Piper on Justification
10 January 2008 by Gil
So I’ve gone through Piper’s extensive refutation of N.T. Wright and I must admit that my confusion has not gone away. A number of Piper’s objections center around Wright’s definition of the critical term ‘the righteousness of God’. This is admittedly an important definition to get straight since it seems to be central to Paul’s presentation of how the Gospel addresses our most basic problem. Here is my sense of the competing definitions of this term:
Wright - “God’s righteousness is that aspect of his character because of which, despite Israel’s infidelity and consequent banishment, God will remain true to the covenant with Abraham and rescue her nonetheless.”
The basic idea here is that God’s righteousness is very much like faithfulness, God’s faithfulness to his creation in spite our repeated failure to return it. The righteousness of God is God’s faithfulness to his covenant.
Piper - “The righteousness of God consists most basically in God’s unswerving commitment to preserve the honor of his name and display his glory.”
This somewhat confusing statement seems to be getting at something like the moral perfection that God exhibits that we as human beings owe him in return. God’s glory is most evident in the moral perfection of his character.
As far as I can tell these two definitions determine the conclusions when it comes to what is meant by the term justification. For Wright justification means that, in spite of my failure to remain faithful to my Creator, I am declared a member of his covenant people, my sins are now forgiven and will one day be wiped away and I can have the hope of final resurrection.
For Piper, justification means that my moral imperfection has been dealt with and that my legal status before God has been changed. The basis for this change of status is that I have actually been credited with the righteousness of Christ in some kind of moral bank account, that something within me has actually changed that makes this change of status before God possible (the implication being, that this would not be possible otherwise).
For me Piper’s definition is problematic because it seems to take a standard of moral perfection (holiness, righteousness) and make that the organizing principle around which the whole conversation on justification/salvation turns. The basic problem is that we are not morally righteous; the solution is that God gives us the righteousness of Jesus and gets around the legal requirement that unrighteousness be punished.
To me love seems like a more basic element of the character of God than what Piper means be the term ‘righteousness’. Piper’s God could easily exist in solitude, contemplating his own glory for eternity. But if love is more basic than righteousness (or if righteousness is an expression of God’s love) then Wright’s definition makes more sense.
Faithfulness, like love, is something that makes no sense outside of relationship. And if this kind of love is not just something that God does but something God is then I think the basic solution offered by the Gospel is not merely a change of legal status before God but rather a healed relationship.
Hey Gil,
I appreciate your preference for Wright’s definition. Piper’s definition of justification makes less sense, in my mind. But, correct me if I’m wrong, the bible seems to communicate both definitions. So, how should the church deal with diverse biblical theology such as this?
Should one definition be brushed aside in believers’ minds by being recognized as a lesser priority or not as foundational as the other definition might be? Or maybe another way of looking at it is that one of the definitions is outdated? I’ll explain what I mean about this below.
How people use the bible is becoming of some interest to me. One of the things I’ve been wondering is if the bible has been divided into these two categories by some (I couldn’t say how many) believers: (1) contemporary use to edify the church’s understanding of God and enrich that relationship (2) nostalgic appreciation for ancient cultures’ influence on God’s relationship with his followers/children.
It seems to me that Jesus’ death is a response to the latter, but you most likely have a different take on this.
Jerry
From what I’ve read of Wright, and from what little I’ve been able to stomach of Piper, the question that always screams out most loudly is “Which of these views makes better sense of the overall biblical narrative of creation-fall-redemption?” The unfolding of history seems utterly superfluous if all God was after was moving his sinful creatures from one forensic category to another. As you’ve pointed out, it’s at least conceivable that a God who was motivated by love and relational fidelity could allow for the ambiguous mixture of good and evil that we see throughout history.
Hi Jerry,
I think my answer would look similar to Ryan’s. When it comes to differing perspectives within the Bible I tend to ask which one coheres best within the overall story that the Bible tells (or which view makes the most sense in light of other biblical themes). In this case, I don’t think Piper’s view does that.
Regarding your observation of the two ways in which the Bible is used by contemporary believers, I have no doubt that it us used in both of these ways, although I would say there are other possibilities. I don’t think the Bible is primarily for my spiritual edification nor do I think it is primarily nostalgic reflection on how ancient cultures interacted with God. But there are certainly Christians who would view the Bible in both of these ways.
I’m not exactly sure how you’re interpreting Jesus’ death in light of this observation so I can’t say too much about that. Can you clarify?
I can try. Sacrificial deaths of innocent lives is not a contemporary expression of love within the church. It’s an example of archaic practices to propitiate a god. Instead of innocent blood, presently, the church sacrifices to God in other ways as an expression of their devotion.
By this, my second category (nostalgic appreciation for ancient cultures’ influence on God’s relationship with his followers/children) would explain my reading of Jesus’ death.
