An assessment of The New Perspective: a Lecture
by Rev. Robert E. Horne, Jr.
This is a set of lectures on the questions of the Christian Life and the doctrine of Justification as
viewed from the current debate on these two doctrines. I am basing my understanding of this debate
primarily on the work of N. T. Wright. 1 However, this debate is, for me, a continuation of being
‘Reformed always Reforming’ within the Reformed Tradition. What this motto meanings, at least to me,
is that we are forever forced to return to the sources of our faith and question these sources as to what
our faith has meant to those who witnessed it and wrote of it, and what to meant to the theologians from
the time of the Apostles to the modern era and what these sources are seen to mean in our contemporary
environment. The first source, of course, is Scripture but the traditions of the Church both eastern and
western must be considered. We cannot assume that our forefathers got everything right or even that
their interpretation of Scripture was on the mark. Our forefathers stood, as do we, in a culture where
their language or languages was by necessity used to interpret Scripture. At the time of the Reformation,
in the western church, these languages were Latin and one’s native tongue. Any language we use to
translate Scripture demands that Bible scholars, biblical exegetes and theologians must address the
culture milieu of the language of the original writers, but more importantly they are required to make an
effort to understand their own language and culture in view of the biblical material. It is fortunate that a
great deal of material on the biblical languages is presently available to the non-professional reader. This
does not mean, however, that the use of a biblical lexicon, Bible dictionary and a commentary written
for the laity will give everyone a perfect interpretation of Scripture. Having forewarned you of the
difficulties to be found in the material of this debate, I am returning to the debate.
Are you aware of the debate? It has been my experience to take on the questions raised by the debate
over the last 30 years. I am attempting here to give an understanding the debate. I am attempting to
address the question: what is the new perspective and why is it important for the church? The phrase
‘new perspective’ was first used in a lecture by N. T. Wright in the 1980’s. It involves a rereading of
Paul’s letters with a careful exegesis of the corpus of his letters, as letters. This means that the letters are
to be seen as holistic works. Theological scholars should not be using proof-texts of Scripture. That is
they should not be using Scripture propositionally. Thus I see a need for a new hermeneutic that takes
seriously a proper use of Scripture. As for the new perspective, they are asking questions: Are
theologians, past and present, reading the Pauline corpus correctly? To put it another way, is our
theology interpreting the Pauline letters correctly or is our theological understanding dictating our
understanding of the contents of the Pauline letters?
It is important in the examination of this debate material for the auditor to understand that the
contemporary debate is to be found first of all in the translating of Hebrew into Greek and Greek into
Latin. Of course, it is very difficult to translate from any language into another language. This is due to
the fact that language is built on culture and culture is reflected in the language. I am fully aware of the
circular condition of this statement. Still it is the way a language and a culture of any population is
interwoven. Thus when we attempt to move from one language or culture to another one must be careful
of the cultural aspects of a native language. Hebrew is a Semitic language that does not easily translate
into Greek. This is true, as well, for Latin and most European languages. This problem can be seen in
the Septuagint when compared with the Hebrew text. The Septuagint usually written as LXX, it is a 2nd
Century BCE Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. This translation is important because the Early
Church used the Septuagint for its reading of the Hebrew Scriptures.
1
Wright, N. T., Justification, Paul: In Fresh Perspective, and more completely in Christian Origins and the question of God in 4 volumes.
Of course, I have read widely in Reformed Theological works and in various theologians and their interpretations of the atonement,
justification and predestination. All of this material has required many hours of reading and study. However, I make no claim to being
the last word in this debate. All I claim is the right to be heard.
