note the statement highlighted in bold:  "the congruence between Jesus' particular historical identity as the true Israel under the law, and his universally relevant role as the second Adam." That is the heart of the matter. 

I would argue that the role of the Davidic king is what most clearly points backward to Adam and forward to Christ as the second Adam. It was the king who was responsible to lead the people of God in faithful obedience to the Law. As the king goes, so go the people. If he is obedient, the people are generally faithful and their tenure in the land continues. If he is an idolater, the nation as a whole is filled with idolaters and is (eventually) cut off from the land.

God said to King Solomon after he finished building the temple: "If you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight" (1 Kings 9:6-7 ESV). 

The king's disobedience or obedience, then, in a typological and imperfect way, is what determines whether God's people continue to dwell in God's holy land. In the same way, Christ's obedience (as God's anointed King) is the meritorious ground that secures the eternal inheritance. Therefore, to call Jesus "the Messiah" is to call him "the second Adam" using the idiom of the typal kingdom.

The cross fits in as follows. The obedience of the Messiah or second Adam included a mission of not only fulfilling the precepts of the Law but of enduring the Law's curse on behalf of those who had violated the Law. This of course would not have been necessary for the pre-fall Adam nor was it envisioned as part of the Davidic king's ordinary role. But now that the covenant of works (whether in its Adamic or Mosaic form) has been broken, the only way the blessings of the covenant can be enjoyed by sinners is if they are judged under the penal curse of the covenant and emerge on the other side through union with a representative Substitute in his death and resurrection. The kingly office of Christ is then conjoined with the priestly.

The story that frames the atonement, part 1

Andrew Perriman raises a good question for those of us who cherish the penal substitution view of the atonement as primary and central. He asks: "What is the story that frames and makes sense of this understanding of Jesus' death?"

At the outset, I want to say that I fully sympathize with N. T. Wright's concern to place the mission and work of Jesus within the narrative framework of Israel's story, a concern articulated well in Jesus and the Victory of God. However, I believe he makes the mistake of failing to place the Israel narrative within the larger Adam narrative. Modern theology since Barth has been fond of the particularism of biblical theology, but we must also see that the particularism of biblical theology is in the service of an ultimate universalism. (I'm using the word "universalism" here not in the sense of universal salvation, but a soteriology that overcomes the Jew-Gentile distinction by addressing the plight of all sinners in Adam.)

So what is the larger Adam narrative, and how does the Israel narrative fit in with it? The Adam narrative, of course, is the story of creation, Adam's rebellion and fall, and God's promise concerning the S/seed (both in the singular and in the collective sense) of the woman. The Seed (singular) will crush the serpent by means of his own suffering, a foreshadow of the death of Christ (Gen 3:15). Genesis 1-3 is foundational to the whole Bible. Everything that comes after it must be read in light of it. The book of Genesis itself subordinates the Israel narrative to the Adam narrative.

Now the Seed promise of Gen 3:15 -- so brief that it is almost an enigma -- is fleshed out and expanded in the Abrahamic promise. The Abrahamic promise reiterates the essence of the Seed promise of Gen 3:15, but it places greater emphasis on the collective dimension of the seed (Israel) together with the promised land for the seed to dwell in. The promised land is clearly to be understood as the restored paradise that was lost in Gen 3 (see Gen 13:10 which describes the land as "well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD").

The promise then unfolds in two stages:  (a) a first-level fulfillment on the typological layer of Israel's inheritance in the land and (b) a second-level fulfillment in Christ as the individual Seed and those who belong to him as the corporate seed. Of course, the two stages do not unfold in a smooth evolution, for there is a rupture dividing the two:  Israel was a corporate reenactment of Adam's failure in the garden, leading to the rupture of the exile. Nevertheless, because of God's irrevocable promises to Abraham, the exile is not the end of the story. After the exile is the return and rebuilding of the temple in the post-exilic period. But this was but a small foretaste of the eschatological glories of the second-level fulfillment. The post-exilic community and its rebuilt temple were so small and insignificant, we come to the end of the Old Testament crying out for a greater fulfillment. 

Now the first-level fulfillment creates a world of types that become a new promise finding its fulfillment in Christ. Israel as God's holy people dwelling in God's holy land is a type of the elect dwelling in the new heavens and the new earth. When the reality to which the types pointed comes, the reality is described using typological language. Thus the elect (both Jew and Gentile) are called "the Israel of God" and heaven is called "the eternal inheritance." Jesus himself assumes the three-fold office of prophet, priest, and king -- offices first established with living examples in the old covenant economy (e.g., Moses, Aaron, David). With regard to the priestly office in particular, Christ's atoning death is described as the fulfillment of the Levitical system of sacrifice, the final purification for sin when the true High Priest entered the true holy place once for all. The Levitical system was put in place so that a holy God could dwell in the midst of a sinful and impure people.