However, wouldn’t you say that the current practice of the communion/eucharist is not just an act of nostalgia for an outdated practice, but rather, includes my first category (among other uses you’ve alluded to), which is edification and enrichment?
Thanks for clarifying Jerry,
I would make two observations in response:
The first is that you’re working with a definition of the atonement that I, and a lot of other Christians don’t hold. I don’t see Jesus’ death primarily as a means of ‘propitiating a god’, I see it as God’s choice to take upon himself the consequences of our failure and evil. I think the difference is significant. The cross can then be seen as evidence of the extent of God’s love (laying down a life for friends and enemies).
The second observation is that you seem to assume that Jesus’ death could not possibly mean what his followers interpreted it to mean, that the New Testament must be a later, somewhat imaginative account of what happened on the cross. Is it self-evident that the NT is the result of early (and overactive) Christian imagination or could there be some actual history there?
If you’re assuming that what actually happened was something other than what the New Testament says happened then we could talk about various arguments for or against that claim. It seems me that this issue is logically prior to the other questions you’re asking.
Regarding the Eucharist: I have no problem with your definition of it as part of the edification/enrichment of the church.
If one of the consequences of our failure and evil is death (assuming the origin of humanity’s natural state was immortal), wouldn’t Jesus (as crazy as this sounds) have to die billions of deaths to substitute our own? In other words, how does one death substitute billions of other deaths?
History is a tough subject for me. Lately, when I approach the subject of history, I remind myself of a statement made by Benedetto Croce - “All history is contemporary history.” I assume there is some historical accuracies in the bible, but how does one discern where they are in the texts? Questions arise in my mind, like - ‘What were the journalistic standards of the biblical writers? How much or little did their vested interest in Jesus influence their writings?’
Nevertheless, apart from my understanding of NT interpretations of Jesus’ death, I understand the story of his death itself as a political execution 2000 years ago. It seems to me, he primarily died for his beliefs about who he was, not denouncing them or defending them. I suppose I could see him as dying for his followers by being an example of courage and faithfulness to his beliefs.
I appreciate this conversation, Gil. It’s helped me explore Jesus in a different light
Jerry,
I readily agree with you regarding the ambiguities of history. There is no telling of a story that is not influenced at some level by the perspective of the teller. So in that sense, I think it’s pointless to argue that the authors of the gospels were not committed followers of Jesus and that this could have influenced what they wrote.
For me the biggest historical question around Jesus is not the precise cause or circumstances of his death but his resurrection and the effect it had on the early disciples.
The New Testament is quite clear that none of the disciples expected Jesus to die and that when he did die they were discouraged and lost faith in him as a result. At the end of Luke’s gospel some disillusioned disciples admit that they had hoped that Jesus was ‘the one’ but that those hopes had now vanished in light of the crucifixion.
Yet within three months of Jesus’ death you have Peter and others apparently transformed into bold witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. Something happened to launch Christianity as a movement, a movement whose growth is so explosive in the first three centuries that this historical fact demands an explanation. What was that something?
It’s hard for me to imagine these early disciples being willing to endure persecution, hardship and even death for their belief if it was purely a figment of their imagination, some kind of cognitive dissonance that they experienced in light of their grief or a purely spiritual ‘presence of Jesus’ that they strangely felt in the months following his death.
It is possible to argue that this whole shift in the disciple’s thinking and attitude was ‘made up’ at a later time by the writers of the NT but I think that this requires far more contemporary historical imagination than is necessary.
Regarding your question on the ‘billions of deaths’ Jesus would need to die: again, it depends on your reading of what Jesus’ death accomplished. There is a long historical tradition of seeing Jesus’ death as a decisive confrontation with evil itself and a victory over that power.
His death is still ’substitutionary’ in that this would have been our fate as well (the ultimate evil being death and separation from God) but there is not the precise one life for one life substitution that you allude to in your question. In a nutshell: what if the point of Jesus’ death was not to provide a ’substitute death’ for every human being but rather to challenge and defeat the power of evil and in conquering it, release humanity as a whole from its grip.
“Yet within three months of Jesus’ death you have Peter and others apparently transformed into bold witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. Something happened to launch Christianity as a movement, a movement whose growth is so explosive in the first three centuries that this historical fact demands an explanation. What was that something?”
Good question… something I’d like to research from within the contexts of comparative religions (or any other die hard communities of belief) and the social make-up of that time and place.
“In a nutshell: what if the point of Jesus’ death was not to provide a ’substitute death’ for every human being but rather to challenge and defeat the power of evil and in conquering it, release humanity as a whole from its grip[?]”
Are we talking about defeating social evils, the evil that separates us from God (still don’t understand that one), or extending the life of our physical bodies to no end? Or is it all of the above?
If by ‘extending the life of our physical bodies to no end’ you mean physical resurrection, then yes I do think that is a significant part of Christian hope. It is also the hope of a world that is healed and restored to its intended goodness.