1
The history of Holy Writ begins early in the Church’s life. The canon of the Old Testament was
fixed by the end f the first century. The canon of the New Testament developed slowly over the first
centuries of the church. As the living witness to the Christ event died it became imperative that the
Church preserve the records of the Apostolic Church. Jerome in 382 was commissioned by Pope
Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina [Old Latin] that was a collection of Latin texts used by the Western
Church. It was generally accepted in the Western Church by the 13th the century and was made the
official Latin Bible by the Council of Trent. This will be the Bible used by most Scholars during the
medieval period in the west when all Bibles were hand copied. This is changed at the time of the
Reformation as the Bible becomes available in the vernacular due to the availability of a printed Bible.
Currently the debate on the doctrine of Justification centers on the letters of Paul. The debaters are
called the old perspective and the new perspective. The old perspective is based on the concept of the
atonement advance by Augustine. Various theologians enlarged and modified this concept of the
atonement during the period between Augustine and the Reformation for, as Alister E. McGrath has
pointed out, all medieval theology in the western church is Augustinian.2 The major Protestant views of
the atonement grew out of the work of Luther and Calvin under the influence of Augustinian thought.
The views of the Protestant followers, of both Luther and Calvin, were impacted by the events of the
period called the Enlightenment; this could also be called the Age of Rationalism. One of the ways of
combating the attacks of the revitalized Roman Church and the rationalists of the Enlightenment was to
use a rationalized theology against their attackers. However, the result was to freeze Protestant
theological thought relating to Justification in the Age of Rationalism.
A great deal of the difficult in the Western Church’s understanding of the atonement begins with
Augustine. Augustine faced several theological problems in his debate with Pelagius. He used as his
basic foundational understanding of reality Platonic thought. In this he was influenced by the work of
Marius Victorinus (born between 281-291 a philosopher converted to Christianity around 355 and died
some time after 365). Victorinus was a follower of Plotinus (205-270). Plotinus had rediscovered the
philosophy of Plato but, of course, he put his own interpretation on Plato. This understanding of reality
brings with it several ideas that are not compatible with Hebrew thought. One of the Greek ideas in
platonic thought is a universe without a beginning. How then does a creator God fit into this worldview?
We must then define God. This philosophic material comes with an understanding of reality that appears
to demand predestination. Another problem is the concept of an immortal soul. The Hebrew Scripture do
not see man as immortal for only God is immortal. It appears to me, the Platonic material creates more
problems than it solves. In order to make it possible for mankind to have freewill we must see the fall as
effecting humanity from birth and thus God’s redemption restores humanity to its original state before
God. This means humanity is born in sin. How then can Jesus be as are we yet be sinless at birth? Here
in order to defend the fall and an inherited sin nature in mankind Augustine makes what is lost in the fall
as only the relationship Adam had with God. Augustine appears to see righteousness as an inherence
granted by God to those who are in Christ, i.e. these people who had damage done in Adam’s fall have
been fixed and this act makes it possible for the Holy Spirit to work within the soul to bring about
holiness of life. So even though sinful mankind can still make choices these decisions will not save them
or give them eternal life. In order to speak to the problem of sanctification he creates a way humanity
can accrue merit before God and put on Christ. It is suggested by McGrath that there is here an echo of
the theory of divination found in the Cappadocia Fathers.3
Augustine does a great deal of what may be seen as proof texting in his treatises for clearly he has a
very firm grasp of Scripture. I have problems with this hermeneutical method for in many of the usages
it makes Scripture propositional. This means that quoting Scripture can prove almost anything for all
2
3
McGrath, Alister E., Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification3rd, page 38.
Ibid. McGrath page 48. This concept in Orthodox Theology is called theosis and is usually translated into English as divination.
2
you have to do is find the right texts that fit your religious understanding of reality or supports your
theological position. Of course, hermeneutics is another point at issue. In Augustine’s work On the
Trinity it becomes clearer that due to his Platonic foundation he is working with a body-soul dualism. In
this view every event of salvation happens to a soul that is immortal but trapped in a human body. In the
Hebraic view the soul is better seen as the life force of the body given by YHWH but it is not immortal
but belongs to God. The Hebrew saw only the Living Creator God as immortal. The Hebrews could not
conceive of a life form without some form of body. My critical view of Augustine does not mean that I
think his work in without merit for much of Western theology is based in his understanding of the faith.
