Wright and Piper on 2 Corinthians 5:21

A fair number of pixels have been lit up over the issue of how 2 Corinthians 5:21 is to be interpreted, and specifically how this relates to our understanding of justification. N. T. Wright has an interesting article on how “the righteousness of God” should be understood in this passage. This article was dismissed by Adrian Warnock as “wholly unconvincing” though he fails to tell us why.

Somewhat more interesting is Piper’s response to the article in his book The Future of Justification. (A PDF of the book is available here.) In the introduction he calls the article “one of the most eccentric articles in all his work” (p. 24). He dedicates chapter 11 to a response.

There is a fundamental assumption that Piper makes, that there is one, and only one way to understand justification. For him, justification is a fact, not a metaphor. It is the core reality. Metaphors can be used to describe it, but it is the real thing. I emphasize this repeatedly, because it underlies many of the arguments that Piper makes. For him, it would be quite inadequate to suggest that a different metaphor was in play in a different verse, and thus perhaps it might be understood differently.

Further, his major objection to Wright seems to be based on what will result in preaching. Now don’t get me wrong. He makes some Biblical arguments, but those arguments often require one to assume that one is looking for a single solution. I don’t believe that is a good assumption. He is also a bit too willing to make the assumption that Paul is inserting several parenthetical comments on justification in a chapter that has quite a different theme. I believe this is because of the clarity which has been attributed to this verse in expressing justification. If the reformed view of justification is right, then this one verse, taken in isolation, expresses it. But of course that leaves two questions: 1) Is it appropriate to take it in isolation; and 2) Does it really express justification even in isolation.

Now it is absolutely essential if you are to understand the few comments I am going to make on this passage that you read both N. T. Wright’s article and John Piper’s response in chapter 11 of his book The Future of Justification. Chapter 3 of Piper’s book will be helpful as well. I’m simply emphasizing some key points of the arguments.

Wright’s arguments deal first with the meaning of the phrase “the righteousness of God. Wright places this term firmly in a covenant context, as “God’s covenant faithfulness.” I have a natural bias towards accepting such a point. Now of course “God’s covenant faithfulness” doesn’t work nearly as well with imputation, and imputation in turn doesn’t seem to work so well in a covenant context. Or does it? It seems to me that imputation has the same problems everywhere–it looks a great deal like lying. God solves one injustice with another, by “imputing” sin to his Son, who did not know sin, and “imputing” righteousness to us, who have precious little relationship to righteousness!

And this shows why the new perspective on Paul is really a paradigm shift. The questions need to change. As long as we’re talking about individual status, then the question is very difficult to answer. How does imputation work? How is it anything but unfairness? But change the question! Ask instead: “How does one become part of God’s community?” Things become much different. One can easily reckon someone as part of the community or not. (One might also see it in a way as “membership in God’s health club, as I do here.)

Most of Piper’s objections hang on this point, I think. The issue is how can we talk about salvation and justification using this terminology. But as I frequently say (and so do many other Bible students and teachers) very often finding the right question will direct you to the right answer.

Note also that I think this same thing makes most of Piper’s chapter three, in which he discusses the meaning of “the righteousness of God,” moot as well. He’s arguing that God’s covenant faithfulness is an inadequate view of God’s righteousness, but in Biblical terms God’s covenants express God’s righteousness. To be the God who is faithful to his righteous covenant is God’s goodness. But even so it’s a bit difficult to impute.

One of the indicators in Piper’s handling of the phrase “righteousness of God” is signaled in a section heading in chapter 11: “Where will Preaching God in Wright’s Wake?” All the time he is discussing the meaning of the righteousness of God, his concern appears to be that Wright’s definition “confuses” people about justification by faith. Now I’m aware he presents other arguments, and you should also read chapter 3 in which he works on that definition more substantially, but I nonetheless come away with the impression that a leading criterion here for Piper is the support for the doctrine of justification by faith. To be sure, he believes that doctrine is Biblical, and thus any other doctrine that is also Biblical must be consistent with it. But if we refocus the questions, perhaps things will look somewhat different.

Now Wright’s argument relies heavily on two factors–the meaning of the phrase “righteousness of God” throughout Pauline literature, which he believes is “God’s covenant faithfulness,” and the context 2 Corinthians 5.

On the second point notice that Paul is discussing through a large section of the book of 2 Corinthians. The major section begins in 2:12 (or 2:14) and ends no sooner than 6:13. This section discusses Paul’s ministry and authority as an apostle. As I’ve already mentioned, it is very important to notice what question is being answered. What is the question that the Corinthians have for Paul? In Galatians it is how one becomes part of God’s eschatological community. Does one have to become a Jew, i.e. be circumcised, or not? Thus it is quite appropriate to read Galatians for an answer to questions of salvation. In 2 Corinthians, the question, carried over from 1 Corinthians, is Paul’s authority.

Now there is nothing wrong with Paul saying things about salvation, even specifically about justification, in a passage that deals with apostolic authority, yet one would expect it to support the main point in some way. Piper is comfortable with parenthetical notes; Wright is not. In Wright’s interpretation, however, I think the two elements are connected. One comes into the community through justification, and members of the community “become” God’s covenant faithfulness in the world–a point on which the church commonly fails, I believe.

There is one point on which Wright has not yet convinced me, and that is the interpretation of the word “sin” as “sin offering.” His suggestion results in a translation like “For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be a sin offering for us, so that we could become God’s covenant faithfulness.” To me this destroys the symmetry of the verse, and also uses two different translations of “sin” in the same phrase. Pending further study, I would suggest that just as we see God’s righteousness as his covenant faithfulness, so we should see sin here are being outside of that covenant faithfulness. I have not really worked the details, but it seems a good hypothesis on which to study some further texts.

Thus we would end up with something like “For our sake God made the one who had never been outside the covenant to be outside (apart from covenant faithfulness) so that we might become God’s covenant faithfulness (by being in God’s community and carrying out God’s ministry of reconciliation.)”