. . . the insistence on an ‘infallible’ or ‘inerrant’ Bible has grown up within a complex cultural matrix (that, in particular, of modern North American Protestantism) where the Bible has been seen as the bastion of orthodoxy against Roman Catholicism on the one hand and liberal modernism on the other. Unfortunately, the assumptions of both those worlds have conditioned the debate. It is no accident that this Protestant insistence on biblical infallibility arose at the same time that Rome was insisting on papal infallibility, or that the rationalism of the Enlightenment infected even those who were battling against it.2
If, as Wright tries to show, the divisions that exist between Protestants and Roman Catholics concern nothing more than a misunderstanding regarding external boundary markers, then ecumenical unity becomes a real possibility. If it can be shown that we are all members of one family and that the doctrine of justification by faith alone concerns ecclesiology rather soteriology, there is no reason why Protestants and Catholics should simply acknowledge each other as brothers and sisters in the one Faith. Wright informs us that:
Many Christians, both in the Reformation and the counter-Reformation traditions, have done themselves and the church a great disservice by treating the doctrine of ‘justification’ as central to their debates, and by supposing that it describes that system by which people attain salvation. They have turned the doctrine into its opposite. Justification declares that all who believe in Jesus Christ belong to the same table, no matter what their cultural or racial differences.3
Error does not enter the church wearing a slogan pronouncing its aberrant teachings, no, all too often a large proportion of what is taught may be correct, yet on the back of this, usually in a slow piecemeal fashion, hijacking aspects of truth, error percolates into the church’s inner sanctum. The result has been incalculable damage, with many weaker Christians becoming confused and depressed, and in some cases, even leaving the church. In my own country of Wales, the so-called land of revivals, one only needs to compare church attendance today with what it was as little as twenty years ago. There seems to have been an inexorable seepage, to the point where many once-thriving meeting places4 (churches) have been converted into comfortable houses, bingo halls, or even mosques. Although it is not possible to know how much of this is the result of false teachings, these have certainly played a part, denuding the word of God of its life-changing power.
Many evangelicals have become loath to even consider sharing and defending their faith, in the words of David Wells:
Modernity has been hard at work reducing evangelical faith to something that is largely private and internal. Belief has shrunk from being a contemporary confession of God’s truth in the church and beyond to being simply a part of personal identity and psychological makeup. Many evangelicals quietly assume, perhaps even without much thought, that it would be uncouth and uncivil to push this private dimension too noticeably or noisily on others or into the public square.5
This reluctance, coupled with a marked degree of ignorance, has made the church vulnerable, serving only to facilitate the entry of aberrant teachings.
It is, therefore, imperative for the church to be ever vigilant, always prepared to test every teaching against the benchmark of Scripture. Unity must never be at the expense of sound doctrine. Unfortunately, this warning is to a large extent going unheeded. Half-truths are in fashion, where many Christians speak of love at the expense of wrath, mercy at the expense of justice, and declare peace, peace, where there is no peace. They eschew anything negative and, believe, quite wrongly, that they are following in the footsteps of Jesus when what they have effectively done is open the door to a multitude of erroneous teachings. In their quest for unity, at almost any price, the nature of what constitutes the church has been undermined.
To counter this we need to bear in mind the words of Donald Bloesch, “In our striving for church unity, we must not lose sight of our mandate to counter doctrinal error, for nothing subverts the cause of unity more than a latitudinarianism which signifies giving up on real church unity in favor of mutual tolerance.”6What the apostle said to the Corinthians is certainly applicable for today’s church: “For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough” (2 Cor 11:4).
One of the most worrying trends in the modern church is the fascination with novelty. Jude spoke of the Faith that was “once and for all delivered,” yet many hanker after that which is considered “new,” believing themselves to have discovered something that previous generations had missed. Perhaps this interest in novelty is the result of an anxiety caused by dwindling numbers, and the apparent lack of enthusiasm shown by many that do regularly attend church. I fear that all too often the desire to more effectively communicate with our post-modern world is causing many to embrace beliefs and methods that are unscriptural.
The sad truth is, as Wells puts it: “The evangelical world, in fact, is now coming apart because its central truths, what once held it all together, no longer have the binding power that they once had and, in some cases are rejected outright with no following outcry.”7 We need to realize that new is not necessarily better and that we should follow the old and tested paths rather than those newly hewn paths that, in spite of their enticement, ultimately lead away from the true gospel of Christ.
From the Gnostics in the early church to the liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries, heresy has taken many forms. In just the last few decades we have witnessed, amongst other things, New Covenant Theology, The Emerging Church, Federal Vision, and its close relative, the New Perspective(s) on Paul. What makes these particularly dangerous is that they are being put forward and defended by those with evangelical credentials.
It should be stressed that the perpetrators of these new teachings are not consciously seeking to discard the old, rather, they earnestly believe in what they are doing. Erroneous doctrine is held, usually, by honest and very conscientious believers, and one should bear this in mind when attempting to refute their teachings. For example, N. T. Wright is not putting forward his novel understanding of the apostle Paul’s teachings because he wants to cause controversy, but because he genuinely believes his position to be the right one. One must not, as many evangelical Christians have done, think of the new perspective8 as something of marginal importance. It represents a paradigm shift, one that changes the entire complexion of Pauline theology, and, of course, this affects one’s understanding of the entire Bible.
To date, most of the works critiquing the new perspective have been written from a Presbyterian/paedobaptist position. I, however, want to approach it from a Reformed Baptist stance. In so doing I will seek to show that the new perspective on Paul has misidentified the true Israel, confusing the old and new covenants and has consequently attributed what belonged to spiritual Israel, that Israel within Israel, to carnal or ethnic Israel. I will also seek to show, in keeping with previous critiques, only from a Reformed Baptist position, how the NPP embraces aberrant views on doctrines that touch the very heart of what we Reformed evangelicals believe, for example, the way it undermines justification by faith alone, denying the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, and takes issue with what we believe Paul meant by “the works of the law” etc.
Being a Reformed Baptist does not mean that I do not make use of works produced by Reformed paedobaptists. Indeed, the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession is in almost all aspects identical to the 1647 Westminster Confession, differing only in regard to covenant theology, church government, and the rightful recipients of baptism. So, whilst I very much disagree with the Reformed paedobaptist position in regard to the covenants,9