The following was initially a blog post. I have refrained from editing out matters of informality etc.
Disclaimer: While I am a reasonable typist, I nonetheless cannot type at speech-speed at the best times, much less on a laptop keyboard. Consequently, these notes vary from word to word to close summary, and much of the ground in between. To be sure of precise wording, you will of course need to consult the tapes or CDs.
N. T. Wright
The essential structure and framework of Pauline theology
Wright began by noting that often three crucial elements have not been integrated well into discussions of Pauline theology: the resurrection, Israel, and even God Himself.
Wright suggests that the obvious place to begin in determining the essential structure or framework of Paul's theology is with the shape of classic Jewish theology. It does not seem that this notion occurred to Bultmann, or even Ridderbos or Dunn.
On this "classic Jewish theology," Wright centers upon three large and basic themes: monotheism, election ("in the broader Jewish sense of the choice of Israel as God's people"), and eschatology. The latter arises out of the first two, because affirmation of monotheism and election (the one true God and His people) raises the awareness that something is wrong. If monotheism and election are true, then eschatology is demanded. Wright restates this threefold theme as "One God, one people of God, one purpose for God's world."
Paul is best understood if we see him, not abandoning that framework, but redefining it around the Messiah and the Spirit. The one God is revealed, not only as Creator and Sustainer of the world, but as the God of Israel - the electing God - and the God of future judgment.
Election is "refocused on Jesus Messiah." He is seen as "the personal self-revelation of the one God in action and in passion."
"The story of the one God and Israel is bound together in Christ; He is Himself the quintessence of monotheism and election. The long-awaited end has come forward into the present in Him." (Hence, all three elements.)
That "end" - eschatology - "is guaranteed because of the justice of the one God. Where you get a strong theology of God as Creator," coupled with a robust belief in the justice of God, "you get a theology of resurrection.
These three structural fundamentals are "sliced through" by three further topics.
1. Each is rooted in a rereading of Israel's Scriptures. Wright notes particularly Genesis, Deuteronomy and Isaiah ("and much besides"), where Paul's retelling is "in controversy with other readings." "Paul has in mind an essentially historical and sequential reading of Scripture in which death and resurrection fulfill the divine plan."
2. The primary polemical target is not Judaism (although that is clearly a running battle on the side), but paganism. Wright suggests that Paul remains a typical Jew. (If sounds hyperbolic, it must be observed that he is speaking here of Paul's critique of paganism.) He characterizes the nations as overrun with idolatry and immorality. "Messiah's new creation is the reality of which paganism is the parody." The best that pagan thought had to offer would only find fulfillment by seeing through the new eyes provided by the new creation of Israel's Christ.
3. Monotheism, election, and eschatology come to expression "in the task of preaching the gospel to the world, and building up the Church through prayer and preaching as the necessary context of development of these ideas." Wright adds rather pointedly, "The reality is not what goes on inside our heads," so that "what goes on in the life of the Church" becomes secondary.
Wright adds that while Paul's letters are "occasional" (oriented to particular occasions or situations), they "do not bring out odd things that Paul never thought of before;" rather, they give "direct access to what lay at the heart of Paul's thought."
At this point, Wright began to address the three fundamentals more specifically.
1. Monotheism in Jewish thought
Wright noted that it is mistake "to suppose that this word always refers to the same kind of theology." There is a need to distinguish between "gods." Pantheism, for example, is in fact a form of monotheism, but in contrast to it, biblical monotheism is "creational and covenantal." God has, in particular, entered into covenant with Israel.
This covenant raised the need "to have an integrated account of evil." Wright draws attention to the two main contemporary rivals of both ancient Judaism and early Christianity: pantheism and Epicureanism. The former does not seek to give an account of evil - after all, "if the world is divine, what do you do?" Neither does Epicureanism seek to explain evil, for what is apparently the opposite reason: there is nothing to be explained, due to the great gap which exists between God and the world.
In most varieties of Judaism, however, neither such approach is an option, since God has remained passionately and compassionately involved with the world - especially with Israel. And this means that evil is a "problem," which leads to writing such as we find in Psalm 73 or the book of Job. "Evil matters desperately to God because He is the Creator and still loves the world," and He will deal - somehow - with "the horror, degradation and decay which have infected the creation."
Thus, the glory of the Lord filling the earth remains Israel's hope. The question is: how? The answer "often remains opaque within Judaism;" there is uncertainty regarding how things will work out.
Wright notes that Jewish analyses of evil regularly focus on idolatry, which leads inexorably to the failure of human beings to reflect the image of the true God. "You become like what you worship; if you fail to worship the true God, you cease to reflect Him." Thus sin is the failure to be genuinely human.
