{"id":6,"date":"2009-06-01T07:26:10","date_gmt":"2009-06-01T07:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html"},"modified":"2009-06-01T07:26:10","modified_gmt":"2009-06-01T07:26:10","slug":"with-justification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html","title":{"rendered":"WITH JUSTIFICATION"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"009_6A_00.JPG\"<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

N.T. Wright,  <\/span>Justification.
\nGod’s Plan and Paul’s Vision <\/u>(Downers Grove:
\nInter Varsity Press, 2009), 279 pages, $25.00 list price.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

            <\/span>It is never
\nan easy thing to write a rebuttal book if you are genuinely a Christian
\nperson.  <\/span>You keep hoping that people will
\nstop misunderstanding what you have said and written, will think better of ad
\nhominem attacks, and you keep trying the ‘turn the other cheek’ approach, at
\nleast until people think you’re being cheeky by not responding to their criticisms.  <\/span>But finally when there is persistent, and
\nseemingly willful, misinterpretation of what you have said, it becomes the
\nlesser of several undesirable things to respond and clarify your views, with
\nthe hope that finally the light will dawn on those who have misread you.  <\/span>To judge from some of the early reviews on
\nAmazon one would have to say “Abandon Hope”.<\/p>\n

  <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course the sad irony of this
\nsituation is that the very people who ought to be most appreciating and
\napplauding the good bishop’s work, including on this very subject, are those
\nwho are most strongly attacking it–conservative Evangelicals from the ?ber-Reformed
\nside of the ledger.  <\/span>In particular he is
\nbeing attacked by folks like Don Carson, John Piper, and their disciples (e.g.
\nSimon Gathercole).  <\/span>What makes this an
\nespecially noxious and obnoxious situation is that in fact, at the end of the
\nday, Wright is taking a very traditional view of the doctrine of justification,
\nnamely that Paul, when he uses the dikaios\/dikaiosune
\n<\/b>etc. word group is largely referring to forensic righteousness, right
\nstanding with God established by grace and through faith in the dying and
\nrising Messiah Jesus.  <\/span>Further, in very Reformed
\nfashion he wants to argue that in Romans and elsewhere what the phrase ‘the
\nrighteousness of God’ refers to is God’s covenant faithfulness to promises he
\nmade.  <\/span>Sounds like a good traditional
\nReformed reading of Paul to most of us. (I should add for those who do not know
\nmy work that whilst I attended a Reformed Evangelical Seminary, Gordon-Conwell,
\nI am in fact a Wesleyan Evangelical, and so in the first place there are some
\nways in which I disagree with Tom Wright’s perspective and in the second place
\nI find it bordering on bizarre that he is being attacked by his own close
\ntheological kin.  <\/span>This is truly an
\n‘in-house’ fight, and I don’t really have a dog in it, except Bishop Wright is
\na long time Christian friend, and it is not right to stand idly by and watch a
\nbrother being unnecessarily attacked. 
\n<\/span>For what it is worth, I find Wright a far better and more Biblical
\nambassador for his particular Reformed theological view point than those who
\nare attacking him).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let us first start with the big
\npicture.  <\/span>Wright is a global thinker, by
\nwhich I mean he is not into doing theology by sound-bytes, little snippets of
\ntexts here there and yonder strung together because they share some common
\nvocabulary word.  <\/span>He is also an exegete
\nas well as a theologian, and as an exegete he knows that a text without a
\ncontext is just a pre-text for whatever you want it to mean.  <\/span>It has been, and remains one of the great
\nproblems of systematic theology, especially as done in the West since the
\nMiddle Ages, that it tends to mine the Biblical quarry for ideas and concepts
\nand then thrust them into some Procrustean bed, call it a pre-existing
\ntheological schema, where they do not comfortably fit. Wright, quite properly,
\ninsists on reading Paul in the context of early Judaism and early Christianity,
\na necessary step for one who takes history seriously and does not think one can
\ndo Pauline theology in isolation from Paul’s original contexts.  <\/span>But herein, already, lies part of the problem
\nwith the ?ber-Reformed.  <\/span>This is
\nthreatening because it means that various later Lutheran and Calvinist theological
\nperspectives on Paul turn out to be wrong, and not in accord with what Paul
\nactually said and meant.<\/p>\n