Certainly his understanding of the relationship of love as binding the Trinity together is helpful, though
this maybe traced back to Greek theologians. Even though his writings are some times not the easiest
reading, there is in them much that calls us to think concern our view of the faith. It is clear that much of
current western Theology has its roots in Augustine’s work.
The concept of the atonement advanced by Augustine is based on a view of justice that is primarily
built on the Roman legal system in which Augustine was educated. As I read Augustine’s Treatise on
The Letter and Spirit, and some of his correspondence, it became clear to me that his understanding of
the Hebraic definition of justification found in the New Testament was based on the Latin legal system
that lacks the subtleties of the Hebrew understanding.4 For Augustine justice is every man will get his
due, i.e. God in Christ makes a person righteous. This means the person is saved by the gift of
righteousness from God in Christ.
We discover in chapters 13 and 56, of the Treatise on The Letter and Spirit, the concept of the Jew
working under the Law toward creating their own righteousness. He believes that they do this in fear of
punishment. It would appear that Augustine has a view that righteousness is a gift of God to the believer
(see chapter 18). Of course modern scholarship has pointed out that the Jews of Jesus day did not see
keeping the Law of God as bring about individual salvation, rather they saw the keeping of the law as
bringing the Living God back to the Temple and the restoration of Israel to earthly power.
Of course, it is true of that the Old and New Testaments view of the work of God in Christ appear to
be based on a Semitic legal system.5 I say appears for this is also a part of the debated material. For
biblical scholarship concerning Paul has made Paul, as a result of the Enlightenment rationalism around
the 17th century, into a Greek philosopher. This was accomplished by giving the New Testament Greek
philosophical definitions. At this point, Paul has been stripped of his Hebrew roots. This led to a great
deal of misunderstanding of the Pauline corpus, according to the new perspective writers. In the period
of Western history beginning with the Enlightenment saw Paul having a Greek philosophical mind set.6
Whereas, we find that the new perspective scholars see Paul primarily as a Jewish rabbi with a first
century Jewish view of reality.
From the point of view, Augustine and those who will follow him understanding the atonement
meant that the Living God had forgiven the sinner by placing the sins of humanity on Jesus and then
making the saved humanity righteous based on the righteousness of Jesus. This will come to mean later
that those who believed in Christ Jesus have their sins forgiven, but also they were imputed to be
righteous meaning they were now given a new moral character. For these medieval theological writers,
Paul had made those who believe in Jesus, as the Christ, salvation in Christ that was guaranteed by the
Holy Spirit. For the old perspective the Gospels and the letters of Paul are all about individual salvation.
Using Romans 10 was viewed as the way to personal salvation. This became known as ‘the Roman
Road’ to salvation. It was a simple belief that Jesus was one’s personal savior. This view is consistence
with Augustine’s understanding of justification that was a highly intellectual understanding of the
4
This material is apart of his writings against Pelagius.
Ibid. McGrath Iustitia Dei, for details of the history of this topic.
6 This concept of Paul will lead to some interesting events in terms of the relations between Christians and Jews in Europe, particularly in
Germany.
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doctrine. However, this intellectual belief is not saving for Augustine. He postulated that salvation
depended on the election of God that was laid down by God’s eternal degree before the beginning of
time. Here we have, if pushed to it logical conclusion, double predestination, i.e. some have been
marked for salvation and some are already doomed.
