Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification

N. T. Wrights Justification and the Cry of the Spirit Biblical Studies Interest Group Rick Wadholm Jr. Providence Theological Seminary Presented at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies

INTRODUCTION

There is some considerable argument to be made that the Spirit has at times played second fiddle (at best) to the Father and Son in much of Christian theology and particularly with regard to the doctrine of justification even among Protestantsperhaps even more particularly among Protestants.1 While the Spirit is attributed with leading believers to justification and with the work of sanctification that is typically conceived as flowing from justificationthere simply has been too little thought given to the role of the Spirit in the actual work of justification. One almost wonders what to make of Pauls questionof a slightly different natureto the Galatians about having begun in the Spirit how they think they should continue by some other means? This is not to say that Christian theology has not perhaps considered the Spirit in some way working out the justification of the believer, but that justification has been considered by and large to be primarily the work of the Father and the Son. In Protestantism, most of the focus on the Spirit has been given to works considered antecedent and posterior to justification. TheFrank D. Macchia, Justified in the Spirit: Creation, Redemption, and the Triune God (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010).1

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification warning of N. T. Wright seems fitting: Any attempt to give an account of a doctrine which screens out the call of Israel, the gift of the spirit, and/or the redemption of all creation is doomed to be less than fully biblical.2 One might wonder just how a richer doctrine of the trinity might be fleshed out in relation to the doctrine of justification. Is there room for a reprioritization of the discussion in order to better facilitate a more thoroughly pneumatological approach to the doctrine of justification? There have been those who are turning their focus upon the pneumatological elements of theology in particular that have been for too long neglected, but the doctrine of justification is still somewhat in its nascent stage in this regard.3 What might the current debate over justification have to offer towards this more robust Pneumatology leading to an enriched Trinitarian doctrine of justification? It will be the contention of this paper that the person and work of the Spirit in the believer works out the life of the Son as son and thereby assures of that justification before the Father.4 N. T. Wright has, I will contend, rightly reminded us that the Spirit is the path by which Paul traces the route from justification by faith in the present to justification, by the complete life lived, in the future.5 My argument defending this statement will be developed through a brief analysis and discussion of Galatians 4:6 and the cry of the Spirit with the pneumatological implications this might imply for justification. Moving from that brief exposition of Scripture, a discussion of N. T. Wrights view of justification with specific attention to his pneumatological2

N. T. Wright, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009),

222. For a fine summary of several theologians working in this field of pneumatology in its relation to justification see Macchia, Justified, 85fn38. John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007), 181-188.5 4 3

N. T. Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 148.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification direction will be offered, followed by a critique of John Piper and his own pneumatological direction as he critiques Wrights view of justification. Finally, there will be another brief analysis and biblical exposition, but this time of the more explicitly clear cry of the Spirit in relation to justification in Romans 8:15 and reflections of how this might influence the preceding discussion. My concluding remarks will suggest some pragmatic points toward a more robustly pneumatological theology of justification that will (it is hoped) be more thoroughly Trinitarian than many other typical models that have been postulated.

THE CRY OF THE SPIRIT IN GALATIANS 4:6

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father! (Gal 4:6).6 While this passage is not as explicitly connected to justification as other passages in Galatians, it offers a pneumatological fulcrum for a richer Trinitarian appreciation of justification as will hopefully be evident from the following exposition. There is some ambiguity present in the text as to the ordo salutis (order of salvation) that Paul has in mind (or whether perhaps he even has an ordo salutis in mind at all). He seems to have left things open by his use of the conjunctive clause beginning this verse in relation to the preceding clause. Does Paul mean to suggest that the Galatians are sons and therefore God sent His Spirit or that God sent his Spirit and therefore they are sons? While the English translations do not seem to recognize this Greek ambiguity, this particular text does not answer our question as clearly as one might appreciate.76

All biblical citations are from the ESV unless otherwise noted.7

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification How might one resolve this proposed dilemma (and its relation to justification)? The wedge which has been too often driven between the gift of sonship and the reception of the Spirit in Galatians 4:6 has been ruled too long (in the words of Hans Dieter Betz) by dogmatic and philosophical categories.8 For Paul, it seems, sonship and receiving the Spirit are so intimately related that one can speak of them in either orderwith only the circumstances of a particular audience, to be used at any given time or place.9 Richard Longeneckers conclusion is that Pauls argument in Galatians 4 builds from a Christological confession of the church and so speaks of sonship as the basis for Gods gift of the Spirit.10 This does not make the one to be actually contingent upon the other in an absolute sense, but only to be useful for Pauls immediate purposes in developing his Christological basis for the gift of the Spirit. Paul is not here setting out stages in the Christian life, whether logical or chronological. Rather, his emphasis is on the reciprocal relation or correlational nature of sonship and the reception of the Spirit.11 F. F. Bruce can even speak of the instatement as sons and the reception of the Spirit as giving every appearance of being simultaneous even though Paul may suggest an order here of the one prior to the other.12 In fact, for Longenecker, the Spirit can justly be called the Spirit of the Son13 because of the two mutually dependent and intertwined features in the subjective experience of salvation.14 This is because there are not two experiences of salvation, but onlyAnd because is read by ESV, NAS(1995), NET, NKJV, NLT, NRSV; As proof that is read by NAB with the more abbreviated As in the NJB; Because is read by NIV(1984).8

Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1979), 209.9

Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians (WBC 41; Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990), 173.10

Ibid.11

Ibid; and Gordon D. Fee, Gods Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 408fn140.12