 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Now you might expect that those who
\nwave the flag of sola Scriptura <\/u>most fervently would agree that all
\nlater systematic theologies ought to be regularly checked or critiqued by the
\nBiblical text, rightly understood in its proper original contexts.  <\/span>But sadly it is not so.  <\/span>Phrases like ‘imputed righteousness’ are assumed
\nto be so central to Paul’s soteriology, so non-negotiable (even though you will
\nlook in vain for this phrase in any Pauline letter), that when Tom Wright
\nquestions some of the aspects of such a view on the basis of a close exegesis
\nof Pauline texts, you would have thought he was guilty of being Uzzah, the man
\nwith unclean hands who reached out to grab the ark of the covenant when it was
\nfalling, and was zapped (1 Chron. 13.9-10). 
\n<\/span>Only Bishop Wright has not been zapped, indeed his work has been blessed
\nand well received far and wide, to the dismay of the ?ber-Reformed.  <\/span>They are worried about his growing influence.
\nOne wonders if pure jealousy has entered into the picture here, because of the
\nenormous influence of Bishop Wright’s work, who is probably the most well
\nknown, well reviewed Evangelical scholar in the world, whether we are referring
\nto exegesis or theology.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Part of the problem here is that,
\nas it turns out, the ?ber-Reformed too often want to do theology in isolation
\nfrom the first century Jewish and historical context of Paul.  <\/span>And there is a reason for this. Listen to
\nwhat one ardent reviewer on Amazon, who shall remain anonymous, in critiquing
\nthis new book by Wright, says— <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I sympathize with Bishop Tom as he
\nstruggles to contradict Historic Evangelical theology as refined by the Protestant Church since Reformation. He simply is
\ntoo caught up in his contextualization bias that slants his take on reading
\nPaul. If only he could read Paul (and Jesus and John and Peter and Hebrews and
\nGospels and Luke’s Acts and Old Testament) on a STAND ALONE basis without the
\nbaggage of 2nd Temple
\nJudaism lenses coloring
\neverything Bishop Tom reads.”
\n
\n<\/p>\n

“What is the main
\nproblem with Bishop Tom and his fans who are fascinated with “New
\nPerspectives”?  <\/span>A wholesale
\nabandonment of Sola Scriptura as the only necessary authoritative source for
\ntheology and the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone in Christ Alone. I
\nwould add ‘Satis Scriptura Est’ has been jettisoned as well: the Bible by
\nitself is enough to rely on in determining meaning, interpretation, exegesis
\nand what justification really involves.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ah, there’s the rub! 
\n<\/span>We should be able to read the Bible without the necessary extra heavy
\nlifting of studying it in its original historical, literary, rhetorical,
\nsocial, and linguistic contexts, because after all the Bible should only be
\ninterpreted in the light of other verses in the Bible, or otherwise you have
\ndenied the perspicuity, the clarity of Scripture.  <\/span>In other words, the concept of the clarity of
\nScripture is used to bolster: 1) obscurantism, and 2) a particular tradition of
\nProtestant interpretation of Scripture which is assumed to be the ‘plain sense
\nmeaning of the Biblical text’ without all the excess baggage of historical and
\ncontextual study.  <\/span>Now of course,
\nWright’s scholarly critics would deny this is their approach, but in fact it
\nseems to be their fall back position when they are shown that in fact Paul was
\nnot an early advocate of their narrow view of either justification or of their
\nsort of ‘imputed righteousness’.  <\/span>As Tom
\nWright says, once you realize the forensic character of what Paul says when he
\nis talking about justification, it becomes plain that God\/Christ who is the
\njudge is not imputing his personal righteousness to the man standing in the
\ncourtroom who is guilty as sin.  <\/span>No, he
\nis legally declaring the man in right-standing with God on the basis of the
\ndeath and resurrection of Christ, the benefits of which are appropriated
\nthrough faith in Christ.  <\/span>Christ’s
\npersonal righteousness does not enter into the bargain or transfer here. <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>But the
\nproblem is not just that Tom has skewered some sacred cows in his own tradition
\nwhen it comes to either Bibliolatry or the Reformed tradition of interpreting
\nPaul.  <\/span>No, the problem is that Tom
\nrefuses to take the traditional Reformation approach to Jews and Judaism and
\nPaul as a Jewish theologian, which quite frankly are at least anti-Judaistic
\nwhen they are not plainly just anti-Semitic (for example in the case of
\nLuther).  <\/span>Bishop Wright believes that
\nPaul is not an early version of a supercessionist, one who believes that
\nJudaism has been replaced by Christianity as the true Biblical religion. He
\nbelieves that Paul sees those who are ‘in Christ’, both Jew and Gentile, as the
\neschatological completion of the one people of God for whom God all along had a
\nplan.  <\/span>One of the real strengths of
\nWright’s view is that it accounts for the whole Biblical witness, both OT and
\nNT from a Jewish, and yet Christian, point of view.   <\/span>What do I mean by this?  <\/span>Let’s let the good Bishop speak for himself:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

