Law

Perhaps the central dogmatic/systematic challenge raised by the New Perspective on Paul is the claim that Paul’s concerns about “Law” do not have to do with an eternal, unchanging expression of God’s righteousness but with the contingent and temporary institutions and regulations of the Mosaic order. This really does challenge a central conviction of Protestant Orthodoxy, one that Gerhard Forde has explored in his 1969 The Law-Gospel Debate . (I’ve heard reports that this was one issue that Richard Gaffin focused on in the recent Auburn Avenue conference with N. T. Wright). Further, J.I. Packer (in his doctoral dissertation) identified different conceptions of law as the background issue between Baxter and his opponents: Whereas orthodox Calvinists saw the law as “the permanent, unchanging expression of God’s eternal and unchangeable holiness and justice,” which “requires perfect obedience from mankind, on pain of physical and spiritual death, and confers salvation and eternal life only upon those who perfectly obey it,” Baxter instead believed that “God’s justice is merely a rectoral attribute, a characteristic quality of His government, and His laws are no more than means to ends. Like all laws, they may under certain circumstances be changed, if the desired end is attainable by other means” (quoted from Hans Boersma’s study of Baxter’s doctrine of justification).

It is possible to affirm both the NPP and Protestant Orthodoxy if one generalizes from Paul’s concern with Israel’s failure to keep Torah to a more general concern with humanity’s failure to please God. Even on the most contextualized reading of his letters, Paul appears to do that at times (Rom 1, eg). At least, centering the debate regarding NPP on this issue helps to clarify what is at stake.