The Jewish analysis of evil leads to a corresponding solution, which centered upon themes of exile and restoration. It is within these great themes that we find the development of the idea of redemption: God ransoming His worshippers from Sheol, and breathing His Spirit into His lifeless servants.
Given the above concerns regarding idolatry, it is not surprising that Wright suggests that Jewish monotheism never remained a theoretical belief; it was "always at work summoning Israel to worship the one true God."
Already by Paul's day, there had been a development in the ways of speaking of God's interrelationship with the world. God spoke and things happened; He breathed His Spirit into human nostrils and promised to pour out that same Spirit; He promised to dwell in the temple by means of His Shekinah; God's Wisdom continues to guide Israel, as does His Torah.
Wright notes that how far any of these expressions had developed into ontological categories is a matter of controversy. Certainly, they were not intended as means of challenging monotheism, but as ways of speaking about how the one God was active in His world.
2. Paul's redefinition of monotheism around Christ
Paul does not abandon monotheism; in fact, the oneness of God serves as the "natural baseline" of his thinking, as is reflected in the shape of his argument in numerous passages, such as Galatians 3 (note especially 3.20 in context) and Romans 3 (see 3.29-30).
This monotheism remains creational; without divining or worshipping the created gifts, he identifies food, sex and the created order good. In other words, Paul is not a dualist, even where that would have provided an easy way to handle difficult situations (think of the Corinthians!). His exhortations are not the cheap, shallow exhortations of dualism; he holds true to a robust creationalism.
Paul's redefinitions of monotheism "turn out to have Jesus in the middle of them." For example, in Romans 10.5-13, Paul is doing a reading of Deuteronomy, just as many others of his period were doing. The text in view (Deut 30) is laying out a historical program that Israel was destined to follow: blessing for obedience, cursing for disobedience, and return from exile.
What God has done is not through Torah, but through Messiah. Instead of Torah, He is now the "badge" of God's renewed people; those who call upon Him as kurios will be saved (Rom 10.9). This Lord is Lord of all; those who call on Him will be saved - this clearly refers to Yahweh (see the original text in Joel 2), and Paul understands it as a direct reference to Jesus. Romans 10.13 is thus answering the question put in 10.1: this is how Paul's fellow Jews are to be saved.
Such an identification of Jesus has been foreshadowed in Romans 9.5 (here Wright had a brief aside about those who go into tangles in order to deny what Paul plainly says): Jesus is not only Israel's Messiah according to the flesh; He is "God blessed forever." Denial of such a reading is based upon an a priori assumption ("Paul couldn't have believed Jesus was God"). But in fact the rest of the letter is unpacking just this.
Wright also draws attention to Philippians 2.8-9. In this passage, the human Jesus is also the One equal with the Creator God. Verse 9 is crucial: He shares the divine honour; He has done what only the one God can do. What He did on the cross was not in spite of His identity as the one God. Rather, it was "the very self-expression of they very heart of the one God." Wright notes that Isaiah 45 is "one of the most fierce monotheistic passages in the Old Testament;" yet here in Philippians 2 is a poem which has placed Jesus in the middle of that "deep Jewish monotheism." (Paul is quoting Is 45.23 in Phi 2.10-11).
Similarly 1 Corinthians 8.6: How do you live in a pagan society? By giving glory to the one true God. Who is this one God? Paul appeals to the most basic monotheistic statement of all Judaism: the shema of Deuteronomy 6. He lays hold of the LXX version, quotes and expands it: Jesus Messiah is the "Lord" of the monotheistic confessional prayer; He is the true content of God's self-revelation in Torah.
And again, in Colossians 1.15-20, Paul engages in a classic expression of Jewish-style monotheism, and within that Jesus is God's agent/self-expression, taking on the role of divine Wisdom.
So too with Paul's usage of the idea of "God's Son." This was known in Judaism to refer to Israel generally and the Messiah specifically as God's son. Without dropping the Israel/Messianic meaning, Paul fills the term with a new idea: God's determination that when the world needs redeeming, He will not send someone else but will come and do it in person. Only if Jesus is the embodiment of the one God can God Himself be doing in Christ what Paul says He is doing. He is God's own "second Self," God's own self-expression.
And the cross. The ultimately shocking and glorious thing is that in becoming human to fulfill His own promises, Israel's God has chosen to die on a cross - "the ultimate revelation of the love and the justice of God, defeating the powers that held people in darkness." Here is the climactic point where evil is addressed head-on by God Himself. "The cross is not an add-on to Paul's redefinition of monotheism, but the starting point;" it is here where the faithfulness of God to His promise and His creation is fulfilled.
Romans 4.25 thus tells us who God is: He is the God who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, who was handed over for our sins and raised for our justification. The cross of Jesus stands at the heart of Paul's vision of the one true God.
