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.
Q/A Session # 1
We have now arrived at the first of the Question and Answer sessions. At the beginning of each of these, the speakers were given opportunity to query one another. Following that, a moderator read written questions which had been submitted by the audience. (Thus, there were no "live" questions from the floor.) The following is thus some attempt at a "play by play" of sorts. This was harder to keep up with than the lectures, so even less than usual is it justified in assuming that I am quoting word for word.
Intramural questions
Wright to Gaffin: I am particularly interested in what you mean by "redemptive-historical." I think what you mean is point in the direction I am point, but am not sure you are all the way there. For me, this is absolutely important: God called Israel as the means of putting the world to rights, so that the achievement of Jesus is to deal with both layers [i.e. Israel and the world] of that. The story of Israel is [not merely an illustration but] "the thing itself."
Gaffin: I would certainly want to see as predominant the history of Israel, but I would see that in its unfolding as deeper than Isarel's history. Given the historicity of the fall, it seems to me that Israel's history is given deeper roots that go back to the fall.
Wright: [Comments a bit on Adam and Eve, then on Abraham, something in parallel.] . . . let me get at this another way. . . Galatians 1.4 says that Christ has delivered us from the present evil age; this goes, in my mind, with Matthew 1.21. What I see as "redemptive-history" - I would hear in the light of Ezra-Nehemiah, Daniel 9. Sin and its consequences are exilic in the sense of pagans ruling over [Israel] as the result of their sins. Isaiah 40-55 is about how God will deal with [those] sins. People living in the period thought of themselves as living in a long historical narrative, and the good thing that was to happen was seen as a deliverance from sins, both in the sense of individual sins, and a history that had "got stuck."
Gaffin: Certainly, I've thought a fair amount regarding your emphasis on the exodus theme. The Old Testament paradigm of redemption is obviously the exodus. [But it Paul it is] not always so clear - I don't see it the way you do - this becomes a backdrop in the history. . . . I'm not sure [Paul] explicitly has [the exodus] in mind as you think he does. Let me turn it back on you as a kind of question: When you say "Israel's history is the main theme, with Israel given a task to do" - wasn't that a task that from the outset, Israel was incapable of performing?
Wright: Absolutely, and that is part of the mystery. When I read Reformed critiques [of my work], one would think that Israel played no role in my theology, or Paul's. Romans 3.1ff [where Paul speaks of Israel being "unfaithful"] is Israel-specific. Part of Paul's concern is that God has fulfilled those promises - not merely that one day people would be saved from their sins, but that it would happen through Israel.
Gaffin: In your comment about the North American Reformed and evangelical scene: I hear you say it is focused upon the individual, and missing the corporate?
Wright: Yes, although that is an abstract way of putting it. I am looking for an Israelite focus.
Gaffin: How would you react to this: Paul is a Christian because he has come to a true understanding which he did not have before - [namely] who he is as an individual sinner, and being saved from his individual sin, comes to have a new understanding of the corporate?
Wright: I'm reasonably happy with that. . . . I liked what you did with the redefinition of plight. Saul of Tarsus is aware of a major problem; not that he was walking around with a guilty conscience: he was aware that Israel is in a mess, and it's about time that God fixed Israel's mess. At the Damascus road, he realizes that if this is Messiah fulfilling [the promises], then he had radically misunderstood the promises. I think this is all summarized in Galatians 2.17-21. Both Paul personally, and as a typical Jew under the law. . . the life he now lives is the Christos life.
Gaffin: I hear you saying: Paul goes around proclaiming Jesus as Lord and something happens. That strikes me as a somewhat vague way of representing things. The declaration of Jesus as Lord is non-gospel for those who reject His saving Lordship. What is it that grabs people in that message?
Wright: The Holy Spirit grabs them! but what you mean is: "What would be of interest to them?" I've often imagined myself hearing Paul in a new town. . . . What does he do? He stands and tells people about this young Jewish prophet who was executed by the Romans and was resurrected. It's utterly absurd - like telling a joke in a foreign language. It's folly to pagans. . . and yet, when he does this, the Spirit is at work through the Word; people believe it. Because it's not about skilled apologetics. Simply saying "Jesus is Lord" is too bald and thin a summary. And synechdochally - when you say the gospel would be bad news, surely that comes with the territory. . . . The news that God is going to put the world to rights is good news, and is only bad news for those who have a vested interest that it not be put to rights. The Romans portrayed the [acclimation of] the new emperor as good news; Paul's gospel is "Jesus is Lord, and the new age has begun, because God has dealt with sin in Him."
Gaffin: So presumably. . . you referenced 1 Corinthians 1 - this would involve the crucified Lord of glory, with the significance of the cross.
Wright: Certainly. Each time Paul summarizes [the gospel], it comes out slightly different; he does not use identical formulas.
Questions from the audience (almost)
Q. 1. What is the relationship of the law to the gospel? What is the difference between Lutheran and Reformed approaches?
Gaffin: I think there is a difference [between the Lutheran and Reformed approaches], although we must be careful not to exaggerate it.