F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1982), 198.13

Though is omitted by P46, Marcion and Augustine.14

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification onethe reception of the Spirit and the sonship are identified together though spoken of separately as two aspects emphasizing the relation as it were to the Son and to the Spirit. However, even here, one has to do with the Spirit of the Son and not simply the Spirit (as if the Spirit could be conceived apart from the Son in Pauls writingshe lays special emphasis upon the relation of the Son and Spirit). Paul makes clear that hearing with faith, receiving the Spirit, and being justified were all part of the conversion experience of the Galatians.15 In what sense though should these experiences be regarded as distinct experiences or as the single experience of sonship and Spirit reception? [I]t is precisely because they are now sons that God sent the Spirit of his Son into their hearts.the two go together, the status and the condition and experience of sonship.16 While they may be spoken of separately and even with some sense of ordering in this context, they do not (as will be seen more clearly in the text of Rom 8:15) make the one contingent upon the other, but speak to an act which is seen to be in some way simultaneous and of such overlapping significance that to speak of one is to speak of the otherwhether explicitly or implicitly. The sending of the Son and the sending of the Spirit were two parts of one purpose and salvific work of God.17 By the term in Gal 3:14, the blessing of Abraham is summed up in the promise of the Holy Spirit which Paul draws out in the objective cry of the Spirit in Galatians 4:6.18 According to our text, [i]t is the Spirit who cries out to God the Father on behalf of the believer, though synonymously Paul can also say that the believer cries out toLongenecker, Galatians, 174.15

Ben Witherington III, Grace in Galatia: A Commentary on Pauls Letter to the Galatians (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 290.16

Ibid.17

Ibid.18

John Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993), 39fn44.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification God the Father as energized by the Spirit (Rom 8:15).19 Whereas here it is the Spirit in our hearts that cries Abba, Father!, in Rom. 8:15f. it is we who by the Spirit cry Abba, Father!the same act is expressed either way.20 The use of the same verb [for God sending His Son] as in iv.4increase[s] the parallelism of the two missions.Or it may be in terms of the twin effects of the two missions: both with a view to effecting sonship that is, not only in (legal) fact (iv.4-5), but also in the reality of subjective experience.21 Gordon Fee argues that while the Spirit is not ultimately responsible for procuring this sonship, the Spirit actualizes the adoption as sons.22 The Son has been sent by the Father making us to be sons of God and the Spirit of the Son has been sent also by the Father (even into our hearts) who Himself cries out Abba, Father! Paul then has here spoken of the objective and subjective dimensions of conversion, and in each case it has to do with being conformed to the image and status of the Son.23 As those in Christ, believers experience a more intimate and truly filial relationship with God the Father, one that displaces the legal relationship that existed earlier for Gods own. Now Gods own, as inspired by the Spirit, address God directly as Father.24 This address is imperative as those who have been and are and shall be justified at the last day. There is in this sense an authentication that takes effect wherein God gives evidence to and through the believer of His adoption of them as sons. As indeed those who are sons are indwelt by the Spirit of the19

Longenecker, Galatians, 174.20

Bruce, Galatians, 200.21

James D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians, Blacks New Testament Commentaries Gen. Ed. Henry Chadwick. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 219.22 23

Fee, Gods Empowering Presence, 408.

Witherington, Grace in Galatia, 291.24

Longenecker, Galatians, 175.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification Son crying Abba, Father! The evidential value for Pauls argument in Gal 4:6 is that the inspired acclamation Abba! Father! shows both the inspiration of those who pray and their selfunderstanding as sons by those who address him Father.25 Dunns extended explanation of this Spirit cry bears an extended quotation: The experiential character of the subject is also indicated by the particular activity attributed to the Spirit.The verb used, as in Rom. viii15, indicates a cry of some intensity, whether of feeling or of volume (cf. BAGD, kraz), inspired and possibly ecstatic, at all events from the heart, with the overtones of emotional depth and sincerity which that implies. This suggests in turn that the prayer thus envisaged was more in the nature of a brief, spontaneous ejaculation, than that the words recorded here refer to a more elaborate prayer like the Lords Prayer. In fact Paul probably saw the prayer as an echo of Jesus own prayer style, and thus as proof that those who so prayed thereby attested that they shared his sonship.26 Though F. F. Bruce argues in favor of the Lords Prayer reading of the Abba, Father cry (following the initial work of Joachim Jeremias and others who quickly went beyond him in this), yet he also notes that the verb suggests the spontaneous ejaculationin any situation [including] a Spirit-inspired prophetic utterance.27 The verbal cry would seem to necessitate against a formal Lords Prayer reading of the text as would also the curtness of the two-word statement. It becomes summative of the life-cry of the believer adopted as a son within whom the Spirit is crying. This would seem a far cry from a liturgical form of prayer. Further, this cry of the Spirit speaks to the status of those who themselves have received the Spirit of the Son. They are sonsand the Spirit cries out through them to the Father as sons.25

Betz, Galatians, 211.26

James D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; Peabody, MA: 1993), 221.27

Bruce, Galatians, 200; see also Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (SBT 2/6; Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1967). J. Louis Martyn has overstated his case when he argues that Paul has a clear agenda of speaking about the issues of water baptism in Galatians chapters 3-4 and goes on to declare that the cry of the Spirit in Galatians 4:6 is Pauls reference to a cry by the baptizands as they rise from the water. He sees the twowater baptism and Spirit receptionas synonymous or so nearly synonymous as to be an act that would lead to this Spirit endued ejaculation. See J. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 392. Against this view see Fee, Gods Empowering Presence, 409fn142.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification This pneumatological (and because pneumatologicalultimately trinitarian) orientation for understanding justification is the direction that not only Paul has directed us toward, but it is a path that the Church needs to be re-oriented toward and N. T. Wright seems to have suggested a way forward upon.28

