The Future of Justification is framed around eight fundamental questions that are raised in Wright’s theology: The gospel is not about how to get saved (ch 5), Christians are not justified by believing in justification (ch 5), justification is not how you become a Christian (ch 6), justification is not the gospel (ch 6), future justification is on the basis of the complete life lived (ch 7), the imputation of God’s own righteousness makes no sense at all (ch 8), first-century Judaism had nothing of the alleged self-righteous and boastful legalism (ch 9, 10), and God’s righteousness is the same as His covenant faithfulness (ch 11).
Before jumping into the debate, Piper opens the book with very humble words. He states that he is not about winning debates or scoring points, but is concerned with the truth and the risk that this New Perspective will have on the church.[1] He follows the introduction with an entire chapter about controversy to explain why true Christian unity is not to be found in avoiding disagreements.[2] The godly example that Piper displays in relating to Wright and his perspective is amazing. He condemns those who would call Wright a heretic and says that Wright deserves a fair reading and to be treated graciously. The graciousness of Piper toward Wright was astonishing as Piper provided strong affirmations for the positives of Wright’s work.[3] The respect and appreciation that Piper has for Wright is wonderful and in so doing, Piper provides an example to follow for those who would critique Wright or any other Christian with a different theology. Piper demonstrates a remarkable effort to be fair to Wright in this book, including defending Wright for his endorsement of Steve Chalke’s controversial book, “The Lost Message of Jesus.”[4] With this great respect Piper has for Wright, Piper decided to not just take the statements of Wright at face-value, but instead got into the details of Wright’s theology to better understand what he might or might not be saying.[5] In writing this book, Piper even sent Wright a draft for Wright to provide comments on, which resulted in an 11,000 word response from Wright.[6]
In the introduction, Piper summarizes the main points of contention he finds with Wright’s fresh theology. Piper takes issue with Wright’s statements about “the gospel” not being about how to get saved and about justification is not how one becomes a Christian. Piper believes Wright is wrong when he says Paul did not mean the doctrine of justification when referring to “the gospel.” Piper moves on to say that Wright is misleading people when he says that a person is not justified by faith in the doctrine of justification by faith. Piper takes significant time to show Wright’s view of righteousness as inaccurate. Piper sees Wright’s view on future justification being based on the whole life lived as confusing and raises a high level of concern about how close it is to a Roman Catholic view.
Piper does not believe that Wright has evil intentions or is viciously dangerous, but sees Wright’s message as confusing the gospel and breeding confusion for the church. In Piper’s mind, he contributes this confusion to Wright’s ambiguous statements and expressions. As Piper goes through the issues he has with Wright through the book, one of the biggest charges Piper has against Wright is that he feels Wright’s theology lacks clarity and forthrightness. At times, this debate seems to revolve around the issue of semantics and how one prefers to say or address theological topics, there are several times in the book that Piper mentions they may be saying the same thing,[7] but until those issues are resolved, more books about this conflict may be published. Piper believes Wright’s treatment of texts does not fit well with the ordinary or traditional reading which will leave people not with an illuminating experience, but with a sense of perplexity.[8] From Piper’s perspective, the most straightforward passages on imputation like 1 Corintians 1:30 and 2 Corinthians 5:21, which Wright agrees are passages in favor of imputed righteousness,[9] are “shrouded in Wright’s misleading comments.”[10]
Piper does a remarkable job in the final chapter of by offering an entire summation of the book recounting the major arguments against Wright and the New Perspective. The conclusion not only offers the reader a summation of the book and the arguments, but encourages and inspires the reader to live a life worthy of the call of God and live dependently on God for His glory. Piper takes the theme of his ministry, God’s glory, and ties it into this book. He encourages the reader to not do good works to earn God’s favor, but to glorify God out of the love and faith that God has provided the believer.
As a reader I found it helpful when Piper identified areas of agreement between the two scholars, including Scriptural authority, resurrection and deity of Christ, the Abrahamic covenant, and penal substitution.[11] While there are agreements on big theological concepts, the reason this book exists is for the disagreements between the two on the doctrine of justification. For Piper, he sees Wright as using too many extra-biblical resources to make interpretive decisions for his theological framework to produce correct understanding. Piper takes significant issue with Wright’s removal of justification from the gospel.[12] In the latter portion of the book, Piper highlights the missing element of Christ’s imputed righteousness in Wright’s theology. Piper devotes significant time to clarifying the issue of legalism and provides a careful distinction of works and justification, something that he sees as confusing in Wright’s statements.[13] In particular, Piper disagrees with Wright’s interpretation of justification as he describes Wright’s proposal that the righteousness Paul spoke of really meant “covenant faithfulness,” and not imputed righteousness as Piper sees it. This leads to the disagreement over a believer being part of God’s covenant family as Wright sees it, and not the means by which someone is declared righteous and qualified for eternal life as Piper sees it.
One of the strengths of this book is how frequently Piper quotes Wright’s material and interacts with it throughout the book. Since the book heavily revolves around the meaning of righteousness, Piper states what Wright’s understanding of it is, “covenant righteousness,” and what that means. In turn, Piper uses the Greek language to define what he believes “righteousness” means and how the Reformers got it right. Piper’s proposed definition is “God’s unwavering commitment to the honor of His glory.”[14] This establishes a foundation for what righteousness is, in contrast to how it merely acts as Wright believes. Piper’s thorough analysis of Wright’s theology regarding Wright’s understanding of Second Temple Judaism, links Wright’s view of the idea of future justification of the saints based on their remaining in the covenant through faith and works. Piper makes the strong case that Wright’s view is unbiblical and dangerously close to the Roman Catholic doctrine, essentially making salvation a works based system. While the book provides a good a good overview of the issue at hand, it would have been helpful to have some additional clarity provided on several topics, including what is Wright’s view of Jesus as Savior, salvation through grace by faith, or assurance of salvation. These would have been helpful to the reader in understanding more of the context where Wright is coming from and his overall soteriological views.
[1] John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 13.
[2] John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 29.
[3] See John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 15-16.
[4] See John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 47-53.
[5] See John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 17.
[6] See John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 10.
[7] See John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 121, 131.
[8] John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 24, 38.
[9] N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Saul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 123.
[10] John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 178.
[11] John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 15, 16, 48, 52.
[12] John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 82, 95.
[13] John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 185-186.
[14] John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 70.