New Perspective on sin
“Nothing is plainer than that Paul sets his gospel over against all the doings of the carnal man, and not against the expectant but faithful Jew.”
Excerpt from Called To Be An Apostle
Sermon by Doug Wilson, Nov 25, 2008.
“In our overview of the entire book of Romans, we noted that chapter one showed the Gentiles were under sin, chapter two showed the Jews under sin, and chapter three showed them both up to their necks in the same kind of sin. This is important for us to note at the beginning of this book because the gospel set forth here is a gospel that liberates the nations from wickness, evil, sin, mortality, and so forth. This will be important for us to understand when we get to chapter seven, and Paul’s description of himself there as a representative Jew, but it is also important for us to see the nature of Saul’s conversion to Christ rightly. Otherwise, we will get everything confused. For now, we need to see that the gospel directly addresses what preachers in another era used to call sin.
Paul is grappling with all ungodliness and unrighteousness (1:18), vain imaginations (v. 21), vile affections (v. 26), a reprobate mind (v. 28), along with envy, murder, deceit (vv. 29-31). There is much more than this. Among the Jews, Paul was concerned about hypocritical double standards (2:1), hard and impenitent hearts (v. 5), thievery (v. 21), adultery (v. 22), and much more. Put them both together, and no one does good (3:12), they have throats that are open sepulchres (v. 13), full of cursing and bitterness (v. 14), and no fear of God at all (v. 18). Nothing is plainer than that Paul sets his gospel over against all the doings of the carnal man, and not against the expectant but faithful Jew.
One of the more serious errors found in what is called the New Perspective on Paul is that it tries to put these moral issues on the back burner, and make the central thing a question about the boundary markers of Torah–circumcision, sabbath-keeping and other marks of Jewishness. But it is entirely inappropriate to background the moral issues or to soft-peddle them in any way.
I was once speaking to a leading theologian in the New Perspective on Paul, and I asked him what Zacharias and Elizabeth would have thought of Saul if they had met one another, in this “blameless according to the Law” condition. He replied that they would have thought that Saul was something of a hothead and he needed to cool his jets a bit, but they would have thought of him as a faithful covenant member. But this backgrounds the moral issues and makes the only distinction whether or not one understands that Jesus is the Messiah.
In this view, when Luke tells us that Zacharias and Elizabeth were blameless according to the Law (Luke 1:6), and when Paul says something that sounds similar (Phil. 3:6), they must be referring to the same thing. But this is plainly false. Zacharias and Elizabeth were conscientious and faithful old covenant members, looking forward to the Messiah as did also all the prophets, Simeon, Anna, and our Lord’s mother. Luke is praising them in Luke 1:6. When Paul describes himself as blameless, he is obviously being sarcastic at his own expense. He was only blameless according to the externals. There was a deeper problem.
Paul refers to his previous ‘blamelessness’ as so much dung (Phil 3:8), and wants us to know that those who were still holding to what he used to hold to are dogs, evil workers and flesh mutilators (Phil 3:2). Saul of Tarsus held himself to have been an awful man before his conversion. He describes himself as a chief among sinners (1 Tim. 1:15), as a blasphemer (v. 13), and insolent (v. 13 NKJV). When Christ appeared to him on the Damascus road, He was showing great kindness to a vile man. He was the same kind of man that Caiaphas was–the kind of vile man that has been running the establishment for much of the world’s history. He was not like Zacharias and Elizabeth at all.
Christ delivered Paul from much more than an overly sentimental attachment to the boundary markers of the old covenant. Why were the Jewish leaders so attached to the old covenant boundary markers? Because they were evil. Unless this is understood, the book of Romans will never be.
The prophet Jeremiah describes those who would say peace when there is no such thing. He talks about those who heal the wound of the people lightly (Jer. 6:14; 8:11). We naturally flinch from any treatments of the wound that really get down to business. A great deal of contemporary scholarship on Paul is dabbing around the edges of humanity’s gangrenous wound with a damp washcloth, not really wanting to admit the obvious. To change the metaphor, the solution will be to take the book of Romans like whiskey–straight. Let the gospel make you cough and catch your breath.
Christ Jesus was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead. The fact of death reveals that we are dealing with no minor problem. The measures that God took to save us indicate the greatness of our dilemma. God Himself took on flesh and dwelt among us, born into the line of David. This was not to help us figure out how to dispose of our phylacteries.
The gospel is for the nations, and not just for individuals as individuals. But let us never try to hide from the holiness and graciousness of God by taking refuge in some corporate shelter.