WRIGHTS JUSTIFICATION AND ITS PNEUMATOLOGICAL ORIENTATION

First some groundwork as to an understanding of N. T. Wrights understanding of justification. Wright's view of justification is firmly rooted in God's single plan, through Abraham and his family, to bless the whole world (a phrase which finds numerous permutations throughout his written response to John Piper).29 He further defines justification as that righteousness which one receives as the decision of the Judge, rather than as an imputed righteousness.30 It isn't that God basically wants to condemn and then finds a way to rescue some from that disaster. It is that God longs to bless, to bless lavishly, and so to rescue and bless those in danger of tragedy and therefore must curse everything that thwarts and destroys the blessing of his world and his people.31 Wrights primary contention is against the wrong direction he feels the doctrine of justification has been taken and his desire to see it brought back to (in his understanding) a more

28

Wright made a point to include among his footnotes a comment about his desire to have written more upon the subject of the role of the Spirit in his chapter on Galatians: see Wright, Justification, 229fn15.29

Ibid., 48, original emphasis.30

Ibid., 50.31

Ibid., 52.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification Pauline perspective and therefore a more biblical perspective. Wright quotes James McGrath as saying, The doctrine of justification has come to develop a meaning quite independent of its biblical origins, and concerns the means by which man's relationship to God is established. The church has chosen to subsume its discussion of the reconciliation of man to God under the aegis of justification, thereby giving the concept an emphasis quite absent in the New Testament. The 'doctrine of justification' has come to bear a meaning within dogmatic theology which is quite independent of its Pauline origins.32 According to Wright, [T]he verb dikaio, 'to justify'...does not denote an action which transforms someone so much as a declaration which grants them a status.33 Wright goes on to state that the church has indeed taken off at an oblique angle from what Paul had said, so that, yes, ever since the time of Augustine, the discussions about what has been called 'justification' have borne a tangled, but ultimately only tangential, relation to what Paul was talking about.34 For Wright the early Christians were asking the question of how we can tell, in the present, who is implicitly included in the death and resurrection of Jesus?35 This set the very Jewishness of the original question of justification in the Old Testament into a new context.

Justification as Covenant Wright reads justification in tersely covenantal terms and particularly in Old Testament and Second Temple usage, but with a decidedly Christological reorientation. Citing Richard Hays he writes, Paul's understanding of justification must be interpreted resolutely in terms of OT affirmations of God's faithfulness to the covenant, a faithfulness surprisingly but definitively32

Ibid., 60, original emphasis.33

Ibid., 70.34

Ibid., 60.35

N. T. Wright , The New Testament and the People of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God 1; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 458.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification confirmed through Christ's death and resurrection.36 The tsedeqah elohim, the dikaiosyn theou, is an outward-looking characteristic of God, linked of course to the concern for God's own glory but essentially going, as it were, in the opposite direction, that of God's creative, healing, restorative love.37 At length he argues, Paul believed, in short, that what Israel had longed for God to do for it and for the world, God had done for Jesus, bringing him through death and into the life of the age to come. Eschatology: the new world was inaugurated! Covenant: God's promises to Abraham had been fulfilled! Lawcourt: Jesus had been vindicated and so all those who belonged to Jesus were vindicated as well! And these, for Paul, were not three, but one. Welcome to Paul's doctrine of justification, rooted in the single scriptural narrative as he read it, reaching out to the waiting world.38 The covenant was for dealing-with-sin-and-rescuing-people-from-it, on the one hand and bringing-Jews-and-Gentiles-together-into-a-single-family, on the other, always were bound up together, as they always were in Paul.39 God has at last brought His judgment into the world and history precisely in the covenant-fulfilling work of Jesus Christ, dealing with sin through his death, launching the new world in his resurrection, and sending his spirit to enable human beings, through repentance and faith, to become little walking and breathing advance parts of that eventual new creation.40 This covenant has created the single multi-ethnic family, constituted in the Messiah and indwelt by the spiritdesigned as God's powerful sign to the pagan world that Israel's God, Abraham's God, is its creator, lord and judge.41 Thus, justification for Wright is intimately related to sonship within the family rather than being36

Wright, Justification, 62, 63.37

Ibid., 52.38

Ibid., 80.39

Ibid., 78.40

Ibid., 222, 223.41

Ibid., 106.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification myopically focused upon the traditional Protestant legal paradigm (not that this is ever absent from his own interpretation, but only that it is one part).

Justification in Relation to Sonship As Wright understands it for Paul, justification, whatever else it included, always had in mind God's declaration of membership, and that this always referred specifically to the coming together of Jews and Gentiles in faithful membership of the Christian family.42 This is explicitly covenantal language rather than moralistic which is why he can state that justification denotes a status, not a moral quality. It means membership in God's true family.43 For Wright it is the faith of the individual which marks out those who now belong to him, to the Messiah-redefined family.44 The family paradigm as indicative of covenantal relationship is crucial. There is a single family, because this is the whole point: the one God, the creator, always intended to call into being a single family for Abraham. The single plan through Israel for the world has turned out to be the single plan through Israel's representative, the Messiah, for the world including Israel, and all those who belong to the Messiah now form the one promised family.45 The one family wherein Gentile and Jew are all one in the Messiah has come about through the single plan of God. This is the work of justification. God is now creating a worldwide family where ethnic origin, social class and gender are irrelevant, and where each member receives the affirmation you are my beloved children, because that is what God says to his son, the Messiah,42

Ibid., 96.43

Ibid., 100, original emphasis.44

Ibid., 97.45

Ibid., 109, original emphasis.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification and because as many as were baptized into the Messiah have clothed themselves with the Messiah.46 Wright conceives the future verdict to have been given concerning faith: righteous, my child.47 These declarations righteous and my child are understood to be the very terms of justification and they are best related through the indwelling evidence of the Spirit. Thus for Wright, he considers that we are now and forever part of the family to whose every member God says what he said to Jesus at his baptism: you are my beloved child, with you I am well pleased.48 As Christ received evidence of the Spirit at his baptism testifying to being the well pleasing Son of the Father, so the Spirit-endowed believers give Spiritual testimony to being well pleasing sons in the cry of the Spirit to the Father.

