Author: Rob

Travis Prinzi gets it right. This is exactly what I was trying to get at in my last post.

Michael at the BHT recently linked to this post, which discusses John Piper’s critique of N.T. Wright’s definition of righteousness. Wright has long held that righteousness is best understood as God’s covenant faithfulness; the covenant being God’s promise to deal with sin finally and set the world right. Piper, on the other hand, calls Wright’s approach reductionistic, and has this to say in response (from his book, The Future of Justification):

“The essence of the righteousness of God is his unwavering faithfulness to uphold the glory of his name. And human righteousness is the same: the unwavering faithfulness to uphold the glory of God. (64)”

Piper’s statement is typical for his brand of thoroughly reformed theology, which sees God’s glory and sovereignty as the fundamental principal from which all time and history springs. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking often leaves Christ in the role of gatekeeper to God’s glory. In this model, the person and work of Christ is important because He allows us to get in line with God’s glory. God’s glory has become this disembodied thing, an other-worldly standard which must be maintained.

A better reading of scripture, in my mind, is to start with Christ first, then re-imagine ideas like glory and righteousness through Him. Re-read Piper’s statement on righteousness through the fulcrum point of the cross, he ends up a lot closer to Wright. It goes something like this:

• The essence of God’s righteousness is his unwavering faithfulness to uphold the glory of His name.
• He accomplishes this only through the cross and resurrection.
• Throughout the New Testament, the cross and resurrection are explicitly for the life of the world.
• Therefore, God’s righteousness is his unwavering faithfulness to uphold (and resurrect!) the life of the world.
• … and in Wright’s book, that’s pretty much the covenant.

Piper’s approach goes awry when it begins considering God’s glory as an object somehow separate from the communion of the Trinity. We’re headed for trouble any time we try to divorce an attribute of God from the person of Christ.

Jesus is speaking with the Pharisees. He has just healed a man on the Sabbath, and when questioned, identified Himself as God’s Son, completely justified in his work. It’s blasphemy to their ears. After an explanation of the source of his authority, Jesus tells them they can search the Scriptures all they like, but He is the one who gives life. He closes His response with this:

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? – (John 5)

This passage is foundational to a right understanding of Scripture, and particularly to a right understanding of the Law: A failure to believe in Christ is a failure to believe in the Law. And likewise, failure to believe in the Law is a failure to believe in Christ.

John the Baptist reviles the Pharisees with a similar remark:

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. – (Matthew 3)

I sat up straight in the pew this past Sunday when, after reading this scripture aloud, our pastor closed the reading with the standard declaration, “This is the Gospel of the Lord.” Somehow I’d fallen into a stupor. I’d forgot that the Gospel has edges this jagged. There’s an identifiable line of thought which says something along the lines of “We have Luther as our father…” Fruit in keeping with repentance? Winnowing fork? Baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire?

Christ-centered theology cannot be weak on the Law; to weaken the Law is to weaken Christ. If we are to put the cross and resurrection at the fulcrum point of our theological framework, we cannot forget why it had to be the cross, why it had to be blood, why it had to be the Son of God Himself.