Brief Summaries of N.T. Wright's Views on Justification and the Atonement.

On another platform, I was asked to briefly explain the difference between N.T. Wright's views of justification and the atonement and that of the classical Reformation attendance.

Justification

In the classic Reformation conception, justification by faith was the idea that Jesus on the cross took the punishment from God that was intended for sinful humanity. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice acceptable to God because he followed the Law, never sinning. In this crucifixion event, Jesus took our sin, and we took his righteousness. Therefore, because God punished Jesus instead of us and because we have Jesus’ earned righteousness, God finds us innocent (or righteous) in the divine court. We appropriate that righteousness by faith. Making someone righteous (dikaios) is called justifying (dikaioo). Justification (dikaiosis) is then the term for how God saves someone by grace thru faith in the penal substitutionary atoning death of Jesus. Justification is deemed the gospel.

Wright and others believe the classic Reformation conception of justification by faith is incorrect. For them, justification by faith isn’t about how someone is saved, but more the declaration that someone is saved. More to the point, justification by faith is a present recognition of a future outcome. At some point in the future, God will settle all accounts, bring the world to right, vindicating his people and punishing those who are not. His people would be the family of Abraham, the Israelite people, Israel as his somewhat-metaphorical son. This vindication is called justification and will take the form of bodily resurrection. God’s people will not be made righteous but will be declared righteous. They will be justified, declared the people of God, his “sons”, the people whose sins have been dealt with, the ones who have been resurrected. The question in Jesus’ day was how does one know who is a true child of Abraham, a member of the people of God? Not every Jew measured up to what God expected, either due to idolatry or cultural compromise with those who were not the people of God: the gentiles. Different Jewish groups had different ideas. “Works of the law” were those more ritualistic cultural aspects of the Law that separated Jews from Gentiles (circumcision, cleanliness, kosher foods, etc.) but also identified a real son of Abraham. Jews performed these works not to earn salvation, but to show fidelity to God, marking them out as the people of God. “Works” identified in the present who would be justified (“declared righteous”, vindicated, recognized as a member of God’s people, resurrected) on the last day. Gentiles who wanted to become a member of God’s people and vindicated on the last day had to adopt these cultural “works of the law”, identifying themselves as a true Jew. Jesus was put on trial for falsely claiming to be the messiah, “the son of God”, the representative of Israel, God’s people. He was found guilty and put to death. When God resurrected Jesus from the dead, he was reversing the judgement of the “lower” court, declaring Jesus to truly be the messiah, the “son of God”. Instead of God’s people being vindicated, declared righteous, resurrected, and declared God’s sons at the end of history, all that that had been done to Israel’s representative in the middle of history. Now it’s not fidelity to the Law that identifies a person as “righteous” but fidelity to the messiah, Israel’s representative who has essentially brought much of the future (and the final verdict) into the present. What marks out someone as a “true Jew” is not cultural “works” but faith in Jesus, a faithfulness like Jesus’. Therefore, Gentiles do not have to become “Jews” by adopting “works of the Law”; they only have to have faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus marks out those who will be justified/vindicated/resurrected on the last day.

So instead of being about an exchange of righteousness, making someone righteous, earning salvation by following the Law, being saved, and all this being the gospel, justification for Wright et al is identifying in the present who will be identified as the people of God in the future.

 

Atonement

Wright’s understanding of the atonement is a bit more confusing in ways. The traditional Reformation view is that God’s since of justice demanded that human be punished for their sins. Instead, out of love and grace, God sent Jesus to take the punishment instead of humans. With Jesus punished, God’s since of justice is satisfied, so humans escape punishment (provided they accept Christ in faith). Again, Wright’s view is complex. It often seems that he is using traditional atonement language but meaning something else by it. Wright doesn’t reject penal substitution but narrows it. The punishment for which Jesus suffered was the wrath due to the sin that accumulated in Israel, resulting in the exile. Even with the physical return from exile, sin had yet to be fully forgiven. In fact, the Law given by God had the mysterious purpose of increasing sin and drawing it towards Israel. That sin then attacked Jesus with full force and at the same time be punished in his flesh. This was something that needed to be done, but God took it upon himself as Jesus out of love for the world. So, Jesus experienced the curse and wrath that accompanies the build up of sin instead of humans. Jesus experienced the ultimate exile, both for Israel, and for the world. How what happened to Christ affected Israel and then affected the world is really complex, being based in Hebrew anthropology. But what happened to Christ had a cosmic effect. In another level, Jesus’ death on the cross was a enacted parable of Rome’s eventual, permanent destruction of Israel as the wrath of God. Instead of the people of God, Jesus experienced Rome’s destruction for his people, while also showing them what Israel could expect if they did not repent. Then there is Wright’s adherence to the Christus Victor view of the atonement, that Christ’s death on the cross defeated the dark powers of the world, which (as mentioned above) was being drawn onto Israel and onto its Messiah. So Wright holds to a few different atonement theories, seeing them all connected. He also reconceptualizes the traditional Reformed view of penal substitution.