Here we begin to see how it was that the Western Church was placed on the road to imputed justice,
imputed righteousness, in its understanding of Justification? I think, the history of the Roman Empire
can help us here to see that political events also played a part. After the Empire was divided into east
and west for administrative control under Diocletian in 286 there begins a struggle for control of the
Empire. These struggles do not concerns us but they will cause the capitol of the Roman Empire to be
moved to Constantinople in 326. There took place a rather fundamental separation in 395 by a decree of
the Emperor Theodosius and after his death in 396 this division became permanent. This did not mean
that the city of Rome was no longer an important city for it was the administrative capitol of the Western
Empire. However, after the sack of Rome in 410, its importance was reduced and the Western Empire
begins to break up into smaller kingdoms. We have begun what is often called the ‘Dark Ages’ in the
western part of the Empire. Of course, the process of this breaking up of the Western Empire will take
time but it does mean that the Western Empire will depend on the Roman Church for it coherence and
Latin will become the common language of the Western Empire’s elite. Whereas in the Eastern Empire
Greek will remain the common language. Thus Augustine’s view of justification becomes the concept of
justice in the thinking of medieval theologians and the key to understanding the atonement. This idea of
justice becomes a method for interpreting the Pauline corpus in the Western Church. We will find this
understanding of the atonement in both Calvin and Luther.
The major question of the atonement is how are we to be saved. However, in the Pauline corpus
individual salvation, though important, is not the major thrust of Paul’s concern. If you read Paul’s
letters as letters, without seeking to find a base for a preconceived theological position, then we find that
the primary place belong to his concern for the unity of the church. Of course Paul is also working out
the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. If we begin with the premise that Paul’s understanding of
salvation is primarily making anyone morally virtuous; then, as N. T. Wright states, we have missed
Paul’s point for Paul begins with Abraham and God’s promises to him. For Paul this covenantal
understanding is the key to understanding Pauline theology for the very righteousness of the Living God
depends on the covenantal promise to Abraham being brought to fruition in Jesus the Messiah of Israel.
In ancient Israel God, YHWH, was seen as the guarantor of righteousness and the provider of
righteousness. This concept of righteousness is connected to God as creator and sustainer of the
universe. We are called to remember that Paul continually returns to the Old Testament for his
understanding of Jesus’ Messiahship. And according to Paul, the promise of the Living God is what has
happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus. This act of God is the fulfillment of the promise to
Abraham that he will be the father of many nations. In a word, we have been led by Paul into the
narrative of Israel’s reason to be. Paul, as seen by Wright, “sees God’s promise to Abraham as the
foundation of the single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world, in short, the covenant.”7
We should remember that grace precedes the obligation found in the covenant with the Living God.
The Ten Commandments begin with the words: I am YHWH who brought you out of slavery in Egypt.
The Gospel is for Paul the call to believe the truth that Jesus died for our sin; he was resurrected by God,
the Father, and will be there for those who trust him at the last judgment. The new perspective demands
that Paul’s letters be read as one reads a normal letter and we are not to pick and chose those parts that
please our understanding of the Gospel but attempt to see Paul’s understanding of the Gospel in the flow
of his logic in each individual letter.
7
Op cites Wright Justification page 216. This way of seeing the foundation of Paul’s thinking is found in several places in this book.
4
Paul speaks in Romans of the fact that Abraham was not circumcised before God chose him. In fact,
Scripture tells us that Abraham had no redeeming features. This is also true for the people of Israel; they
were no different than any other nation when God saved them from slavery in Egypt. The reason they
were saved, according to Paul, is because God had made a promise to Abraham. And God is righteous;
He keeps His promise, as one who is righteous would do.
The major flaw in the Western Church’s understanding of the atonement, according to the new
perspective, is the concept of imputed righteousness of Christ to the believer. This is based on a
medieval concept of justice that assumes that for a person to be righteous one must have his/her sins
covered by the righteousness of another. In this case, it is accomplished by the sacrifice of Jesus on the
cross that accrues merit that can be used to save those who come to the Church. Thus we have one of the
reasons for the importance of the cross in Roman Church and in Protestant theology during and after the
period of the Reformation. This may well be the reason for Jesus being still on the cross in Roman
Churches. Also those who live a righteous life before God in this life accrue merit before God that can
be used by others who need it because they have not accumulated enough in their earthly lives. To
manage this storehouse of merit is the task of the Church in the Roman view.