Justification in Relation to the Spirit The Spirit of the Son which we have received necessitates a doctrine of justification that is pneumatological according to Wright. The Spirit is the path by which Paul traces the route from justification by faith in the present to justification, by the complete life lived, in the future.49 [T]he spirit of the son (Galatians 4.6), the spirit of the Messiah (Romans 8.9), is poured out upon the Messiah's people, so that they become in reality what they already are by Gods declaration: God's people indeed, his children (Romans 8.12-17; Galatians 4.4-7) within a context replete with overtones of Israel as Gods son at the exodus. The extremely close interconnection of Romans 8 and Galatians 4 with the discourse of justification in the earlier chapters of both letters warns us against attempting to construct46

Ibid., 112.47

Ibid., 117.48

N. T. Wright, New Perspectives on Paul, in Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges (ed. Bruce L. McCormack; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 261.49

Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective, 148.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification a complete doctrine of justification without reference to the spirit. Indeed, I and others have long insisted that the doctrine is Trinitarian in shape. This is the point at which it is idle to complain that I, or others who take a similar position, are encouraging people to trust in anyone or anything other than the crucified and resurrected Savior. Is it wrong, or heretical, to declare that as well as and also because of our absolute faith in the crucified and resurrected Savior, we also trust in the life-giving spirit who enables us to say Abba, father (Romans 8.12-16) and Jesus is Lord (1 Corinthians 12.3)? Of course not. For Paul, faith in Jesus Christ includes a trust in the spirit; not least, a sure trust that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of the Messiah (Philippians 1.6).50 The relation of the Spirit to the work of present and final justification is left for his exegesis...though he says far less than one might like him to say on this subject. Wright proposes that Paul would have understood the reason Christ was made a curse for us (negative justification) was that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, and so that we (presumably Jews who believe in Jesus) might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (positive justification). This is to say that the promised anointed one of God became a curse, in accord with Deuteronomy, successfully passing through that curse into the time of renewal when the Gentiles would at last come into Abraham's family, while Jews could have the possibility of covenant renewal, of receiving the promised spirit through faith.51 When one trust's in the Holy Spirit within Trinitarian theology one is quick to say that this is not something other than trust in Jesus the Messiah, since it is his own spirit; the Father who sent Jesus is now sending the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4.4-7). But the point about the holy spirit, at least within Paul's theology, is that when the spirit comes the result is human freedom rather than human slavery.52 The Spirit of the Son is the spirit of freedom and

50

Wright, Justification, 85, 86.51

Ibid., 103, 104.52

Ibid., 164.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification liberation from sin and all of its consequences. It is thus the reception of the Spirit that means the justification of the believer into the freedom of new life or real life. True freedom is the gift of the spirit, the result of grace; but, precisely because it is freedom for as well as freedom from, it isn't simply a matter of being forced now to be good, against our wills and without our co-operation..., but a matter of being released from slavery precisely into responsibility, into being able at last to choose, to exercise moral muscle, knowing both that one is doing it oneself and that the spirit is at work within, that God himself is doing that which I too am doing. If we don't believe that, we don't believe in the spirit, and we don't believe Paul's teaching.53 It is not as if this cry of the Spirit, and this new life lived in the Spirit, is somehow other than that very life of the vindicated believer. [T]he spirit is the one through whose agency God's people are renewed and reconstituted as God's people. And it is by the energy of the spirit, working in those who belong to the Messiah, that the new paradox comes about in which the Christian really does exercise free moral will and effort but at the same time ascribes this free activity to the spirit.54 How might this be accomplished in Wrights system? It appears to largely be accomplished through the preaching of the Word (something which is inherent to all Reformed theology). Paul's conception of how people are drawn into salvation starts with the preaching of the gospel, continues with the work of the Spirit in and through that preaching, and the effect of the Spirit's work on the hearts of the hearers, and concludes with the coming to birth of faith, and entry into the family through baptism.55 While Wright has structured a certain continuum of the work of salvation, it is centered on the proclamation of the good news in Christ preached in the power of the Spirit.53

Ibid., 164, original emphasis.54

Ibid., 209, original emphasis.55

N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.B. Eerdmans, 1997), 125.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification [T]he preaching of the gospel, in the power of the spirit, is the means by which, as an act of sheer grace, God evokes this faith in people from Abraham to the present day and beyond. It is a mystery, but it is held within the larger mystery of that same overarching divine grace. Nobody can say Jesus is Lord (the basic Christian confession of faith) except by the Holy Spirit. When the word of the gospel is proclaimed, the spirit goes to work in ways that the preacher cannot predict or control which often take the hearers, and the responders, by surprise as well.56 How could this be conceived as anything different than the Abba, Father cry of the Spirit of the Son? Is this not the preaching of the Gospel by the Spirit in the mouth of the believing and vindicated community of faith? Or at the very least a cry of affirmation to that Word and by that very Word? In what sense should this be understood to be present (or future) vindication by the Spirit? Is it merely a hopeful cry or the certain cry of assurance? According to Wright, You cannot...have a Pauline doctrine of assurance (and the glory of the Reformation doctrine of justification is precisely assurance) without the Pauline doctrine of the spirit.57 Justification by faith is about the present, about how you can already tell who the people are who will be vindicated on the last day.58 Wright, however, makes a clear comment as to his understanding of future justification. It will truly reflect what people have actually done. He immediately explains that this in no way means they will have earned the final verdict or that their works will be perfect and complete, but that they are seeking it through that patient, spirit-driven Christian living wherein from one perspective it is entirely the work of the Spirit and from another it is