Wright: From my perspective looking over the fence. . . . I was very surprised at the negativity [toward] the law itself in Luther, and it was with a sense of relief when I came to Calvin and found notes of fulfillment [such as may be seen in Romans 10.4]. I see those traditions getting stuck on false polarizations, but if I had to choose between Luther and Calvin, I would go with Calvin every day.
Gaffin: May I interrupt the questions. . . [here's the "almost"!] You express appreciation for the Reformed emphasis; you have said that if people had followed Ridderbos on the law, the New Perspective wouldn't have been necessary. [But] I hear Ridderbos as being very "old perspective."
Wright: Ridderbos came up with a very more modest, positive view of the law. My point was this: It was the Lutheran perspective that said that the law was a bad thing, and we're glad we've got rid of it, whereas in the Reformed understanding, the reason God gave the law was to be a way of life for the people God had redeemed in the exodus. If that Reformed view had been the dominant one in biblical studies, then Sanders wouldn't have been necessary. Not to say there were not elements [in Judaism that contradicted the foregoing picture], but they were against the grain of Israel's faith.
Q. 2. What role does baptism play in salvation? Is Romans 6 about water baptism? [This was a set of questions, and particularly for Wright was a question regarding his view of sacramental efficacy and what texts supported his view.]
Wright: The mainstream Anglican view is that sacramental initiation is complete in baptism; confirmation is a kind of "lay ordination" or commissioning. I am comfortable with baptized children receiving communion. I haven't written much about baptism, other than commenting on Romans 6. Baptism, faith, table fellowship - all those who believe in Jesus belong at the same table. Regarding texts, Wright cites Romans 6 and numerous others, and says: Baptism means water baptism. The attempt to treat it as a metaphor is simply wrong. Sadler does a very nice job of lining up baptismal texts. [Note: Athanasius Press made the conference their first pubic release of their reprinting of M. F. Sadler's The Second Adam and the New Birth; apparently Wright had managed to take a peek at some of that material.] Wright goes on to remind of the Jewish context. It is wrong to see the critique of Judaism as being about an outward religion becoming inward - that brings us halfway back to Plato again. The Reformers themselves would have been appalled by this ugly ditch [between sign and reality]. I know people say [of him], "You are just focusing on the outward. . . ." I'm sorry, the New Testament just doesn't allow that either-or.
Gaffin: I agree. Romans 6 and Colossians 2 are clearly referring to water baptism. Of course, the inseparability of faith and baptism raises all sorts of issues with infant baptism, where faith is not in the picture yet. [Wright raises his eyebrows.] Gaffin goes on to express appreciation for Westminster's formulation that baptismal efficacy is not necessarily tied to the moment of administration.
Wright: In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul faces the problems you get when you have a high theology of baptism. He does not say that baptism has no significance, but rather: "You have put yourself in the place where God's judgment takes effect."
Q. 3. Is Christ's merit the proper basis of our justification?
Gaffin: I'm not sure why there should be the reservations concerning the notion of merit. Paul is clear that Jesus by His death - His obedience to death - has done something for me that I can't do for myself, and therefore secured for me a salvation not within my competence to secure. It seems to me that brings you. . . the forgiveness, the righteousness Christ has accomplished in His death and resurrection - seems to bring us to some notion of merit - a deserving - of eschatological life given to Christ, that I share in, not because of my own effort but His. . . . He has merited my salvation.
Wright: I have no problem with anything you said there, but I do with the way ["merit is, "presumably] often expressed, [with] the law as a ladder of good works up which you climb to salvation. [Wright offers Richard Longenecker as an exponent.] That model I find problematic. The law is given to Israel - indeed, to the human race; at the top you get saved. . . . Where the merits of Christ idea comes in for some expositors is that Jesus has climbed up that ladder, and thus you are as though you had climbed the ladder. The reason I object: I don't see Paul saying it. I think it's an attempt to say something that needs to be said. But the way it is often expressed does lead to radical misunderstanding: Jesus is a legalist, and nobody else gets to be. That's not in Paul.
Gaffin: . . . why does Paul identify Christ as the last Adam? It seems to me he is drawing a connection between the original situation and an eschatological order. . . . If you see Romans 8 as a timeline commentary on Genesis 3, it seems to me it's not overreading Paul or contrary to him to see the arrangement of Genesis 2 as a probation, where Adam is short of eschatological beatitude, extended to him [as he is] set under God as Father - there is no need to play the legal and relational off against each other - Adam is set in a position of meriting, which Christ has achieved.
Wright: It would be fun to tease that out with Romans 5.12ff. . . . But: Paul is thinking so Jewishly at this point, and the way he thinks is this: God called Abraham to undo the sin of Adam. [I think here Wright is referring to Romans 4 as leading the way into Romans 5.] We can now step back and see the bigger picture: as in Adam, so Messiah. The bigger picture is that Jesus has done a whole lot more than Adam did, or should have done. His obedience is not first obedience to a command like Adam's, but Isaiah 53. This is the obedience - it's not simply that "He gets it right," but faithfulness to God's covenant plan for Israel. I see a Reformed emphasis in our [i.e. many present New Testament scholars'] stress on pistis Christou: Christ is the faithful Israelite who fulfills God's plans. I don't actually see the direct tie to merit with Adam.