For the Jew in Paul’s day his status as a member of the people of the Living God was the Torah, the
Law. In keeping the Torah the Jew was aiding in removing the curse of Deuteronomy 29-30 and ending
the exile of the Living God from the Temple. For after the return from the Babylonian Captivity God
had not returned to the Temple as Israel thought He would. For Paul this understanding of the Torah has
now changed for the Living God has declared that those who hear the Gospel of Christ and are moved to
believe it and have place their trust in the Messiah Jesus are given the status of members of the family of
YHWH. They should not be called the new Israel for they have been engrafted to Israel. They have been
engrafted to the root that is the promise to Abraham. For God intended in His covenant with Abraham to
include not just Israel as his people but the whole of humanity were to be included. Thus God has in the
Messiah Jesus declared all who believe in Him are declared innocent and given the status of members of
the household of the Living God, Israel.
It is my contention that as Reformation theology advanced into the 17th century it met challenges
that it was not equipped to meet. The Reformed and Lutheran views of the Christian faith, in particularly
their understanding of justification, become frozen in the internal doctrinal conflicts and external debates
with a revitalized Roman Church. In this debate the two sides, Roman and Protestant, became
increasingly similar in their outlook for both used rationalism to reinforce their arguments. On the
Lutheran side their creedal statement of Augsburg in 1530 and finally the Formula of Concord in 1577
became the basis for their theology and there being no other creedal statements since means that the
Lutheran branch of the Reformation is left to defend this statement as their statement of orthodoxy
against a renewed Roman perspective and the Enlightenment understanding of reality based in the
scientific work of Newton. The Reformed Church’s theology becomes frozen by these same challenges
of this era. However, the Reformed Churches develop a scriptural rationalization that is incorporated
into its creedal statements that is seen in the Westminster Confession 1647. By following Augustine and
in part from following post-Reformation rationalism the Scriptures become for many Calvinists
propositional in nature allowing the Scripture to be taken out of context and used as proof texts for its
theology.
At his point in history the question of authority becomes the key to theological development. The
Roman Church used the authority of the Pope based on one verse of Scripture and tradition. Scripture
alone became the authority for the Protestant movement. The concept of an inerrant Bible was
introduced as an authority. This inerrant Bible will lead to a propositional hermeneutic. This
propositional hermeneutic will result in using Scripture in rational method to justify much of the
systematic theology in the post-Reformation era. Of course, this is one way to deal with the questions
that challenged the church in the past 300 or so years. Unfortunately it does not take the exegesis of
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Scripture seriously and makes reforming Reformed Theology very difficult. There is a desire to have a
theology that is logically rational and thus cannot be assaulted by anyone. Thus any believer can feel
certain of their salvation without concern for their living situation. This has also created two wings of
Reformed Theology: first a liberal theology that is primarily humanist in its outlook. This allowed this
wing of the church to take apart Scripture and ignore the parts it does not like and view Scripture as out
of date for it is no longer seen as revelation of the Living God. It can base its theology on the current
understanding of a scientific basis for human existence. Secondly, it created a fundamentalist theology
that is frozen in the 17th century view of reality. It is my contention that any or all of these assessments
of the Christian faith are moving in the wrong direction. This is not to say that every thing created by
these movements in the church is without any merit at all. However, to keep reforming one must be open
to new developments in understanding Scripture and the world of Jesus and Paul. That is a base Jewish
in character.
As I see it, the new perspective is a call to return to the sources of the Christian faith found in the
Old and New Testaments. This debate has been for the most part waged on an academic level. This
means that both sides of the debate are writing for the most part to one another. It is also the case that
scholars write within their particular theological position for one another. In fact this is often on a very
technical basis and the terminology used by some of the debaters is difficult to follow without a sound
theological education. However, N. T. Wright and his associates have written more popular works for
the church, as have the old perspective writers. These popular works often refer the reader to the more
technical works that are more demanding in terms of theological vocabulary and knowledge. And of
course, both sides have used modern technology to advance their cause.
