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N.T.

Wright for Everyone: the Apostle Paul

by Nijay K. Gupta1
In preparation for the annual Wheaton theology conference (April 16-17, 2010) which will involve ‘A Theological Dialogue with
N.T. Wright’, this brief essay has been prepared to introduce Wright’s orientation and basic views on a given issue or figure.

In many ways, N.T. Wright’s first love, and one he can’t help but return to again and again, is
Paul and his letters. In fact, his doctoral dissertation was on Pauline theology (Oxford).2 Wright
has written droves of articles, essays, and books on Paul and a number of his ‘for Everyone’
commentaries give special attention to his letters. Even now, the tireless Bishop is at work to
produce a great volume on Paul – the one, perhaps, that we have all been waiting for since his
exegetical delicacies in The Climax of the Covenant, the appetizing reflections in What Saint
Paul Really Said, and the refreshing perspective of Paul: Fresh Perspectives.

For Wright, Paul is the brilliant and passionate apostle whom one can only understand in his
proper Jewish and Greco-Roman context, but is one that inspires all Christians of all times who
wish to understand God’s plan for ‘putting the world to rights’ through Messiah Jesus. There is
almost no area of Paul’s life and thought that Wright has not researched and attempted to
make some contribution. Our brief sketch of his thought, then, while aiming at being very
concise, will require moving rather quickly from one topic to the next.

Jewish Background and Conversion

Again, to get Paul, you must understand that he was not only a Jew, but a strict Shammaite
Pharisee who desired to see Israel freed from the heavy hand of the Gentiles in order to obey
Torah rightly and fulfill Israel’s God-given purposes in the world. In his own time, this passion
often surfaced in the form of ‘zeal with a knife’3; a ruthless pursuit of purity that longed for the
approval and vindication of their covenantal God. Of course, Paul was forced to see that God
had brought this about through Christ’s death and resurrection.4

1
Nijay K. Gupta completed his Ph.D. at the University of Durham on Pauline theology. While in Durham he served
for a term as Bishop N.T. Wright’s teaching assistant for the course ‘The Bible in Tomorrow’s World’. Presently Dr.
Gupta teaches Greek and hermeneutics at Ashland Theological Seminary (Ohio). In the fall (2010), he will begin
teaching Biblical studies at Seattle Pacific University (Washington).
2
‘The Messiah and the People of God: A Study in Pauline Theology with Particular Reference to the Argument of
the Epistle to the Romans’; D.Phil. (Oxford University); supervisor Prof. G.B. Caird.
3
WSPRS, 27.
4
In the debate of whether Paul was ‘converted’ or ‘called’, Wright is happy to place the former alongside the latter
if it is interpreted as a realization that his way of approaching the fulfillment of the covenant and the ushering in of
the new age was wrong.
Sin and a World Gone Wrong and God’s Plan of Restoration

Paul (and his fellow Jews) recognized that sin had corrupted the world and a solution was
needed to bring humanity and creation back to order. It was clear in the Scriptures that
Abraham was chosen to repair what Adam had broken - to ‘undo’ Adam’s sin.5 Israel, then, was
meant to be the ‘new Adam’.6 Unfortunately, Abraham and his heirs, the people of Israel, did
not live up to this mission and fell into perpetual exile.7

This meant that Israel was holding out hope for God’s vindication where they would see the
fulfillment of his promise to restore them and install them as vice-regents.8 Paul came to see,
though, that Jesus actually accomplished Israel’s job as God’s ‘true humanity’.9

What about Israel, then? What role did they play? While they certainly preserved Torah and
reflected God’s character and will in some ways, Wright finds a distinctive element in Paul’s
perspective: Israel happens to be the place where Torah draws sin to and magnifies it. It is a
means of bring ‘Sin’ to one place to deal with it by means of Christ’s crucifixion. Torah’s
function of increasing Israel’s sins from this angle would be ‘the positive reason for the negative
role of Torah’.10

Torah

Wright observes that Torah contains both the promises to Abraham as well as a covenantal law-
structure that has sent Israel into a dizzying pattern of sin and exile.11 That should not mean,
though, that Paul felt a complete inability to keep Torah and obey God. The challenge of sin