            <\/span>“Paul’s
\nview of the cataclysmic irruption of God into the history of Israel and the
\nworld in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah was that
\nthis heart-stopping, show-stopping, chart-topping moment was, despite initial
\nappearances, and certainly despite Paul’s own earlier expectations and initial
\nunderstanding, the very thing for which the entire history of Israel from
\nAbraham onward, the entire history of Israel under Torah from Moses onward and
\nindeed the entire history of humanity from Adam onward had been waiting. It is
\ncentral to Paul, but almost entirely ignored in perspectives old, new, and
\notherwise, that God had a single plan all
\nalong through which he intended to rescue the world and the human race, and
\nthat this single plan was centered upon the call of Israel, a call which Paul
\nsaw coming to fruition in Israel’s representative, the Messiah.” (p. 35).<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/i><\/p>\n

            <\/span>Here then
\nis the big picture.  <\/span>God had always
\nintended that through Abraham and his kin, indeed through Israel, a light would be sent forth
\ninto the world.  <\/span>Israel was not
\nchosen merely to be God’s chums, God’s favorites, they were chosen to be light
\nbearers in a dark world.  <\/span>Election was
\nnot merely all about the salvation of the elect, it had a larger purpose–not
\nmerely bearing witness to the larger Gentile world but setting about to redeem
\nit, and not even just the human parts of it but in fact ‘all creation’.<\/p>\n

 <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Now I need to take a breath here
\nand say that this breath-taking vision does not include the idea that everyone
\nand everything gets saved, redeemed, etc. from Wright’s point of view.  <\/span>Wright is not a universalist in that sense.
\nNevertheless, Wright believes that salvation has both cosmic scope and personal
\nbenefit.  <\/span>He believes that the
\nresurrection of Jesus is not just about creating a born again set of
\nindividuals receiving eternal security and winding up in heaven.  <\/span>No he believes that Christ’s history is the
\nbeliever’s eschatological destiny (see his other recent book, Surprised by
\nHope<\/u>, reviewed on this blog some weeks ago).  <\/span>He believes that the finish line for the
\nChristian is not heaven but the new creation on earth.  <\/span>He believes that salvation in Christ is not a
\nreaction to the failure of Israel
\nto save the world, but rather the completion of her task by means of the true
\nIsraelite, Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and world Savior.  <\/span>And there is something more here.  <\/span>Wright believes that his critics are guilty
\nof having a truly deficient ecclesiology. 
\n<\/span>How so?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

