Justification and Community

NT Wright has become famous, or notorious, for suggesting that justification is a declaration concerning one’s membership in the community of God. In his 2006 book Justified before God (Abingdon), Methodist theologian Walter Klaiber describes the Hebrew court situation in a way that makes sense of Wright’s claims:

In declaring someone “righteous,” Klaiber argues, a judge simultaneously declares him innocent before the court and does “more than that. Quoting HJ Boecker, he says “‘By it, the accused is recognized as a bona fide member of the community.’ For the ancient Near Eastern person, ‘this public recognition of his rightful place in society is indispensable’ [here quoting K Koch]. The very existence of anyone who becomes enmeshed in a legal process is threatened. The task of the judge is to ‘establish a person who is not guilty of transgressing community norms as being faithful to the community and [to] once again publicly grant him his rightful place in the community’” (Koch again).