56

Ibid., 184.57

Ibid., 209, 210.58

Ibid., 211, original emphasis. He never does exactly explain how others might in the objective sense know those who have been received by the Father as justified by the Spirit in the Son. It seems to remain in the subjective realm of knowledge for believers as far as Wrights actual expositions are actually concerned (all his concluding claims to the contrary aside). Frank Macchia believes that through his motif of being justified in the Spirit there is a way through the typical subjective-objective divide of justification, see his Justified in the Spirit, 133, 215.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification the renewed and recreated humanity freely offering itself in obedience to the Lord.59 Wrights conclusion concerning Spirit reception and justification needs bearing in mind as we move on to discuss the critique offered by Piper and examine the pneumatological implications of his critique: What Paul says about Christians could be said about the doctrine of justification itself: if you don't have the spirit, you're not on the map.60

JOHN PIPERS REPLY TO WRIGHT AND ITS PNEUMATOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

John Pipers contention builds from his complaint about Wrights redefinition of justification and the fuzziness of it for many that he has encountered in pastoral ministry and the outcome he foresees for those who would pursue Wrights interpretation. Wright's way of speaking about justification will be virtually unintelligible to the average person in the pew as he or she tries to conceive how the word justify corresponds to family membership. They can certainly grasp that the justified sinner is also in the family and that only justified sinners are in the family, and being in the family is an implication of being justified. But to say that justification was about who was a member of God's family is going to mislead. It will obscure the denotative meaning of the word justify by calling one of its attendant implications a denotative meaning.61 Piper reminds the reader that the historic teaching is that justification is by faith, not the process of coming to faith.62 It has seemed to most interpreters of Paul that something decisive and once-for-all happens at justification. Justification is not a mere declaration that something has happened or will happen....Paul's words...mean that the justification does not bring about our knowing that we have peace with God but our having peace with God. In fact, it

59

Wright, Justification, 167.60

Ibid., 165.61

Piper, Future of Justification, 40fn6.62

Ibid., 41, 42.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification seems that the divine act of justification actually establishes the peace because in it God does not just declare but determines our new identity.63 It may even be likened to a new creation. Piper explains Wright's definition of justification as God's eschatological definition, both future and present, of who was, in fact, a member of His people.64 Piper defines righteousness (and by implication that which is just) as the unwavering faithfulness to uphold the glory of God rather than the faithfulness of God Himself.65 Pipers reply to Wright concerning the Spirit-wrought works of righteousness in relation to justification leads him to ask the following rhetorical question, What is the role, if any, of our Spirit-transformed behavior in forming the basis of the Judge's verdict?66 I find it troubling that Piper has phrased his question in this manner despite his conclusions regarding the necessity of guarding against a works based salvation even at the last. Is there no room for the work of the Spirit in the justification of the believer? Does not the Spirit work out the vicarious life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus in the life of the believer? The issue of justification in relation to the lordship and judgeship of Christ Jesus are (as Piper points out) not inherently matters of rejoicing, nor are they inherently good news.67 This is actually a message of fear and terror that one has been found wanting and faces judgment as unrighteous. It is actually a matter of the indwelling Spirit of the Son who cries Father and works our salvation out in the justification of the one accused as a sinner but found to be righteous in Christ that makes this news to be good. That is the good news.63

Ibid., 42, original emphasis.64

Ibid., 44, 104.65

Ibid., 64.66

Ibid., 74fn1, emphasis added.67

Ibid., 86-91.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification According to Piper, faith, calling, and justification are parts of one event that brings us from God's enmity to his acceptance. There is a logical sequence, but to say that justification only comes after we are 'in' would misrepresent Paul's treatment of justification as essential to the act of actually putting us in the right with God.68 He argues that justifying faith is also sanctifying faith.69 Our final justification is considered to have two foundations: Christ bearing our judgment and the Spirit working in us to produce the obedience to God.70 Piper further argues that these works will demonstrate the authenticity of faith that looks away from all selfwrought or Spirit-wrought obedience in us to the blood and obedience of Jesus as the punishment and perfection that God requires.71 Must one drive a wedge between that which is Spirit-wrought and that which Christ has accomplished? After all, is it not the Spirit which compels us to say Jesus is Lord? Piper seems set on guarding against all forms of legalism (whether hard or so-called softthe term he uses, but in the end he seems to suggest too far of a distinction between the work of the Spirit in the believer and the work of Christ that seems to lend itself to a bifurcation of a more robustly trinitarian theology of justification. Piper clarifies in his conclusion that the function of our own obedience flowing from faith (that is, our own good works produced as the fruit of the Holy Spirit) is to make visible the worth of Christ and the worth of his work as our substitute-punishment and substitute-righteousness. God's purpose in the universe is not only to be infinitely worthy, but to be displayed as infinitely worthy.72

68

Ibid., 98, original emphasis.69

Ibid., 114.70

Ibid., 121.71

Ibid., 149, original emphasis.72

Ibid., 185, original emphasis.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification Gods design is that the outpouring of the Spirit (Gal. 4:6) and the giving of life and the act of justification by faith be clearly attached to the work of Christ. That is why, until Christ came, God restrained the Spirit and the gift of life and the work of faith.73 In Pipers critique, he is quick to note the role of the Spirit as essential to the life of the believer, though he never explicitly states this as the work and presence of the Spirit. It is, however, the implication of his critique that the Spirits presence and activity are inherent to justification as one part of the single act of God putting all things right. So while Piper rejects Wrights notion of familial justification as declarative of those who are already in the family, he still adopts the language of belonging to the Spirit-wrought new creation. Wright simply carries the sonship motif as necessary to his overall understanding of justification, while Piper stays more with the traditional Protestant view of justification as a legal motif.

