Anyone who has ever heard of N.T. Wright, perhaps the world’s most recognizable evangelical New Testament scholar, will know that Wright can write books faster than most people can read them. Wright is both traditional and controversial, seen as both a champion of a nuanced orthodoxy by many and frustratingly dismissed by others who find his work obfuscating and maddening.
Back in the 1990s, Wright was the darling of historically orthodox Christians who could take on the skepticism of the radical Jesus Seminar, defending a traditional framework for the historical Jesus. He honed his teaching and pastoral skills for years as a British Anglican priest and then a bishop. But Wright’s theological project has been bigger than that all along.
Nicholas Thomas Wright. British New Testament scholar, retired Anglican bishop, … and agitator among more than a few conservative, evangelical Protestants. Love him or not, Wright is an accessible author and theologian. His 2005 book, Paul: A Fresh Perspective is a helpful summary of themes associated with the letters of Paul.
In the United Kingdom, N.T. Wright is pretty much a household name in Christian circles. The Ask N.T. Wright Anything podcast is a favorite among British listeners. Yet in the United States, Wright’s reception has been mixed. Among American evangelicals, some really like Wright, while others sometimes are wary of him. So, what is N.T. Wright all about as a theologian?
He started off with a projected multi-volume, magisterial, academically-oriented New Testament theology, his Christian Origins and the Question of God series, beginning with The New Testament and People of God, laying out the basic contour of his work as a conservative yet engaging critical alternative to Rudolph Bultmann, the great German existentialist New Testament theologian of the 20th century, who sought to try to defend Christianity by “demythologizing” the New Testament. Yet Bultmann lost conservatives when he dismissed the bodily resurrection of Jesus, as his “demythologizing” had gone off the rails. In response, Wright penned a foundational book for a critical realist defense of traditional Christian belief.
Next, Wright came out with Jesus and the Victory of God, an erudite portrait of Jesus’ life and his mission. Then there was The Resurrection of the Son of God, perhaps one of the finest defenses for the bodily resurrection of Jesus in print today.
But when it comes to the Apostle Paul, Wright has entered into some controversy. In 2013, he published Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Wright’s “big book on Paul.” Both the greatness and the problem with these works is the sheer size of them. Paul and the Faithfulness of God alone comes in at a whopping 1696 pages, a book so big that additional material that could not fit into the original book was set aside for several other supplemental volumes.
Thankfully, Wright has written popular level books, much shorter, which mere humans like me can read more easily. His 2005 book, Paul: In Fresh Perspective fits better within this latter, more easily digestible category. In 1997, Wright had published What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? That provocatively titled book served two purposes, first to offer a critique of a book by British historian A. N. Wilson, claiming that Paul was the inventor and founder of Christianity. Viral TikTok videos repeat Wilson’s claim today, almost thirty years later! So, Wright’s work in critiquing Wilson has been well received. However, the second purpose in What Saint Paul Really Said, to offer a “first draft” outline of Wright’s perspective on the “New Perspective on Paul,” raised eyebrows among evangelical readers.
Paul: In Fresh Perspective arrives at a more palatable 174 pages, with limited endnotes, based on a series of lectures given at Cambridge University in England. I think of it as a “second draft” summary of Wright’s views, which are more fully explained and revised in his 2013 “big book on Paul.” The most controversial aspect of Wright’s project, based on his insights he picks up from the “New Perspective on Paul” is his view of justification.
If “New Perspective on Paul” sounds scary to you (whatever happened to the “Old Perspective on Paul,” and what was wrong with that??), then you might take some interest in what Wright has to say. For an introduction to the “New Perspective on Paul,” I wrote a book review of an excellent, short introduction to the topic here on Veracity. But for New Testament scholars, this “New Perspective on Paul” is not really that “new” any more.