God’s redemption plan ever since
\nthe Fall was not merely to create a bunch of saved individuals, but to deal
\nwith the problem of sin both individually and corporately. The effect of the
\nFall was not merely to alienate human individuals from their God, but to
\nalienate them from each other.  <\/span>Salvation
\nis not just about saving this or that person. It is about re-creating
\ncommunity.  <\/span>It has both a vertical and a
\nhorizontal dimension. Listen for example to what Paul says in 1 Cor. 12–“by one
\nSpirit we were all baptized into the one body, Jews or Greeks, slave or free,
\nand we were all made to drink of the one Spirit.” (verse 13).   <\/span>Reconciliation is not just between us and
\nGod, but also between us, for we have all fallen and can’t get up except by
\ngrace and through faith.  <\/span>It was always
\nabout creating a people, the heirs of Abraham, Jew and Gentile united in Christ
\nand heading for the true promised land, not merely the Holy
\nLand, but the new creation of the whole earth, which Jesus said
\nthe meek would one day inherit. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think by now you can see what I
\nmean by saying that Wright is a global thinker. He has tied together all the
\nthreads of the Biblical story into one grand narrative of creation, fall and
\nredemption for the whole human race and made clear that late Western,
\nnon-Jewish, individualistic readings of Paul do not work.  <\/span>Of course ‘the Devil’s in the details’ as
\nsome would say, so before we bring this little essay to a close lets consider a
\nfew of the particulars of Wright’s case. 
\n<\/span>First let’s consider the matter of the definition of justification. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wright correctly protests that the
\nwhole doctrine of salvation should not be subsumed under the heading of
\njustification. Wright believes there is initial right-standing with God granted
\nwhen one believes in Christ, and that this is a bringing forward into the present
\nof final right-standing with God in advance.  <\/span>Initial right-standing is by grace and through
\nfaith alone (as all the Reformers would agree), but final right-standing,
\nwhilst it is also by grace and through faith involves an evaluation of works
\n(see Rom. 2, 2 Cor. 5 etc.).  <\/span><\/p>\n