5
‘…Abraham will be God’s means of undoing the sin of Adam’ (CC, 21); ‘…God has called Abraham and his family to
undo the sin of Adam, even though Abraham and his family are themselves part of the problem as well as the
bearers of the solution’ (PFP, 23).
6
‘God’s purposes for the human raced in general have devolved on to, and will be fulfilled in, Israel in particular.
Israel is, or will become, God’s true humanity. What God intended for Adam will be given to the seed of
Abraham…If there is a ‘last Adam’ in the relevant Jewish literature, he is not an individual…He is the whole
eschatological people of God.’ (CC, 20-1).
7
‘…at least some Jews in [early Judaism] understood the exile to be still continuing, since the return from Babylon
had not brought that independence and prosperity which the prophets foretold’ (CC, 141)
8
‘Israel’s God will act in history to vindicate his own name by installing his people ‘at his right hand’, ruling over
the nations of the world’ (CC, 24)
9
‘…the role traditionally assigned to Israel had devolved on to Jesus Christ. Paul now regarded him, not Israel, as
God’s true humanity’ (CC p. 26)
10
The full quote is as follows: ‘The Torah possesses, Paul asserts, the divinely intended function of drawing sin on
to Israel, magnifying it precisely within the people of God ([Rom.] 7.130-20), in order that it might then and thus be
drawn on to Israel’s representative and so dealt with on the cross (8.3). This is, as it were, the positive reason for
the negative role of Torah. As a result…it becomes clear that the obedient act of Jesus Christ was the act of Israel’s
representative, doing for Israel what she could not do for herself’ (CC, 39). See also CC 152, 196. Again: Torah
happens to increase sin ‘so that sin might be seen as sin, so that sin might become exceedingly sinful, might as it
were be piled up in one great obvious heap’ (CC, 198)
11
See CC, 142.
and obedience is not that certain individuals happened to sin here and there, but God had to
deal with the national failure of Israel to keep the Torah as a whole.12

Another reason why Paul was concerned with Torah had to do with works of the law (of
Moses). Paul was not championing ‘faith alone’ and criticizing attempts to ‘earn one’s salvation
by works’. That was Luther’s context, not the first century situation. Rather, he challenged
‘Jewish boasting’ and ‘national righteousness’ – many Jews would have assumed that the one
God was God of the Jews alone (i.e., favored them above all others) and that having the law
defined them as his special people.13 In Christ, the boundary marking nature of the ‘works of
the law’ are no longer needed, but faith in Messiah Jesus is the way to identify God’s people.

Jesus as Messiah

Wright is insistent that ‘Christ’ is not a meaningless title appended to Jesus’ name (as if it were
a last name), but continued to carry the nuances that came with a Jewish conception of the
Messiah. Israel anticipated a royal (‘true king’) Messiah for Israel who would also end up being
the head of the world. He would be a warrior (fighting evil and paganism) that enabled and
oversaw the rebuilding of the Temple (God’s home on earth). And, of course, he would bring
about the end, ushering in the new age of promise and fulfillment. These things were
characteristics of Jesus’ work as Messiah, but he worked each of these out in startling and
unpredictable ways.

Wright views the role of Jesus as Messiah as incorporative – he is ‘the one in whom the people
of God are summed up’ (CC, 41). His work is also representative as he takes the role of ‘Last
Adam’.14 He was one who undid the disobedience of Adam in his own perfect submission to
God.

Why did Jesus die on a cross? This, of course, demonstrates the true nature of God in his
graciousness and benevolence. The humility and charity of God’s Messiah Jesus is the
antithesis of the heavy-handed Roman rulers and the military ‘messiahs’ of the first century.15
Moreover, the cross was, as Rome’s ultimate symbol of power specifically over the Jewish

12
‘What is envisaged…is not so much the question of what happens when this or that individual sins, but the
question of what happens when the nation as a whole fails to keep the Torah as a whole’ (CC, 146)
13
‘Paul’s basic charge against the Jews is that of boasting’ (PFAH); it was common for a Jew at that time to boast in
the law ‘because his possession of the law marks him out as a member of the chosen people’ (PFAH); see also CC,
242.
14
Christ takes the role as ‘Last Adam’, as the truly obedient one: ‘His role was that of obedience, not merely in
place of disobedience, but in order to undo that disobedience’ (CC, 38); ‘…Adam, in arrogance, thought to become
like God; Christ, in humility, became human’ (CC, 91).
15
‘…divine equality does not mean ‘getting’ but ‘giving’’ (CC, 83, borrowed from Moule); ‘God himself recognizes
and endorses self-abnegation as the proper expression of divine character’ (CC, 87).
people, the means by which the ongoing exile of Israel would be brought to a climax. The curse
of exile, as it were, is finally poured out onto the Messiah through the cross.16