Most New Testament scholars today take in at least some of the insights found in the “New Perspective on Paul.” To put it briefly, many New Testament scholars today argue that Paul has been misunderstood to at least some degree, since the dawn of the Protestant Reformation. As Christians today learn more about certain “anti-Jewish” biases that have surfaced every now and then in the history of the church, this has caused New Testament scholars to take a closer look at traditional views about the great Apostle Paul. Apparently, some Christians today take the peculiar view that when Paul became a Christian, he forsook his Jewish heritage. But this view of Paul is completely wrongheaded. The “New Perspective on Paul” therefore attempts to set the record straight about Paul’s relationship to Judaism.
N.T. Wright is generally known as one of world’s biggest proponent of “New Perspective on Paul” thinking. But Wright’s approach has not been without controversy. In short, Wright thinks that Martin Luther’s doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ is a misreading of Paul. The problem is that for many children of the Reformation, the vast majority of classically-minded evangelical Protestants, particularly in America, any dismissal of Luther’s view of imputed righteousness is an attack on the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Wright insists that his critics are missing the point of what he is getting at. Or as Wright would more likely say, his critics are missing the point as to what the Apostle Paul is trying to say.
The imputation of Christ’s righteousness is fine, so far as it goes. It just is not what Paul is talking about in his letters. The problem with the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, as Wright sees it, is not so much with the concept of “imputation” as it is with the concept of “righteousness,” and its related idea: “justice” or “justified.”
Consider a passage like Romans 3:21-24,28. The NIV translation, a translation of which Wright is not a fan, reads (I will highlight the controversial words “righteousness (of God),” “justified,” and to “impute”):
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus…. For we maintain (impute: or count, or consider) that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
In his The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation, Wright takes a different tack:
But now, quite apart from the law (though the law and the prophets bore witness to it), God’s covenant justice has been displayed. God’s covenant justice comes into operation through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah, for the benefit of all who have faith. For there is no distinction: all sinned, and fell short of God’s glory—and by God’s grace they are freely declared to be in the right, to be members of the covenant, through the redemption which is found in the Messiah, Jesus…. We calculate, you see, that a person is declared to be in the right on the basis of faith, apart from works of the law.
Here, Wright differs by translating the “righteousness of God” as “God’s covenant justice,” and “justified” as “declared to be in the right.” Wright emphasizes that the righteousness of God is about God being faithful to the covenant he establishes with his people, as opposed to some kind of legal declaration of a person’s righteous status.
For Wright, justification is more about who belongs to the people of God as opposed to how someone becomes a member of the people of God. In the Old Testament, someone belongs to the people of God by embracing Torah, the works of the Law; that is, by becoming a Jew. However, Paul reimagines this by identifying a deeper logic in the Old Testament texts, whereby the coming of the Messiah in Jesus is an announcement that Gentiles who have faith in this Messiah are now included among God’s people. Adherents to all of the legal specifications of Torah, like circumcision, are no longer required by the Gentile who follows Jesus. The Gospel that Paul preached is for both Jews and Gentiles.
The theme of Wright’s message makes more sense when fit together with other elements Wright highlights in Paul: In Fresh Perspective. God is first and foremost the creator of the world, but that through Adam, humanity became estranged from the creator. In response to this collapse of the creation ideal, God designated that a people, Abraham and his descendants, become part of God’s covenant to ultimately restore all of creation. In effect, Israel as the covenant people of God was meant to do what Adam was originally meant to do, until Adam got sidetracked in the garden. In this sense, creation and covenant are tied together.
Wright returns often to Paul’s use of Deuteronomy 30 in Romans 10, to illustrate what the mission of Israel was all about. The problem with Israel is that like Adam, Israel failed to live up to that mission. As a result, Israel faced exile by being booted out of the land, as with the 6th c. BCE Babylonian exile. Yet even once that exile ended and Jews were permitted to return to the land, they were still in a state of exile, a situation which lasted the whole of the Second Temple Judaism period. Though Israel was physically present in the land, they did not have a promised Davidic king, and they often were ruled and subjugated by foreign powers.