Wright is careful to make clear he
\nis not an advocate of 
\n<\/span>‘works-righteousness’ that bugaboo particularly of Lutheran theology,
\nbut he refuses to ignore those texts which state that Christian’s, including
\nminister’s (see 2 Cor. 3), deeds will be put under God’s searchlight at the
\nfinal assize and will either be commended or condemned (and I would add that
\nthis is connected with rewards or the lack there of in the Kingdom, though
\nsalvation in itself is not a reward). 
\n<\/span>Wright is concerned that the part (justification) has been mistaken for
\nthe whole doctrine of salvation, which among other things includes the work of
\nthe Spirit in the believer, sanctification and glorification, not just
\nright-standing with God. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I may be permitted a personal
\nword here, I find it completely odd that those who most frequently use the
\nphrase ‘sovereign grace’ in fact do not seem to think that that grace is a very
\npotent transformer of human nature, because they are the same persons who most
\nfervently deny the dramatic sanctifying work of the Spirit subsequent to
\njustification which increasingly frees us from the effects of sin, and indeed
\nif we are filled with God’s perfect love, at least at times frees us even from
\nfear and the inclination to commit willful acts of sin (see 1 John 4-5).  <\/span>This is not about a na\u00efve or Pelagian optimism
\nabout human potential or human nature.  <\/span>It
\nis about a belief that God’s grace is more powerful than the sin in our
\nlives.  <\/span>But I digress.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As I have said, Bishop Wright
\nthinks Paul’s notion of dikaios\/dikaiosune
\n<\/b>is forensic or legal.  <\/span>Listen to what
\nhe says— “Righteousness within the lawcourt setting…denotes the status that
\nsomeone has when the court has found in their favor. Notice, it does not
\ndenote, within that all-important lawcourt context, ‘the moral character they
\nare assumed to have’ or ‘the moral behavior they have demonstrated which has
\nearned them the verdict.” (p. 90).   <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He goes on to add, rightly, that
\nlegal righteousness is not the same thing as moral righteousness. Justification
\nis not about the judge imputing his moral righteousness to the actually guilty
\nsinner. It is about the legal definition of not-guilty or pardon, and in either
\ncase it establishes right-standing with the judge and before the Law.  <\/span>It is about the position and not the
\ncondition of the sinner, but it is not about the legal fiction of Christ’s
\nrighteousness being imputed to us.  <\/span>           <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of course we need to be actually
\nrighteous if we are to be the holy people of God, but that is a matter of the
\ninternal working of the Spirit, a matter of sanctification, not a matter of a
\nrighteousness exchange (Christ’s for our’s).  
\n<\/span>In fact, what Romans 4 says when talking about our forefather Abraham is
\nthat Abraham’s faith was reckoned as Abraham’s righteousness (or
\nright-standing).  <\/span>If we must talk about
\nexchange then it is faith reckoned as righteousness in Romans, not Christ’s
\nrighteousness reckoned as ours. According to Romans 4 both sides of the ledger,
\ncredit and debit, involve something Abraham has–faith and
\nright-standing\/righteousness, the former being credited as the latter.  <\/span>The importance of Abraham is that he is being
\ndepicted by Paul as the prototype of the Christian who is in a like situation.
\nThe word justification, as Wright stresses, does not describe the whole of
\nsalvation from grace to glory it has to do with the legal verdict present and
\nfuture passed on the sinner who is saved by grace through faith in the death
\nand resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where does the new Perspective on
\nPaul fit into this discussion?  <\/span>Well, you
\nmay remember the work of E.P. Sanders, J.D.G. Dunn and others who argued against
\na caricature of Judaism as if it were a religion of ‘works’righteousness’ or
\n‘legalism’.  <\/span>Wright is in considerable
\nagreement with this group in saying that painting early Judaism, and for that
\nmatter OT religion with that broad brush is not merely unfair, it is
\ninaccurate.  <\/span>The redemption of Israel by
\nGod’s grace and power in the Exodus-Sinai events preceded the law covenant
\nknown as the Mosaic covenant, and the Mosaic covenant was intended to deal with
\nthe matter of ‘how then shall we live, since we have been saved by God’s
\ngrace’.  <\/span><\/p>\n