The resurrection, then, stands as God’s stamp of approval on Jesus as fulfilling his role in ending
the reign of sin and death and giving life to God’s people. This sign was needed especially
because no one could have imagined that all of Israel’s and the world’s problems would be
dealt with in this way. Paul himself experienced this truth in his ‘revelation’ of Messiah Jesus:
‘The one true God had done for Jesus of Nazareth, in the middle of time, what Saul had thought
he was going to do for Israel at the end of time’ (WSPRS, 36).17 This, then, is the essence of
Paul’s ‘Gospel’ – the term signifies not a system of salvation, but the announcement that Jesus
is the long-awaited Messiah and Lord of all the earth through his death and resurrection.18

Justification and Righteousness

When Paul’s theology is viewed in the ways described above, it is necessary to re-think and re-
frame traditional concepts of ‘justification’ and ‘righteousness’. As for the former, it is not a
process of salvation (or part of the order of salvation), but it is when one is ‘declared to be truly
within the covenant’ (NDT). There is a natural forensic dimension to it, but it should be
understood within a wider covenantal framework. The purpose of being called ‘justified’ is to
proclaim a judgment that will not really be confirmed until the last day when all nations are
judged.19 As for today, those ‘justified’ by Christ are recognized as those who belong to the
people of God, that is, ‘the single covenant family promised to Abraham’.20

Righteousness is, of course, closely related to justification (as the Greek words are
coterminous). The righteousness of God (e.g., in Romans 3.21-22) is not, as many have argued,

16
‘For Paul, the death of Jesus, precisely on a Roman cross which symbolized so clearly the continuing subjugation
of the people of God, brought the exile to a climax. The King of the Jews took the brunt of the exile on himself’
(CC, p. 146); ‘The crucifixion of the Messiah is, one might say, the quintessence of the curse of exile, and its
climactic act’ (CC, 151).
17
Wright explains that it was ‘the Jewish and Christian belief that Israel’s history, and thereby world history, was
moving towards a great climactic moment in which everything would be sorted out once and for all…that history
was going to reach, or perhaps that it had just reached, its great climax, its great turning-point’ (WSPRS, 34).
18
‘When Paul refers to ‘the gospel’, he is not referring to a system of salvation, though of course the gospel implies
and contains this, nor even to the good news that there now is a way of salvation open to all, but rather to the
proclamation that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from the dead and thereby demonstrated to be
both Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord’ (NPP).
19
‘ ‘Justification’ is a law-court term, and in its Jewish context it refers to the greatest lawsuit of all: that which will
take place on the great day when the true God judges all the nations, more particularly the nations that have been
oppressing Israel. God will, at last, find in favour of his people: he will judge the pagan nations and rescue his true
people’ (WSPRS 33).
20
NPP.
something transferred from God to believers. It is his covenant faithfulness whereby he keeps
his promise to restore Israel and bless the children of Abraham.21

Monotheism

Paul never really turned his back on his Jewish convictions. How, then, do we understand his
commitment to monotheism? Well, it was always believed that Israel’s one God is the God of
the whole earth.22 This means that gods are not warring for the fate of the world. There is no
dualism involved. Creation is good and God plans on putting the world to rights. It was
believed all along that God was about to do something to re-install himself as ultimate
authority of the earth and set up Israel as a special governor.23

While Paul does not make efforts to explicate and define the divinity of Jesus in ways we may
have liked, it was clear to Paul that Jesus has accomplished the work of God. Therefore, ‘Paul
saw the human Jesus as the revelation of the one God’ (WSPRS, 72).