THE CRY OF THE SPIRIT IN ROMANS 8:15

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! (Rom 8:15) Turning at last to the cry of the Spirit in Rom 8:15, there may be some further aid for our understanding of preceding discussion of the covenantal and familial declaration of justification in accord with the Spirit. The Spirit enables Christians to share in the unique relation of the Son but it is not the good works of the Christian that make him a son of God nor is it his physical descent.74 This becomes clearer through recognizing justification as related to the cry of the Spirit. The Abba cry is confirmation of sonship, not merely in the reception of the73

Ibid., 199.74

E. A. Obeng, Abba Father: The Prayer of the Sons of God, ET 99 (1987-1988), 364.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification Spirit producing sonship but in the actual status as sons and daughters of God.75 Indeed, it can and should be argued that Paul believes it is the Spirit that puts life into believers and gives them a basis for spiritual kinship with God and thus any doctrine of justification lacking pneumatological emphasis is a doctrine of justification lacking altogether.76 Does Paul mean to specify by this passage that adoption has been enacted or only declared by the reception of the Spirit? Thomas Schreiners caution is noteworthy: The debate on whether the focus is on the act of adoption or the status of adoption is oversubtle (see Cranfield 1975: 398, Moo 1991: 537).77 He further argues that believers have truly received adoption but await the consummation and completion of that adoption at the day of their redemption.78 The adoption has been both enacted and declared by the reception of the Spirit and Paul may at one time (as seen in the exposition of Gal 4:6) emphasize one aspect over another. At another time he will put another forward. These are not to be considered in absolute terms, but in more pragmatic terms to emphasize the relation of the Spirit and Son in the justification of the believer. Whereas there is some sense of grammatical ambiguity in the text of Gal 4:6 (due to the conjunctive ) as to whether there is something other than the Spirit that might constitute sonship, yet Paul has cleared that up here in Romans 8. Spirit-led Christians are children of God. The gift of the Spirit constitutes the sonship, and it is thus the basis of the huiothesia.7975

Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Fortress Press: Minneapolis, MN: 2007), 500.76

Ben Witherington III and Darlene Hyatt, Pauls Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004), 217.77

Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (BECNT 6; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 425.78

Ibid.79

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 498, original emphasis.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification In relating the Spirit and justification it is really the relation of the Spirit between the Son and those who are declared and made sons. James D. G. Dunn writes that the Spirit is the Spirit of sonship precisely because it is the Spirit of the Son. That is to say, the Spirit for Paul links the believer directly to Jesus; the Spirit defines the person as Christian precisely by establishing this link. And it makes this plain by reproducing the prayer relation of Jesus himself with God in believers; like Jesus, believers cry Abba! Father!80 It is the vital dynamism of the Spirit [that] constitutes the sonship itself and bestows the power to recognize such status.81 However, Fee, correctly points out that whereas in Gal 4:6 Paul clarifies that adoption was secured for us by Christhere [in Rom 8:15] it has been made effective in the life of the believer through the work of the Spirit.82 Thus, for Paul, sonship is a thoroughly Trinitarian work attributable at one moment primarily to the Son and at another to the Spirit, but in both cases the Son and Spirit are intimately involved. The adoption into Gods redeemed family has been carried out by the indwelling Spirit of the Son and demonstrated by the prophetic voice of that same Spirit. It appears Paul is drawing on a widely available concept of adoption in formulating his thesis, which anchors the charismatic Spirit in the familial community of the early church.83 According to Ben Witheringtonand more than what Ernst Ksemann suggestsPaul believes that through the Spirit Christ has taken possession of believers lives and connected them with his exalted and glorified self by incorporating them into his earthly body of believers.84 Paul experienced the80

James D. G. Dunn, Spirit Speech: Reflections on Romans 8:12-27 in Romans and the People of God: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Fee on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (ed. Sven Sodurlund and N. T. Wright; Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999), 84.81

Fitzmyer, Romans, 501.82 83

Fee, Gods Empowering Presence, 566.

Jewett, Romans, 498.84

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification Spirit as freedom to express his faith in new and previously impossible ways, freedom to live at the level of person to person rather than of interpreter to written code.85 The justified communitythe Spirit-filled communitycrying out Abba, Father was empowered to live as sons of obedience through the assurance of their adoption. Like the pagan in 1 Cor 14:25, the congregation learns from the acclamation of ecstatics that God is present in their midst and that both to the whole and to the individual he gives assurance of sonship as participation in the basileia or kingdom.86 Ksemanns reading of Paul leads him to conclude that it is in freedom that we live as sons and do not live in a state of doubt as laid out in Romans 8.87 A doctrine of the Spirit which is not afraid of the catchword being carried off is the reverse side of the justification of the ungodly since it connects this with abiding in the reign of Christ in which as constant recipients we are under constant demands.88 James Dunn argues, The use of just the same phrase [Abba Father] in Gal 4:6 clearly indicates that it was an established formula in the churches known to Paul, but the repeated verb of intensity also implies that such intensity was a feature of the uttered phrase.89 However, the language of formula seems too strong. That it was representative of the deep-seated connectedness to the prayer of Christ as Son and widespread through the churches as such without being a particular formula or even formulaic should be granted. More to the point, Dunn

Witherington, Romans, 211.85

James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (Word Biblical Commentary Vol.38A; Dallas: TX; Word Books, 1988), 461.86

Ernst Ksemann, Commentary on Romans (trans. G. W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1980), 228.87