Israel's conditional tenure in the land (conditional on faithful obedience to the Law) was a corporate re-enactment of Adam's probation in the garden. And just as Adam sinned and was expelled, so Israel was sent into exile for her violation of the Law. This then sets the stage for Jesus to be described as the true, obedient Israelite, the faithful king who kept God's Law and gave rest to his people in the land. This is merely the typological way of saying that Jesus is the second Adam. Christ is the second Adam and true Israel in whom the exile is reversed and a greater paradise is attained.

So there are actually two narrative frameworks (Adam and Israel) with the Israel narrative nesting within the broader Adam narrative (creation, fall, redemption, consummation). The mission and work of Jesus must be seen through the mutually interpreting lens of both narratives. In the order of understanding, we start with the Israel narrative since that forms the most immediate historical context for the life and ministry of Jesus the Messiah. But since the Israel narrative is itself a reproduction in type and shadow of the broader Adam narrative, the interpretive framework provided by the Israel narrative was intended by God to point beyond its own particularity to the universalism of the Adam narrative. In Israel's covenant breaking and exile, we see the covenant breaking and expulsion of Adam from the garden. And since we are all in Adam, we see ourselves in Israel's story too. Yet, just as Jesus takes Israel's story to the cross and beyond to the resurrection, so he completes Adam's story at the same time, so that through his accursed death we have passed through judgment and have emerged on the other side having won, by his merit, the right to eat of the tree of life and live forever with him in the heavenly inheritance.

For more on "two level fulfillment" see this selection from Meredith G. Kline's magnum opus, Kingdom Prologue.

To be continued ...

Where does N. T. Wright stand on the Atonement?

This is a response to Steve Rives's comment on an earlier post of mine.

N. T. Wright is unclear at best on this whole cluster of issues at the heart of the gospel (the nature of sin, the wrath of God, substitutionary atonement). It is true that you can find statements that sound traditional and use some traditional words, but the thrust of his overall vision and cast of thought is in a different direction. 

Wright uses traditional terms with non-traditional meanings.

For example, he will often speak of "substitution" and "substitutionary atonement." But he does not (normally) use the term "penal substitution" when describing his view. He will say that Jesus was substituted in place of Israel, or that he was identified with sinful Israel. But he does not say that God inflicted the penal wrath on Jesus that we deserved for our sins.

Or take the statement that Steve Rives quotes: "God the creator would bring people back into bodily life, to face the consequences of their evil deeds." Notice that he does not say, "God the creator would bring people back into bodily life, to punish them for their evil deeds." Instead he uses the ambiguous phrase, "to face the consequences of their evil deeds." Such language could be intended in an orthodox sense, but it could also be taken in a watered-down sense in which sin brings certain negative "consequences" in its wake by the impersonal laws of moral cause and effect.

Here are some pieces of evidence which suggest that there is something wrong with Wright's view of the atonement.

First, in his commentary on Romans in The New Interpreter's Bible (2002), Wright has this to say about Romans 8:3 ("he condemned sin in the flesh"):

God, says Paul, condemned sin. Paul does not, unlike some, say that God condemned Jesus. True, God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus; but this is some way from saying, as many have, that God desired to punish someone and decided to punish Jesus on everyone's behalf. Paul's statement is more subtle than that. It is not merely about a judicial exchange, the justice of which might then be questioned (and indeed has been questioned). It is about sentence of death being passed on "sin" itself, sin as a force or power capable of deceiving human beings, taking up residence within them, and so causing their death (7:7-25) ... For Paul, what was at stake was not simply God's judicial honor, in some Anselmic sense, but the mysterious power called sin, at large and destructive within God's world, needing to be brough to book, to have sentence passed and executed upon it, so that, with its power broken, God could then give the life sin would otherwise prevent (p. 578). 

Note that sin is here viewed as an impersonal force or power that blocks humans from enjoying life. On the cross, God condemned this impersonal force so that he could then give us life.

Second, Wright endorsed The Lost Message of Jesus (2003) by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann in which they said that the traditional presentation of the atonement is a barrier to faith for many people because it seems to portray the cross as "cosmic child abuse -- a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed." (See quote in context here).  Wright continues to stand by his endorsement, even after this passage became controversial.

Third, Wright's book Simply Christian (2006) is supposed to be his presentation of the essence of the Christian faith. Here, if anywhere, you would expect a clear, simple statement of the gospel. But it is not there. The book has many good things to say, but it doesn't explain the basic gospel -- "Christ died for our sins." Forget about imputed righteousness. We'll set that debate aside. He didn't even explain the basic concept that (a) God is holy and hates sin, (b) we are sinners deserving his just wrath, and (c) the only way we can be right with God is through the death of Christ which satisfied God's justice and gives us forgiveness and acceptance before God. Instead, we find statements like this:

God's plan to rescue the world from evil would be put into effect by evil doing its worst to the Servant--that is, to Jesus himself--and thereby exhausting its power (p. 108) ... It was time for the evil which had dogged Jesus's footsteps throughout his career--the shrieking maniacs, the conspiring Herodians, the carping Pharisees, the plotting chief priests, the betrayer among his own disciples, the whispering voices within his own soul--to gather into one great tidal wave of evil that would crash with full force over his head. So he spoke of the  Passover bread as his own body that would be given on behalf of his friends, as he went out to take on himself the weight of evil so that they wouldn't have to bear it themselves (p. 110).