God then goes about to “mount a rescue operation” (Wright, p.121) to get things back on track, by bringing the Messiah Jesus into the world, to ultimately accomplish what neither Adam, nor Israel was able to do. Paul then has a reworked understanding of apocalypticism, a theme in numerous Jewish writings of the Second Temple period. Apocalyptically speaking, Paul teaches that the old creation is going away, in order to make way for a new creation. This new creation overturns the present ways of doing things, saying that no longer is Caesar Lord but that Jesus the Messiah is now Lord, thus overturning the political order.
In the second half of Paul: In Fresh Perspective, Wright argues that Paul then rethinks the concept of God, making way for the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. Paul also reworks the idea of the people of God by redefining election, a theme lost in many of the ongoing debates between Calvinists and Arminians in reading Romans 9-11. Paul reimagines the future of God, by recasting the apocalyptic themes of Second Temple Judaism for the new people of God made up of Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus.
The exegetical work of going through certain texts to make Wright’s case is rewarding, but as I glance at his “big book on Paul,” Wright goes about the exegetical task in a more thorough manner in his later work. In short, Paul: In Fresh Perspective offers a reasonably concise survey of the theological project about Paul that Wright explores in more detail in Paul and the Faithfulness of God.
Paul: In Fresh Perspective is not for a theological newbie. A complete theology novice is best to start with N.T. Wright’s biographical work on Paul, Paul: A Biography, which covers the whole contour of Paul’s life and ministry instead. Wright’s Paul: In Fresh Perspective assumes that the reader has at least some minimal background in reading academic theology, and a decent familiarity with Paul’s letters in the New Testament.
But the point is that Paul: In Fresh Perspective is not wholly overwhelming. Rather, Paul: In Fresh Perspective is a wonderfully condensed presentation of themes in Paul’s letters, a great entry point for getting into N.T. Wright’s more academic work.
As with any theological project this ambitious, Wright gets some things wrong, or at least muddled in certain places. His exposition of Paul’s “righteousness of God,” found in numerous places in Paul’s letters, as God’s “covenant faithfulness” is very good, but unfortunately narrow. Paul’s “righteousness of God” is a much richer theological concept, as his friendliest critics would argue. One does not need to completely toss out the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to appreciate God “being in the right” in keeping his covenant promises, the latter being Wright’s definition of the “righteousness of God.” But even his detractors admit that Wright is a fascinatingly engaging writer, with much to offer to even novice readers.
He has that dry British wit about him. For example, early on Wright lays out the idea that Paul’s letters are about framing a narrative, a story of God’s work in the world, as opposed to primarily setting out a list of theological doctrines. Without a narrative framework, our understanding of Paul is unintelligible. Or as Wright put it: “Refusing to admit narrative into this debate is therefore like refusing to put petrol in a car because you know that what you need to drive is tyres and a steering wheel” (Wright, p. 9). That is a good word picture. I had a good chuckle with that one.
I would recommend Paul: In Fresh Perspective as an introduction not only to N.T. Wright, but more importantly to Paul himself. I listened to Paul: In Fresh Perspective for a little under 8 hours in audiobook form, and the narration kept me engaged the whole way. This book will not resolve the controversies over Wright’s view of justification for everyone, but at least it provides a helpful framework for laying out Wright’s theological project concerning Paul’s theology.
Behind Luke, Paul provides most of the content for the Christian New Testament. So, if you want a good overview of Paul, N.T. Wright’s Paul: In Fresh Perspective is a good place to go for developing a mature view of Paul, despite a few reservations I have in places. See my earlier discussions about N.T. Wright and the New Perspective on Paul in other Veracity blog posts.
- Why N.T. Wright Can Be Both Fascinating and Frustrating
- A Review of N.T. Wright’s Paul, A Biography
- A brief look at Wright’s book Scripture and the Authority of God, part of a longer post on biblical inerrancy and the importance of correction interpretation of the Bible.
- Kent Yinger’s book on The New Perspective of Paul, and N.T. Wright’s role in the discussion
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 — The Heart of the Gospel Message, or A Defense of Paul’s Apostolic Ministry?…. What Wright gets “right” and “wrong” about 2 Corinthians 5:21
What do you think?