Justification According to NT Wright: Part Three

Second Foundation

The second foundation for Wright’s view of justification is the covenant. The covenant allows him to put justification into the meta-narrative of the Bible, so that it is not an afterthought or an appendage, but an integral part of the Bible as a whole. The sin in Genesis 3 ruined what God had designed in Genesis 1-2, and the nations continue in directions opposed to God in the subsequent chapters of Genesis 3-11. The covenant with Abraham is not made because God has given up on the nations, but the point of the Abrahamic covenant is to save the nations: “Abraham emerges within the structure of Genesis as the answer to the plight of all humankind."¹ The story of the Old Testament is the story of the covenant and God’s faithfulness to it.² The righteousness of God in the Old Testament is to be understood, according to Wright, through the lens of covenant. Righteousness is God’s covenant faithfulness or loyalty, his dedication to stand by his promise.³ 

           Wright moves to the New Testament through the literature of the Second Temple Period. God had not been shown to complete the covenant, and so the Jews were waiting for covenant faithfulness of God to be shown to them and for the exile to be ended. As mentioned earlier, the idea of righteousness was also influenced by the Second Temple Jewish law court: God is the cosmic judge who will make all things right. There is tension between these influences: God must show covenant faithfulness to Israel and he must also be the righteous judge and punish guilty Israel.⁴ How would these conflicting roles be resolved? The conclusion of this covenant faithfulness and righteous judge is what God did in Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ is Lord, which is the content of the gospel for Wright.

1. N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God 1; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) 262.

2. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 118-120.

3. Wright, “New Perspectives on Paul,” 252-254; Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 100-103.

4. N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans: Introduction, Commentary and Reflection,” in The New Interpreters Bible, 13 volumes (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 10: 398-401; Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 117-118.

5. Wright, Romans, 10:402, Wright, “New Perspectives on Paul,” 248-249.

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