When Wright is Wrong. Phillip D. R. Griffiths. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Phillip D. R. Griffiths
Издательство: Ingram
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Жанр произведения: Религия: прочее
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isbn: 9781532649219
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God the Father gave a people to the Son (John 6:37–39), and it was for these that Christ carried out his redemptive work. All those whose names are written in the book, as it were, are those for whom Christ suffered and died. This is why, even before our union with Christ in time, Jesus could justly suffer for his people’s sins because the union that exists between him and his people makes him liable for his people’s sins and righteousness.

      One also needs to take into account that in the death of Christ the Father was not an entirely separate being, an onlooker, so to speak. He was not like the human judge who remains distanced from the acts of the accused. The Father too suffered in the death of Christ. This is something of a mystery; one that lies in the union that exists between the persons of the Trinity. One must, of course, avoid modalism, which teaches that the one God can appear in three different modes, where the Son can become the Father etc., this leads to patripassionism, a teaching which maintains that it was the Father who died upon the cross. I point this out because it is often not taken into consideration when human analogies are used in speaking about Christ’s sufferings. For example, Wright, in criticising the human categories of the law court metaphor does tend to caricature the analogy, not sufficiently expressing the limits of such language, the fact that it can at best be compared to looking through opaque glass into the mind of God.

      Justification should not be viewed in isolation from the believer’s union with Christ. They must go together. The idea of a judge somehow walking across a courtroom and giving something of his own to the defendant is, to say the least, liable to misunderstanding. It is at best a somewhat imperfect attempt to capture an aspect of what justification involves. Wright overplays the human aspect, not alluding to the fact that God’s courtroom is very different from that of which we are familiar with. Talking in human terms, if I do a good work for someone else, say, serve a prison sentence so that the person in question does not have to, I will always remain external to the person. This is not what happens in justification. The believer is in possession of Christ’s actual righteousness because he is in Christ. In my simple example, for it to bear any resemblance to justification, one would have to say that not only did I serve the prison sentence, but that the person on whose behalf I did so must be looked upon by the appropriate authorities as if he actually served the sentence with me. This could not occur because, unlike with the relationship that exists between the believer and Christ, there cannot exist the necessary union between us. So, of course, righteousness cannot be given to one who is external from the giver; it can, however, become one’s very own in virtue of a person being made at one with him who possesses the righteousness. This is why the apostle keeps using the phrase “in Christ,” it is because of being “in him” that the believer possesses all that belongs to him. Our union with Christ and our resulting justification exist in a dimension unavailable to human courts in that it is the result of the Spirit’s supernatural activity whereby we are engrafted into Christ, where we possess all that he achieved in his redemptive work.

      Furthermore, in a human court, if the judge pronounces a guilty criminal innocent it is because he has made a mistake. It is a mistake based on his lack of knowledge about the crimes of the accused. This, however, cannot happen in God’s law court because God is omniscient. He will never acquit the guilty. If he did he would be a very unjust judge. That he does so is entirely because of the fact that when he looks upon the sinner he sees Christ’s righteousness and sacrificial death. He sees this rather than the sinner because the sinner is in Christ’s body; flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. One does not separate Christ, the head from the body, and neither must one separate justification from union with Christ.

      Again, Wright does not see justification as a one-time past event in the believer’s life, but simply the first of two justifications. So while acknowledging the believer’s present justification, he emphasizes an eschatological aspect or a future justification. Although one may be considered as presently or provisionally justified, with the final verdict being brought forward, one’s works now begin to play a role. They do so to the point where one’s future justification will be based on these works, on the life one has lived. He is essentially applying to the Christian what Sanders said about Israel, where God by his grace rescued Israel and placed her within the land; having done so he made her continuance in the land dependent upon works, in a similar manner the believer is placed in the covenant community, but abiding there depends on his works.

      Continuing Exile and the Law

      Although there is no longer any need for typical Israel, humanity’s exile under the covenant of works has not gone away. All people remain, unless they believe in Christ, under God’s condemnation because of their transgressions and sins.

      It was only a minority from within the nation, the remnant, who saw beyond the various sacrifices and believed in the one promised. Only these knew justification. The country they looked forward to in faith was a different country from that promised to earthly Israel. They desired a “better country, that is a heavenly country: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city” (Heb 11:16). They looked not