Q. 4. Who does Paul have in view in Romans 2, and how do you relate it to Romans 3?
Wright: Great question. It seems abundantly clear that in 2.25-29, those people are Christians who keep the law in an as-yet unspecified sense [which Paul] finally gets to in Romans 8 and somewhat in chapter 13. So that's quite clear. It's more difficult in 2.1-16. I believe it is Paul's statement that is not hypothetical regarding those who are presently justified, who on the last day will be vindicated. They "seek for" glory and immortality. That's how the last judgment is going to look. I hook in very closely to 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans 14: Paul has a very definite Jewish and Christian final judgment according to works. No problem about that, except for those who fail to see that present justification is an anticipation of the future verdict.
Gaffin: I think we agree: it's a real scenario. [I think by this Gaffin means that the final judgment is a real judgment.] Though, we may differ on the basis of that judgment. [Here he is probably alluding to Wright's tendency to say that the last judgment will be "on the basis of" works.] I think Romans 2.25-29 certainly refers to Christians.
(Not so very) Brief Thoughts
Wow. This was a loaded Q/A session! A lot of very interesting ground got covered, and I suspect that some of the conversation was somewhat surprising. Just a few notes about a handful of the issues:
1. I am glad that Wright pushed Gaffin on the Israel issue; I don't think the latter altogether satisfied him. But both emphases (Wright's centering on Israel; Gaffin's centering more upon Adam) are valuable and need not be played off against one another. But I do think that Wright is on to something, namely, that even in Gaffin's redemptive-historical approach, Israel is more of a sort of "playing field" or backdrop than a key component in the developed story. If Wright perhaps overplays the Israel hand, I think he can be forgiven, if for no other reason than that almost everyone else is so drastically underplaying it.
2. I still think that Wright overstates the case when he claims that had biblical scholars been dominated by a Reformed, "Ridderbosian" view, Sanders would have been "unnecessary." While Wright does qualify at the end by conceding that there were "elements" in Judaism that did not match the Reformed vision of the purpose of the law, he fails to note that it is precisely by focusing on those elements as being just what Sanders says they were not, that Reformed exegetes have constructed a positive view of the law while explaining Paul's (and Jesus') opposition to his fellow Jews. Cranfield (a favourite of Wright's) is a case in point. He holds to a robust "continuity" view regarding the law, much in line with Reformed exegetical tradition. And in order to facilitate this view, Cranfield leans heavily upon the notion that the Jews had perverted the law into a meritorious system, and that is what Paul opposes.
Ironically, I think that Wright's own view falls in some respects between the standard Reformed and Lutheran positions (!), and that is, in part, why he does not need an overarching construct of legalism. For all the faults of his view, Luther did have some sense of the temporary nature of the law (even if he often falls into equivocation and it becomes something timeless), whereas the Reformed have usually made the law something "static" (in no small part, because they - rightly - recognized the great deal of continuity with which Paul worked with the law). By "coming in between" these two positions, as it were, Wright has the opportunity to work a more salvation-historical angle (although I think in places he overplays the ethnological angle instead).
In my opinion, then, at his best, Wright transcends not only Sanders, but also some of the false dilemmas posed by the debate between the Lutherans and the Reformed.
3. I thought both Wright and Gaffin handled the baptism question fairly, and in fact, in a rather classically Reformed way. The issue of baptism will come up again in the Q/A's and some things will become clearer.
I'm sure Gaffin's affirmation that Paul is really talking about water baptism in passages such as Romans 6 will grate on some people, but I am just as sure that he is entirely right. Regarding the eyebrow-raising scene: don't panic too much; this was addressed later, and Gaffin, as it turns out, does not genuinely deny a connection between faith and infant baptism. But it was a funny moment.
Wright's appeal to 1 Corinthians 10, of course, resonated well with a lot of people who have been tracking previous conferences in Monroe.
4. The merit discussion was interesting. It seemed to me that Gaffin's conclusions rather overreached his arguments - claiming, for example, that since someone has accomplished something for someone else, merit is involved. . . well, that sounds pretty much like starting with a philosophical necessity to have merit in your system and finding a way to include it. And I think he was on even shakier ground when he tried to push the Adam-Christ parallel to mean that Adam was in a position to merit eschatological life. I followed his Adam argument right up to his conclusion, but I couldn't see the hat that the merit got pulled out of. Personally, I am comfortable saying that Christ merited my salvation in the sense that Adam demerited life with God. Whether that is the very best way of describing things, well, that's another question. But as seen, even Wright didn't seem to have a great deal of problem with how Gaffin articulated Christ's merit, which frankly surprised me. To be honest, I was also somewhat surprised that Gaffin takes the Adamic covenant to be meritorious. It just did not seem to me to be the direction he would go, particularly since it is not a confessional position, nor even dominant in the history of Reformed theology.
5. It was good to hear Gaffin affirm the reality of the final judgment; watch for his much deeper development in his final lecture (if, Lord willing, I ever get to it). It would have been interesting had he chosen to respond to Wright's take on Romans 2.13-16. I doubt he agrees, but it doesn't seem to have troubled him much, or surely he would have taken issue with it.