3. Paul's redefinition of monotheism around the Spirit
In Galatians 3, Paul has said that God kept Israel as a young child under a household slave (a paidagôgos) until the time time of maturity, the time of the coming of the "one family" God was creating.
In 4.1-7, Paul goes on to unpack the resolution to this situation. Slavery in the Jewish tradition focuses upon the exodus. So here, God sets His people free, first by sending His Son, then the Spirit. The result is that they are no longer slaves, but sons and heirs. The Galatians are already complete in Christ. This also develops the Jewish monotheistic picture of God: the God of the exodus is now to be worshipped, loved and trusted as the sender of the Son and the Spirit. Now, the Galatians have come at last to know God - or rather, to be known by Him.
And this is exclusive; Paul now lines up Torah itself with the local territorial gods. Either the one God is known in precisely this new way, or one is back in paganism.
In Romans, Paul again picks up heavily on the exodus motif. Romans 8.12ff cannot be understood apart from this. The Spirit here takes the place of the Shekinah who led Israel to the promised land. The land here becomes, not "heaven," but the renewed creation (the kosmos which is to be liberated from its own slavery). The Spirit Himself constitutes the firstfruits of the coming harvest (8.24).
The redemption of humans is with the purpose that through them God might bring His wise order to the rest of the world. Israel had thought that the promise was just for themselves, not the nations; Wright suggests that Paul's view is a critique upon Christians as well: we have seen the promise as being only for us humans, whereas our vocation involves us in the restoration and healing of the kosmos.
Wright says that Romans 8.3-4 is "quintessential" for Paul's theology: the Son and Spirit together fulfill God's promises. This is lined up over against Torah, which has failed ("could not do"). This is not because there was something wrong with Torah, but raw material was humans in Adam. (Wright notes in passing that many wish Paul had not spoken of the Spirit here; our instinct is to wish him to speak entirely of something extra nos.)
The Spirit thus is alongside the Son as the agent of the one God doing what Wisdom and Torah were to do; implicitly we have both an affirmation and a bypassing of Torah.
Returning to Romans 10, Wright noted the citation of Joel in 10.13. The Joel passage is used in Acts 2 with reference to the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. Paul has the entire passage in mind, and his thought here is very close to 2.25-29 and 2 Corinthians 3. The work of the Spirit is a crucial element.
Where the Spirit of the living God is at work, there will be unity. See 1 Corinthians 12 (see vv 4-6): the Church's unity and diversity are grounded in the one God: Spirit, Lord and God (the Father).
Wright goes on to speak of the call. Paul found that when he announced Jesus as Lord, people discovered that this announcement made itself at home in their hearts, transforming their lives. Paul describes this in various ways, often employing the language of the Spirt and/or the Word. Wright references 1 Thessalonians 1.5; 2.13, etcetera. The Spirit works through the Word, the gospel. This Word is the gospel of Isaiah 40-55, whose purpose is new creation (the myrtle comes in place of the thorn, etc).
One of the most splendidly Jewish statements in Paul is Ephesians, which celebrates God's victory over the whole world in the Messiah. "In Him" is a dominant motif. What God does in the Messiah results in the praise of His own glory; He accomplishes redemption: the new exodus. The great themes of Jewish monotheism, once again, are re-thought around Messiah and the Spirit.
Wright suggests in closing that the notion that Ephesians is not Pauline is an offshoot of the "sidelining of a high ecclesiology." But this high ecclesiology is thoroughly Paul's own.
Brief Thoughts
I confess to being somewhat ambivalent regarding Wright's "obvious place to begin" being "classic Jewish theology." It seems rather squishy to me, since it would seem that here again we have a symptom of something that the NPP has frequently been criticized for: collapsing canonical (biblical) and extracanonical thought and belief. Moreover, it would appear rather dubious to think that there really was a uniform Jewish theology.
That said, and at the risk of sounding self-contradictory, I think that Wright is largely on the right track. Perhaps this is because by "classic Jewish theology," he is focusing on a very fundamental core that was not only shared by virtually all Jews, but also arose directly out of dominant themes in the canonical texts. Thus what at first glance appears to be a rather unsound move would in fact seem to be pretty solid.
What can one say for the "on the ground" outline Wright provides? I think it is both orthodox and fresh. Wright reminds us, not only of how the gospel of Christ and Spirit find their antecedents in the issues, problems, and hopes of the Hebrew Scriptures, but also how Paul's message would have resonated within his world, both Jewish and pagan. There is a great deal of material here that will be fruitful for revisiting. Particularly, the robust view of creation and new creation present here is both a corrective to frequent tendencies and a restatement of the orthodox Christian view of God as Creator and lover of His world.