This is all very consistent with his earlier formulations in chapter 12 of Jesus and the Victory of God (1996). You can see how, on Wright's theory, he can say with a clear conscience that Jesus' death was substitutionary, since Jesus let evil do its worst on himself so that it would not have to do so on us. But it is much harder to see how it is penal, i.e., relating to divine punishment. "Evil doing its worst on Jesus" is not the same thing as "Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood ... so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom 3:24-26 ESV). 

Fourth, Wright wrote a piece in 2007 titled The Cross and the Caricatures defending his endorsement of the Chalke book and attacking the solid defense of substitutionary atonement titled Pierced for our Transgressions (2007) by Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey, and Andrew Sach as "deeply, profoundly, and disturbingly unbiblical." For his part, Wright affirms "a version" of the penal substitutionary theory, as long as it is subordinated to the Christus Victor theory. The "version" that he holds is that Christ bore the brunt of human evil, not that he bore the wrath of God that we deserved. In other words, his "version" of substitutionary atonement is not what you and I are thinking of when we use those words. It is true that in the first half of "The Cross and the Caricatures," Wright makes some comforting sounding statements, but in the second half you start to see the cracks in the subtle way he uses terms. As far as I know, this essay is the one of the rare places in his writings where he does use "penal substitution" to describe his own view, but he makes clear the sense in which he means the term. Commenting on the infamous Chalke "cosmic child abuse" quote, he writes:

You could take the paragraph to mean (a) on the cross, as an expression of God’s love, Jesus took into and upon himself the full force of all the evil around him, in the knowledge that if he bore it we would not have to; but this, which amounts to a form of penal substitution, is quite different from other forms of penal substitution, such as the mediaeval model of a vengeful father being placated by an act of gratuitous violence against his innocent son. In other words, there are many models of penal substitution, and the vengeful-father-and-innocent-son story is at best a caricature of the true one.

There you have it. Wright thinks his theory of Jesus exhausting the full force of evil is "a form of penal substitution." Meanwhile, the other form (the orthodox view) is caricatured as  "a vengeful father being placated by an act of gratuitous violence against his innocent son."

Fifth, see this 2007 interview with Trevin Wax where he goes over the Chalke controversy once more and then adds his own sloppy caricature alongside Chalke's:

So we have to understand the doctrine of penal substitution within the Scriptural framework, within which it makes sense, rather than within this very low grade thing that I’ve been a naughty boy, God wants to punish me, and for some reason, he punishes someone else, so phew! I’m alright. OK. For a five-year-old, that’s fine. That’ll maybe do it. But, actually let’s grow up! We’re not talking about five-year-olds here; we’re talking about grown men and women who ought to know better, to be honest.

Finally, John Piper has a section in The Future of Justification (2007) where he points out Wright's mixed signals on substitutionary atonement and respectfully asks him to clarify his position ("A Regrettable Endorsement: Steve Chalke's The Lost Message of Jesus," pp. 47-52). Unfortunately, Wright did not respond to Piper's specific query in Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (2009).

So where does N. T. Wright stand on the atonement? I have a hard time being as charitable as Piper, who tries to believe the best and merely asks for clarification. To me, it looks more like a case of using orthodox labels to refer to a position that is not orthodox. At the end of the day, for Bishop Wright, sin is an impersonal evil force, not personal rebellion against God; sin has bad consequences, but does not elicit God's punitive wrath against the sinner; and the cross is to be understood as some version of the Christus Victor theory in which Christ defeats evil by letting it do its worst to him, not as a penal satisfaction of divine justice.

The danger of de-personalizing God's wrath

D. A. Carson makes an excellent point here in his critique of N. T. Wright -- but it applies to many emergent and emergent-friendly authors as well, e.g., Scot McKnight. Carson writes:

At the end of the day, the central notion of sin in Wright’s thought is that it is somehow anarchic rebellion against shalom, and the triumph at the end is the restoration of shalom. What is lost is the intensely personal dimension of sin: it is rebellion against God, and he is regularly portrayed as the most offended party (cf. Ps 51!).

Of course, a low view of human sin and God's wrath goes hand-in-glove with a low view of Christ's atonement. N. T. Wright almost never speaks of "sin" and instead speaks of "evil." Scot McKnight speaks of "cracked eikons" (humans as images of God). In this view, the cross was God's way of dealing with "evil" in the world, or of restoring the image of God, but rarely is it described as the quenching of God's wrath directed against sin or the satisfaction of divine justice.

Read D. A. Carson's RBL review of Evil and the Justice of God by N. T. Wright.