Ibid., 227.88

Ibid., 226.89

Dunn, Romans, 461.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification states, [Q]uite probably he [Paul] had in mind various occasions in worship marked by single or repeated ejaculation of the phrase.90 How this might be understood as a formula seems beside the point for Dunn.91 E. A. Obeng similarly argues that the krazein nature of the phrase as a short and soulful prayer constituted a complete utterance unto itself, but one with a baptismal setting.92 While he briefly mentions the possibility of this as a glossolalic prayer he just as quickly dismisses it.93 He also understands the witness as the testimony of our spirit with the Spirit of God and states, [T]he Christian must not only receive the Holy Spirit to become a Son [sic], he must also work with the Spirit to declare the sonship to the world.94 Jewett understands the cry of the Spirit in charismatic language terms as opposed to the sacramental view of Dunn and Oberg, noting that the nature of early Christian worshipwas much more enthusiastic and participatory than many modern churches.95 Joseph Fitzmyer states that the experience of the Spirit in the earliest Christian communities was dynamic and vital full of gladness and joy inexpressible with the implication being that the earliest churches joy

90

Ibid. It is certainly perplexing to explain the Aramaic portion of the cry in Greek speaking churches that apparently were in some way following the Abba cry of Jesus, but without formalizing it. See Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 121fn95. In Fees later work (Pauline Christology) he offers a more carefully considered argumentation, whereas in his earlier work (Gods Empowering Presence) he actually proposes this was the deeply fixed language of piety that led to the Abba, Father cry, Gods Empowering Presence, 412.92 91

Obeng, Abba Father, 364; though Fee (Gods Empowering Presence, 412) persuasively argues that the meaning of the term krazein and the parallel reference to it coming from the heart in Gal 4:6 suggest that for Paul a form of intimacy with God is involved (even a charismatic one) rather than a formal declaration with a baptismal setting.93

Ibid., 365.94

Ibid.95

Jewett, Romans, 498, 499.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification would find expression in a way not necessarily as formal as found in many modern contexts.96 What seems certain is that this feature was common in churches which Paul had both established and not established (the churches of Galatia and of Rome) and that this was an emphatic Spirit inspired cry recognized by the community as the communities cry of all having been received (both Jews and Gentiles).into the one family of God in the one Son.97 Frdric Godet believes it most likely that Paul was making a case for not fully enjoying the adoption of sonship (though one is a son by justification) until he has fully become loyally submissive to the operation of the Spirit.98 This makes for a less certain event and would seem to remove it from the sphere of justification and into the sphere of sanctification, but how he makes this move concerning sonship one is only left to wonder. Instead, Paul seems to propose a certainty concerning the adoption as sons as evidenced by the Spirit cry. It would be better to follow the conclusion of Gordon Fee that the presence of the Son by means of the Spirit of the Son actualizes our own sonship which was secured for us by Jesus death, resurrection and ascension.99 The adoption as sons is something that has happened and yet has its eschatological consequences.100 This eschatological dimension of justification and the cry of the Spirit recognizes the ongoing work which is both firmly established and yet sought after by the very being of God indwelling redeemed creation. The Christian cry is likewise the cry of the Spirit. The inspired Abba cry reveals that Christians are children of God and destined for glory.10196

Schreiner, Romans, 426.97 98

Fee, Pauline Christology, 217-219, 526, 531, 549.

Frdric Louis Godet, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1977), 308, 309.99

Fee, Pauline Christology, 590.

100

Fitzmyer, Romans, 497.101

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification The divine sonship is and remains an eschatological reality.102 For Paul, the confident articulation that God is ones Father stems from a certainty in the heart that transcends human comprehension.103 This cry of the Spirit is offered in the deeds of the body as well. Cranfield writes: This is what it means to live after the Spirit, to mortify by the Spirit the deeds of the body, and to be led by the Spirit of Godsimply to be enabled by that same Spirit to cry, Abba, Father. And it is here expressed not as an imperative but as an indicative: Christians do as a matter of fact do this. The implicit imperative is that they should continue to do just this, and do it more and more consistently more and more sincerely, soberly and responsibly. This is all that is required of them.Nothing more is required of us than that we should cry to the one true God Abba, Father with full sincerity and with full seriousness.104 Cranfield goes on to say, In the accomplishment of this work of obedience the is fulfilled (Rom 8:4) and in this: sonship, justification, and the Spirit cry are bound up in the finished work of the Son.105

TOWARD A SPIRITTRINITARIANTHEOLOGY OF JUSTIFICATION

Where to from here? Is the cry of the Spirit nothing more than a subjective ground by which one recognizes the community of those who are justified who are being declared as justified? Is there a sense in which the cry of the Spirit is also the objective declaration of the Father that indeed we are sons? Has there been any positive move towards a more

Ibid., 501.102

Ksemann, Romans, 227.103

Schreiner, Romans, 427.104

C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), 1:401.105

Ibid., 1:401, 402.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification pneumatological doctrine of justification whereby the Spirit might be recognized as working our justification? The familial/covenantal motif of N. T. Wright offers far more towards a Spirit theology of justification than the more traditional motif of the legal setting for justification. Where, however, might the Spirit be found in such a legal motif if it is not to be discarded (as it most certainly should not be)? In what sense might the indwelling and imparted person of God as the Spirit of God be related through such a motif?106 How should justice be done to the doctrine of justification as understood and articulated according to Scripture without doing an injustice to the person and work of the Spirit? Two theologians in particular may offer some helpful direction for us in conjunction with the forgoing exegesis of Romans and Galatians and the theological work of N. T. WrightKarl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Their reflections on Scripture and theology offer much in the way of careful exegesis and Trinitarian fullness and so we shall turn to them for some closing suggestions toward a fuller Spiriti.e., Trinariantheology of justification. Barth suggests the necessity and privilege of our justified praying in the Spirit of the Son to the Father. Bonhoeffer writes regarding the Christological and communal (Spirit-inspired?) word spoken aloud as our justification before the Father. I believe they both offer, in their own way, a further affirming word to the Church concerning the necessity of the justified (and justifying) cry of the Spirit. Karl Barth wrote in his Church Dogmatics concerning prayer and the relation of the Spirit and Christ: It is not a twofold but a single fact that both Jesus Christ with His prayer and also the Holy Spirit with 'unutterable groanings' is our Mediator and Intercessor. This can and must be said both of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit, and in both cases it concerns the one event of laying a foundation for prayer, i.e. for the cry, Abba, Father. It is HeJesus106