The new perspective writers are not concerns greatly with the question of Pauline authorship. They
are more concerned with what we find in the theology of the entire Pauline corpus, as the ancient church
originally conceived of the New Testament canon and presented it to the Church. But I do not wish to
get ahead of what we are looking at for the new perspective writers should not be seen as a group of
exegetes who are on the fringe of biblical studies but rather they are those who are teaching in the
church’s seminaries. These are men and women who take very seriously the task of biblical exegesis.
Here is a brief list of some of the biblical scholars as they stood in early 1990’s who were struggling
with the new perspective: Paul Achtemeier @ Union Seminary in Virginia; Jouette Bassler @ Perkins
School of Theology; Christiaan Beker @ Princeton Theological Seminary; James Dunn @ University of
Durham; Richard Hays @ Yale Divinity School (now deceased); Louis Martyn @ Union Theological
Seminary NY; N. T. Wright @ University of Oxford. 8 There is another list of those who represent
scholarly work outside of biblical studies. They attack the problem of our understanding of our faith
from a theological perspective, a sociological perspective and a historical perspective. This list will be
only three names: Albert Schweitzer [The Mysticism of Paul], Wayne Weeks [The First Urban
Christians] and E. P. Sanders [Paul and Palestinian Judaism]. These three lay the foundation for asking
the questions concerning Pauline letters and their full meaning. This comes to the fore in the question of
Christian ethics. OK I am saved now what? What is my life to be like as a Christian? The title of
Schweitzer’s book maybe mislead to you for it is not only about the mysticism of Paul but also about
Paul’s foundational work in the light of the theological speculation of nineteenth century. Wayne Weeks
asks serious questions a about the sociological structure of the early church. What is taking place as Paul
attempts to interpret the theological basis of the Gospel from a Hebraic understanding to a Greek
understanding? Remember Who Paul was. Certainly he was familiar with Greek philosophy but he was,
as Paul himself points out, a Jew and a Pharisee. I have come to understand Paul as a rabbinic thinker,
and I think his work demonstrates this fact.
8
These individuals may be at present retired or at a different teaching position.
6
Here we must ask the question concerning our understanding of the doctrine of salvation and how
are we justified before the Living God? The theological concept of ‘justification by faith alone’ must be
examined in terms of what Paul actually wrote and not what the church has in its theological doctrines
come to understand as it meaning. In the Jewish environment of Paul, we must understand that in order
to comprehend any doctrine of salvation found in the Pauline Corpus there is a demand that Paul’s first
readers by considered. Paul was a first century Jew and he must be treated that way. The question
becomes as I have noted: Is being saved the major concern of Paul’s writings, is it as important in the
Augustinian view and in the later Calvinist view have made it to be? This may seem a simple question
but a great deal hangs on the answer we give to this question. On the answer to this question hangs the
linchpin of Augustine, medieval, Calvinist and Lutheran understanding of the atonement.
One of the more interesting current historical works by a theological historian; it is Alister
McGrath’s Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification from 1500 to the Present
Day. What McGrath does is to trace the doctrine of Justification back to its roots in the theology of
Augustine and earlier to Tertullian. Interestingly both of these men were educated in the Roman judicial
system. It is clear that Augustine misread Paul by making justification to be the primary understanding
of Pauline theology. In other words, all of Paul’s writing was concerning in contained in the question:
What must I do to be saved? It is not that salvation is not important to Paul it is but that it is not his
primary concern.
One of the most important understanding that has been advocated in the new perspective is the
looking to the complete context of Pauline quotes from the Old Testament for this give insight into
Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ role in the narrative of Israel’s purpose in the promise to Abraham as the
foundation of the single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world. This concept of salvation is Paul’s
foundation for human salvation. There is one idea that I will address in the next lecture: The matter of
human certainty.
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