It is true of course that there
\nwere some in early Judaism that saw law-keeping as proof or evidence of their
\nelection, and it could become a means of self-justification and
\nself-congratulation in some cases. In the striving to obey one could sometimes
\nforget God’s grace is what established the covenant in the first place.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Paul’s critique of the Mosaic
\ncovenant and its law was not a critique of mere legalism or works
\nrighteousness.  <\/span>His critique was as
\nfollows: 1) the Torah is holy, righteous and good, however 2) its effect on
\nfallen persons, rather than its intent was condemnation rather than
\ncommendation because the Law was not the Spirit, it could not enable a person
\nto obey it, and anyway 3) the Mosaic covenant was temporary, set up to keep
\nGod’s people in line until the coming of Messiah (so Gal. 3-4). <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Mosaic covenant is likened in
\nGalatians to a nanny, the paidagogos <\/b>not
\nbeing the teacher but rather the household servant who looked over a child
\nuntil he grew up, walking him back and forth to school, keeping him safe, and
\nhelping him with his homework.  <\/span>The
\nfunction was to keep little Publius in bounds. Paul says that this covenant has
\nbeen fulfilled, and so rendered obsolete by the death of Jesus (see Rom. 10.4).
\n <\/span>The new covenant then is seen as the
\nfulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant in both Galatians and Romans (on which
\nsee my Grace in Galatia, <\/u>and my Letter to the Romans,)<\/u>. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Part of the problem between Wright
\nand the ?ber-Reformed is that they have  <\/span>different views of covenant theology.  <\/span>Wright is a good enough exegete to allow
\nPaul’s words in Galatians 4 or in Romans to have their full weight, which means
\none cannot say that the new covenant is simply the renewal of the Mosaic one,
\nonly with better Energizer batteries included in the form of the Spirit, who
\nenables us to keep it.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, for Paul the new covenant is
\nthe fulfillment of the Abrahamic one, which in turn means that the Mosaic
\ncovenant had a temporal and temporary function. 
\n<\/span>This becomes especially clear in 2 Cor. 3 in Paul’s contrast between the
\nministry of the covenant of law which is death-dealing rather than life-giving,
\nand the ministry of the new covenant which involves the Holy Spirit which gives
\nlife.  <\/span>Paul says the former covenant has
\na fading splendor whereas the latter covenant has an enduring one, not least
\nbecause it involves all of us being transformed into the glorious image of
\nChrist.  <\/span>One covenant is completed and
\nfulfilled in the new covenant, the other covenant is made obsolete, through the
\ndeath of Christ absorbing the curse sanctions of that Mosaic covenant, the
\npenalty for its violation. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a further post on this new blog
\nsite, you will hear from the Bishop himself in response to some questions I
\nhave posed to him.  <\/span>Here I will say that
\nthere was justification for Bishop Wright writing Justification, <\/u>and it
\nis by no means simply a polemic. Rather, especially when he gets down to the
\ntask of exegesis in Part Two of the book there is an exegetical and theological
\nfeast to be had.  <\/span>I fear however, that it
\nwill mostly give his critics indigestion, as they seem to have a limited
\npalette and become dyspeptic when they are forced to consume something out of
\nthe ordinary that is not on their pre-ordained menu.  <\/span>Let me add in conclusion as well that lest
\nyou think there are not matters of consequence involved in this discussion, and
\nwould be prone to see it as “full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing” or
\neven ‘Christians behaving badly towards each other’, I would urge you to read
\nthis book and see that much is at stake, namely whether we have a fully
\nBiblical and Pauline view of justification and salvation or not. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr. Ben Witherington, III
\nAmos Professor of NT for Doctoral Studies
\nAsbury Theological Seminary
\nWilmore Ky.
\nDoctoral Faculty St. Mary’s College, St. Andrews University, Scotland   <\/span> <\/span><\/u> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/b> <\/span>   <\/span> <\/span><\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>  <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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N.T. Wright,  Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2009), 279 pages, $25.00 list price.               It is never an easy thing to write a rebuttal book if you are genuinely a Christian person.  You keep hoping that people will stop misunderstanding what you have said and written, will think…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nWITH JUSTIFICATION - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WITH JUSTIFICATION - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"N.T. 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God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2009), 279 pages, $25.00 list price.               It is never an easy thing to write a rebuttal book if you are genuinely a Christian person.  You keep hoping that people will stop misunderstanding what you have said and written, will think…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-01T07:26:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/05\/009_6A_00-thumb-600x900-5016.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"WITH JUSTIFICATION - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"WITH JUSTIFICATION - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"N.T. Wright,  Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2009), 279 pages, $25.00 list price.               It is never an easy thing to write a rebuttal book if you are genuinely a Christian person.  You keep hoping that people will stop misunderstanding what you have said and written, will think…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html","og_site_name":"The Bible and Culture","article_published_time":"2009-06-01T07:26:10+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/05\/009_6A_00-thumb-600x900-5016.jpg"}],"author":"Ben Witherington","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html","name":"WITH JUSTIFICATION - The Bible and Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/05\/009_6A_00-thumb-600x900-5016.jpg","datePublished":"2009-06-01T07:26:10+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-01T07:26:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/05\/009_6A_00-thumb-600x900-5016.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/05\/009_6A_00-thumb-600x900-5016.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/with-justification.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"WITH JUSTIFICATION"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/","name":"The Bible and Culture","description":"All Things Biblical and Christian","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426","name":"Ben Witherington","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","caption":"Ben Witherington"},"description":"Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}