Macchia, Justified, 121-127, 131-185.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification Christ through the Spirit, the Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus Christwho makes good that which we of ourselves cannot make good, who brings our prayer before God and therefore makes it possible as prayer, and who in so doing makes it necessary for us. For Jesus Christ is in us through His Spirit, so that for His sake, praying after Him as the one who leads us in prayer, we for our part may and must pray, calling upon God as our Father. And the Spirit who frees us for this and incites us to the power in which we are with Him the children of God and are addressed as such, so that irrespective of what we ourselves can offer and perform we can call God our Father and go to Him with our requests.107 In other words, Barth proposes that our prayer, even (or perhaps especially) our Abba, Father cry is permitted, enabled and necessitated by the Spirit of the Son within us. There is a divine imperative wherein we are compelled by our justification to cry to our Father, but where we are also freed to cry and enabled to do so. This is the glory of our sonship whereby the Spirit within makes and declares us to be sons of the Father. This is also why Paul could both say that the cry of the Spirit is our cry and the Spirits cry. Neither contradicts the other, because there is a divine indwelling, enabling and compulsion of transformation towards the ultimate redemption of the sons (and of all creation) in the Son. These words also serve to remind the Church that while there may be an inward witness of the Spirit that we are indeed sons, Paul has gone to lengths to state this as a cry, and Barth recognizes it as that outward prayer and confession.108 The Spirit will always give evidence of sonship. By the indwelling Spirit of the Son, our prayers are necessary, though freely given. We cry Father! because we can and must. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his little work entitled Life Together wrote about the Reformed perspective of fremde Gerechtigkeit (alien righteousness) which in Luthers doctrine of

107

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.4, (Ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; Trans. A. T. Mackay and T. H. L. Parker; reprint; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010), 94.108

Fee, Gods Empowering Presence, 569.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification justification was extra nos (outside of us).109 He explained the need, based upon this doctrine of alien righteousness, for community and the spoken Word of Christ: If they are asked Where is your salvation, your blessedness, your righteousness?, they can never point to themselves. Instead, they point to the Word of God in Jesus Christ that grants salvation, blessedness, and righteousness. They watch for this Word wherever they can. Because they daily hunger and thirst for righteousness, they long for the redeeming Word again and again. It can only come from the outside. In themselves they are only destitute and dead. Help must come from the outside; and it has come and comes daily and anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing us redemption, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. But God put this Word into the mouth of human beings so that it may be passed on to others. When people are deeply affected by the Word, they tell it to other people. God has willed that we should seek and find Gods living Word in the testimony of other Christians....They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened....They need other Christians as bearers and proclaimers of the divine word of salvation.110 The extra nos righteousness of Luther, which Bonhoeffer has taken up, seems to fail to do justice to the justification of the believer in the Spirit in the very midst of the believing and confessing community. I believe Bonhoeffer has in some respects redeemed Luther in this (though Luther may in fact do so himself) by reminding the Church that we speak the Word of God as righteousnessone to another. We confess the forgiveness of sins as fully granted. We are a community that is redeemed and redeeming, justified by the Spirit which cries aloud Abba, Father! that others may hear, believe and take heart. Let this be the cry of the gathered worshipping community full of the Spirit of the Son confessing the Father as our father.111 Let us confess, hear, believe and take hearttogether having been justified that we may also be glorified with our Lord Jesus Christ.

109

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Prayerbook of the Bible (Ed. Geffrey B. Kelly; Trans. Daniel W. Bloesch and James H. Burtness; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 31fn10.110

Ibid., 32.111

Fee, Gods Empowering Presence, 409, 410.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. 14 vols. Edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance. Translated by A. T. Mackay and T. H. L. Parker. Reprint. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010. Betz, Hans Dieter. Galatians: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1979. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together, Prayerbook of the Bible. Edited by Geffrey B. Kelly. Translated by Daniel W. Bloesch and James H. Burtness. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996. Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Galatians. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1982. Cranfield, C. E. B. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. 2 vols. The International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975. Dunn, James D. G. The Epistle to the Galatians. Blacks New Testament Commentaries. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993. . Romans. 2 vols. Word Biblical Commentary. 38A-B. Dallas: TX, Word Books, 1988.

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. Spirit Speech: Reflections on Romans 8:12-27. Pages 82-91 in Romans and the People of God: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Fee on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Edited by Sven Sodurlund and N. T. Wright. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999. Fee, Gordon D. Gods Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994. . Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 33. New York: Doubleday, 1993. Godet, Frdric Louis. Commentary on Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1977. Jewett, Robert. Romans: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007. Jeremias, Joachim. The Prayers of Jesus. Studies in Biblical Theology. Second Series 6. Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1967. Ksemann, Ernst. Commentary on Romans. Translated by G. W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1980. Longenecker, Richard N. Galatians. Word Biblical Commentary 41. Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990. Macchia, Frank D. Justified in the Spirit: Creation, Redemption, and the Triune God. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010. Martyn, J. Louis. Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible Vol. 33A. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Obeng, E. A. Abba Father: The Prayer of the Sons of God. The Expository Times 99 (19871988): 363-66 Piper, John. The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007. . The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993. Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament 6. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998.

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Rick Wadholm Jr., N. T. Wrights Justification Witherington, III, Ben. Grace in Galatia: A Commentary on Pauls Letter to the Galatians. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998. Witherington, III, Ben and Darlene Hyatt. Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004. Wright, N. T. Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009. . New Perspectives on Paul. Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges. Edited by Bruce L. McCormack. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006. . The New Testament and the People of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God Vol.1. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992. . Paul: In Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005. . What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.B. Eerdmans, 1997.

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