Summary (Continued)

Chapter 1: Caution: Not All Biblical-Theological Methods and Categories Are Illuminating
Piper begins this chapter by noting that on the contemporary theological scene we are often warned about the danger of importing unscriptural categories into the Scriptures from historical and systematic theology. He goes on to say that it is not frequently enough seen today that biblical theology can also distort our view of the teaching of Scripture. Though biblical theology is seen as the savior from the sins of systematics, Piper affirms that it too may contribute to a mis-reading of Scripture.

“The claim to interpret a biblical author in terms of the first century is generally met with the assumption that this will be illuminating….But common sense tells us that first-century ideas can be used (inadvertently) to distort and silenced what the New Terstament writers intended to say.” (34)

Piper affirms that this can happen in three ways. “First, the interpreter may misunderstand the first-century idea.” (34) In the second place Piper affirms that the interpreter may assume that biblical writer agrees with a source when he does not. (35) “A third reason why external first-century ideas may distort or silence what the New Testament teaches is that while the New Testament writer may embrace the external idea in general, a scholar may misapply it to the biblical text.” (36)

Piper concludes with a warning against being energized by new ideas just because they are new and rejects Wright’s confidence that the church has gotten justification wrong since Augustine. This chapter gets Piper’s book off to a great start. His warnings about the misuse of biblical theology and Wright’s chosen method need to be widely heard.

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You can get the messages from the conference here. It was the first time I heard Pastor Conrad Mbewe from Zambia. I highly recommend you listen to his messages.

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Christ as scopus Scripturae can be seen in Owen’s writings in many ways. In his work on the Person of Christ, Owen says, “The end of the Word itself, is to instruct us in the knowledge of God in Christ.”[1] A few pages later he goes on to say:

Christ is the image of the invisible God, the express image of the person of the Father; and the principal end of the whole Scripture, especially of the Gospel, is to declare him so to be, and how he is so.[2] 

In these two instances he uses the term ‘end’ in a technical sense. In other words, Christ is scopus Scripturae.

Christ as scopus Scripturae can be seen from an exegetical standpoint in Owen as well. Commenting on Genesis 3:15 as the first promise of the only means of delivery from the effects of sin–Christ, he says:

This is the very foundation of the faith of the church; and if it be denied, nothing of the economy or dispensation of God towards it from the beginning can be understood. The whole doctrine and story of the Old Testament must be rejected as useless, and no foundation be left in the truth of God for the introduction of the New.[3] 

Without a soteriological/Messianic interpretation of Genesis 3:15, in the mind of Owen, subsequent Scripture makes no sense. A Christocentric hermeneutic is the foundation of proper biblical interpretation.

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Summary

Prolegomena

Piper sets up his book and tells us its background in three short sections with which he approaches his critique.

Under “Acknowledgments” Piper begins on the note of his father’s death. He affirms that he is defending the gospel his father loved and preached. Also interesting is the mention of an 11,000 word response from Wright himself to the first draft of the book. (10) Also interesting is the list of other “fathers” that influenced the book. He mentions “Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, Daniel Fuller, George Ladd, John Murray, Leon Morris.” As the mention of Fuller might already intimate, he proceeds that he does not agree with them “all on every point.” I found it remarkable that on this subject he mentioned Fuller at all.

Under “Introduction” Piper begins by saying that the “Final Judgment feels too close for me to care much about scoring points in debate.” (13) With the charitable spirit that dominates his critique he remarks “I assume he feels the same.” (13)

The purpose of this “Introduction” is to introduce Wright and the new, global paradigm with which he is retelling the theology of the New Testament. (16-17) To be specific, Piper wants us to appreciate the claims about justification which Wright has made and which provoked Piper to write. He does this under the following italicized headings which summarize Wright’s claims. They tell the story adequately enough. Here they are: The Gospel is not about How to Get Saved, Justification Is Not How You Become a Christian, Justification Is Not the Gospel, We Are Not Justified by Believing in Justification, The Imputation of God’s Own Righteousness Makes No Sense At All, Future Justification Is on the Basis of the Complete Life Lived, First-century Judaism Had Nothing of the Alleged Self-Righteous and Boastful Legalism, God’s Righteousness is the Same as His Covenant Faithfulness.

Wright’s claims for not a few mark him as a false teacher pure and simple. Piper, however, in a couple of places makes clear that he is not deducing this from Wright’s theological mis-steps. Though Piper thinks these claims mar the gospel Wright preaches, he does not conclude that he is no Christian. He says, “My conviction concerning N. T. Wright is not that he is under the curse of Galatians 1:8-9, but that his portrayal of the gospel–and of the doctrine of justification in particular–is so disfigured that it becomes difficult to recognize as biblically faithful.” (15) Later he cites Jonathan Edwards in support of not concluding that Wright is lost. Edwards argues that “great allowances are to be made” for a disconnect between men’s hearts and their teaching. Edwards proceeds to say, however, that their teaching may still be “of a pernicious and fatal tendency.” (24) Piper cites a similar sentiment from John Owen in the same footnote. (25)

As a personal aside, I find the citations from Owens and Edwards at this point quite significant, helpful, and timely. They show that the paragons of Reformed orthodoxy were not willing to condemn willy-nilly those guilty of serious error to hell. They were willing to entertain the possibility that there could be a serious disconnect between the teachings and the heart of those guilty of error. This is not to deny that some guilty of serious error are false brethren. This is also not to deny that, though they themselves are saved (”so as by fire”?), their teachings may be the means of others’ condemnation. Thus, critiques such as Piper’s of Wright are still very necessary. It is not necessary for someone to teach something that certainly damns their soul for it to be important enough to subject it to careful and rigorous criticism.

“On Controversy” is the final section of Piper’s prolegomena. It gives Piper’s reason for picking on Wright in particular of all “the new perspective” writers. It is because is the most influential of these writers on evangelical Christians like those to whom Piper ministers. In this short section Piper argues that we must not be contentious, but we must also not compromise. He also argues that we ourselves must attempt to feel the sanctifying power of the truth we defend. Finally, he argues that clear views of the truth enhance the unity of Christians. Clear doctrinal views do not undermine unity and divide, as many think, but deepen it. He ends with this trenchant criticism of our postmodern context.

“We live in a day of politicized discourse that puts no premium on clear assertion. Some use language to conceal where they stand rather than to make clear where they stand. One reason this happens is that clear and open statements usually result in more criticism than ambiguous statements do. Vagueness will win more approval in a hostile atmosphere than forthrightness will.” (32)

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Richard Muller, commenting on scopus in seventeenth-century Reformed thought, says:

Christ…is the fundamentum and scopus of Scripture inasmuch as he is the redemptive center on which the entire principium cognoscendi or cognitive foundation rests and in whom it find [sic] its unity.[1] 

…the theologies of the Reformers and of their orthodox successors consistently place Christ at the center of their discussions of redemption, consistently understand Christ as the center and fulfill­ment of divine revelation, and equally consistently understand the causality of salvation as grounded in the divine purpose. Christ, as Mediator, must be subordinate to the divine purpose, even as Christ, considered as God, is the one who with the Father and the Spirit decrees salvation before the foundation of the world: Causal theocentricity guarantees redemptive Christocentricity. Neither the doctrine of God nor the doctrine of Christ, however, serves as the basis of a neatly deduced system: The loci themselves arise out of the interpretation of Scripture.[2]