The New Perspective on Paul

While Wright has often been named part of the trinity of the NPP, he is forthright in claiming
that he came to his conclusions independently of E.P. Sanders and J.D.G. Dunn, and that they
agree on little and disagree on much! With Sanders, he finds his work on Judaism to be spot
on, but considers his treatment of Paul ‘muddled and imprecise’ (NPP). With Dunn, Wright
accepts the notion that ‘works of the law’ refers generally to those aspects of Torah that
separate Israel from the Gentiles. He does not feel, though, that Dunn has set Paul’s
justification discourse rightly within a covenantal framework (NPP).

Paul and Ethics/Judgment

While Wright affirms that believers can be ‘justified’ by the faithfulness of Messiah Jesus now,
he also sees Paul as referring to the common Jewish belief in the final judgment which observes
a life lived out in faithfulness and obedience (Rom. 14.10-12; 2 Cor. 5.10). This is most clear to
Wright in 1 Corinthians 3 and Romans 2.1-16.24 Some have found it offensive that Wright
supports this view, but he explains that this judgment does not look at the number of individual

21
‘God’s dikaiosune, his tsedaqah, 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 none the less’ (NPP).
22
‘…there is one God, the creator of the world’ (NDT); see also CC, 125; WSPRS, 65-75.
23
‘[Israel’s] one God, as the rightful sovereign of all the earth, would eventually take his rightful power, vindicate
his people, and put her oppressors in their place’ (CC, 125).
24
See NPP.
works on a scale, the decision being made by the heavier side. Rather, it is about the
demonstration that one truly belongs to Christ and operates in the Spirit of God.25

Bibliography

[PHAF=] ‘The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith’, Tyndale Bulletin 29 (1978):61-88.26 (full
text: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/)

[NDT=] ‘Paul’ in New Dictionary of Theology (eds. D.F. Wright et al.; IVP, 1988): 496-99.

[CC=] The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Fortress Press,
1991).27

[WSPRS=] What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?
(Eerdmans, 1997).28

‘Romans’, in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Series (Abingdon, 2002): 395-770.29

[NPP=] ‘New Perspective on Paul’, paper given at Rutherford House (Edinburgh, 2003).30 (Full
text: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/)

[PFP=] Paul: Fresh Perspective (Fortress Press, 2005).31

Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (SPCK, 2009).32

25
‘The ‘works’ in accordance with which the Christian will be vindicated on the last day are not the unaided works
of the self-help moralist. Nor are they the performance of the ethnically distinctive Jewish boundary-markers
(sabbath, food-laws and circumcision). They are the things which show, rather, that one is in Christ; the things
which are produced in one’s life as a result of the Spirit’s indwelling and operation’ (NPP).
26
This article offers an interaction with the theology of Ernst Käsemann and Krister Stendahl. One finds, in kernel
form, many of Wright’s thoughts about Paul that would be advanced and worked out further in subsequent books
and articles.
27
This book offers a series of methodological, exegetical, and theological studies that show someone who can
study both the trees with unusual insight as well as astutely discuss the forest as a whole. The beginner will find
this dense piece difficult to read, and especially if one does not know Greek.
28
This light read has dropped on many people (including me) like a bomb, blasting away former assumptions about
Paul. This is an excellent place to begin a conversation with Wright.
29
This commentary on Romans offers Wright’s own guided tour through this rich letter. His verse-by-verse
comments offer his view of the logic and rhetorical flow of the text as well as setting terms and themes in their
wider early Jewish and Greco-Roman context. In keeping with the series, it is also a thoroughly theological
commentary that also contains ‘reflections’ suitable for group study and excellent pointers for pastors.
30
Since Wright has become famous as a proponent of the ‘New Perspective on Paul’, this paper is insightful as he is
determined to defend his views as well as differentiate them from other proponents.
31
Originally based on a series of lectures, this is the most systematic approach Wright has undertaken with regard
to Paul, but it is not comprehensive. It is not so much about the life and letters of Paul, as his thought-world and
context. One finds here, especially, his maturing thoughts on Paul and the apostle’s interaction with and
opposition of the Roman Empire and its propaganda and ideology.
32
What sparked the writing of this book is an attack on the Bishop by John Piper. Wright has taken the time to
respond, not only to Piper, but to many of his other critics. On the one hand, it is written in an engaging style that
does not require Greek or a theological degree per se, but some of the discussion is dependent on having some
idea of who John Piper is, what he stands for, and what kind of gulf separates them theologically (and
geographically!).

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