confidence that his ideas about covenantal nomism clearly represents what was consistently believed in Second Temple Judaism is far from watertight, and his conclusions are ambiguous. Imagine one 2000 years into the future doing research into Christianity in the 21st century, only to conclude that the majority of Christians espoused the beliefs of Roman Catholicism, and then interpreted all the evidence accordingly, this is essentially what Sanders has done to the Judaism of Jesus’ day. One can only endorse the words of D. A. Carson:
But covenantal nomism is not only reductionistic, it is misleading, and this for two reasons. Firstly, deploying this one neat formula across literature so diverse engenders an assumption that there is more uniformity in the literature than there is . . . Sanders’s formula is rather difficult to falsify, precisely because it is so plastic that it hides more than it reveals, and engenders false assumptions that lose the flavour, emphases, priorities, and frames of reference of these diverse literary corpora . . .49
D. G. Dunn
Like Sanders, Dunn agrees that the standard Reformation understanding of 1st century Judaism was wrong, believing the “picture of Judaism to be drawn from Paul’s writings is historically false.”50 He, on the whole, accepts Sanders understanding of Second Temple Judaism. However, he does not see eye-to-eye with Sanders on everything, for example, Dunn takes a more positive position concerning “the works of the law.” In all, Dunn essentially takes from Sanders that which he considered good, and incorporates this into his own ideas.
Agreeing with Sanders that the apostle’s reference to the “works of the law”, did not mean works of the legalistic righteousness one associates with the Reformers, he, unlike Sanders, concludes that the apostle in referring to “the works of the law” had in mind a kind of boundary marker; one that served to distinguish between who was in God’s community and those who were not. Apart from the moral law, Dunn tells us that there were “other works of the law which from early times particularly marked out Israel’s set-apartness to God and separation from the nations.”51 In this regard, he alludes especially to circumcision, Sabbath keeping, and food laws. To back up his understanding he makes reference to extra-biblical sources, for example, the Dead Sea Scrolls. So whilst he acknowledges that the works of the law “does, of course, refer to whatever the law requires,” however, when comparisons are made between Israel and the nations, “certain laws would naturally come more into focus than others”, in particular, “circumcision and food laws.”52 Elsewhere he states that the works of the law “functioned as identity markers . . . to identify their practitioners as Jewish in the eyes of the wider public.”53 We will see more of this when we examine Wright’s understanding of particular texts.
Interestingly, Dunn acknowledges that prior to Christ’s arrival people were justified by faith, that from man’s side salvation is “wholly and solely of faith.”54 Yet, having said this he appears to associate God’s people with those within the old covenant. To quote Westerholm, “The law spelled out how those who were already God’s people were to live within the covenant. Its righteousness was this ‘secondary righteousness,’ to be practiced by those already in possession of ‘primary righteousness’ based on faith.”55 The problem I have with this is simply that Dunn is here associating salvation with the old covenant, making the assumption that all Israel was somehow in possession of a “righteousness based on faith.”
Again, like Sanders, Dunn has a very different understanding of Justification from that of the Protestant Reformers. In the words of Venema:
Because Paul’s doctrine has its roots in the traditional Jewish understanding of God’s ‘righteousness’ as his covenant faithfulness, he uses the term, ‘to be justified’, to refer to God’s gracious acknowledgement of his covenant people. Though Judaism also taught Justification by faith, the Christian gospel fulfils and surpasses Judaism by teaching that God now graciously acknowledged all who believe in Christ as his covenant people. The gospel announces that God in his righteousness has declared that all who believe in Christ, whether Jews or Gentiles, are acceptable to him. Justification is by ‘faith alone’ in the sense that faith in the crucified and risen Christ is now the chief badge of covenant membership.56
It is important to note that in recent years Dunn has come to see the weakness of his position and now believes that when Paul refers to “the works of the law” he means all that the law requires.57
N. T. Wright
Nicholas Thomas (Tom) Wright is undoubtedly the greatest publicist for the new perspective, and it is principally his views I want to examine before criticising them in the light of Baptist covenant theology. Wright is a New Testament scholar who has authored over fifty books. He is currently Distinguished Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Andrews University in Scotland. He has held a number of prestigious roles in the Church of England, and prior to his present position, he was, for seven years, Bishop of Durham. His position in the Church of England provided him with an essential vehicle for the dissemination of scholarly debates to the man in the pew, and he has, in the words of Waters, “done more than any other single individual to mediate NPP exegesis into the mainline and evangelical churches.”58 He possesses that rare gift of making complex ideas intelligible and extremely interesting. This has enabled him to bridge the gap that usually exists between the rarefied world of academia and the average churchgoer. Wright claims to be thoroughly evangelical. His credentials were clearly manifested in his work on the resurrection.59 He said in an interview, “My only agenda here is to be as close as I can possibly get to what Paul actually says. And I really don’t care too much what the different later Christian traditions say. My aim is to be faithful to Scripture here.”60 No evangelical would disagree with this. It is somewhat ironic that Wright’s position concerning two justifications and the idea of imputed righteousness are similar to the 17th century Puritan Richard Baxter (1615–91).
When Wright is discussed, people tend to converge to polar extremes, to quote Schreiner, “Some are inclined toward an uncritical adulation of his scholarship, while others to an uncritical denigration.”61 Wright has a lovely engaging writing style, and secondly, he makes one think and ask questions about one’s own position. Many have been convinced by his arguments due to the forthright way he puts his points across. I was somewhat surprised, especially in light of Wright’s refusal to believe in God’s wrath, and the imputation of righteousness, to find Tom Holland saying in reference to Wright’s many books, “These works have assured many that he is a trustworthy teacher of the church and that for the most, the early suspicions concerning his proposals concerning justification have evaporated.”62It is because of this that many readers can come away believing the case to be settled, especially if they are not grounded in Reformed theology. What Carl Trueman said about the new perspective’s understanding of Luther is relevant here:
The story is told of Bernard Shaw being taken to see the lights of Las Vegas late one night. `It must be beautiful’ he commented, `if you can’t read.’ I confess that the New Perspective approach to Luther strikes me a little that way. It too must be beautiful, but only if you don’t know the primary texts. Its portrait
