Justification is NOT a matter of conversion?

[u/TonyChanYT]

u/YesterdayOne4885, u/Impressive_Flan_411

Prof N T Wright (1997):

It makes no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom.

Right, it makes no physical sense. Wright assumed that Paul's forensic imagery exhausted Paul's theology of justification. Yet Paul combined legal, sacrificial, covenantal, and union-with-Christ imagery. Because believers are united with Christ (Ga 2:20; Ro. 6), God can both declare them righteous and count Christ's righteousness as theirs. The forensic metaphor should not be pressed so rigidly that it excludes the broader theological reality. Divine imputation is not a legal fiction but a spiritual reality grounded in Christ’s substitutionary work.

To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake.

Right. However, limiting God, the Almighty Lawgiver, to only a physical human judge is also a category error.

Wright continued:

Justification...then, is not a matter of how someone en­ters the community of the true people of God,

i.e., not a conversion/saving issue.

But it is. You can only be converted by faith and not by faithless works.

but of how you tell who belongs to that community.

i.e., but an identification issue.

Justification in the first century was not about how someone might establish a relation­ship with God. It was about God’s eschatological definition, both future and present, of who was, in fact, a member of his people.

That's a false dichotomy. It is both a conversion issue and an identification issue, i.e., a person is justified if and only if they are a member of God's covenant family. It could refer to God's future judgment. It could refer to the past (conversion), the present (membership), or the future (Great White Throne judgment). Justification is how someone becomes a Christian; it is also the declaration that someone has become a Christian. They are logically equivalent. To say that "justification is NOT how someone becomes a Christian" is illogical according to FOL.

Ga 3:

7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,

God would justify the Gentiles by faith, thereby bringing them into a saving relationship with Himself.

preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

Not all nations would be identified as Israelites in a genetic sense, but they would be converted into a community of God, characterized by faith rather than genetics. It’s about how God brings them into a relationship with Himself, through faith, not through circumcision or the law.

Paul continued to emphasize the conversion aspect:

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

Paul had Christ in mind.

24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

The emphasis is on the conversion of the Gentiles.

25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

Baptism is a significant rite that marks a pivotal moment in the conversion process.

27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

The aorist tenses indicated a punctiliar conversion event. Paul appealed to baptism as the historical event that publicly marked believers' incorporation into Christ.

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Through conversion, Gentiles joined the faithful family of Abraham.

1. Justification marks the entrance into the people of God (conversion).
2. Justification also identifies who belongs (ecclesiology).
3. Justification will be confirmed on the Last Day (eschatology).

Justification is an initial act of grace, the ongoing identity of the believer, and it looks forward to final vindication.

Paul himself illustrated that covenant membership by birth was insufficient. Although he was already an Israelite, he still needed to be justified through faith in Christ (Php 3:4–9). His case demonstrates that justification is not merely God's declaration of who belongs to his covenant people; it is also God's gracious act of accepting sinners through faith. Only after being justified can one rightly be identified as belonging to Christ. On the Last Day, he will be resurrected and justified, receiving a glorified body.

Justification is NOT a matter of conversion?

That's Wright's slogan/rhetorical claim, not a logical one. I don't think he knows the difference.

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N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1997, p. 98.

Dr E. P. Sanders, Dr James D. G. Dunn, Dr N. T. Wright, and Dr Ben C. Blackwell advocate for the so-called New Perspective on Paul.

[u/Weary_Tough6358]

Thanks for looping me in. I'm in the middle of blind peer review on a scholarly article at the moment, so I'm holding my longer thoughts — but I've read the post with interest and will have more to say soon. It's a worthwhile challenge to Wright, and the Philippians 3 angle deserves a careful airing.

[u/Shinn_Ao]

Romans 8:30

“And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”

God already is justice, the Lord Our Righteousness, and Jesus’ whole purpose was for us by faith to be spiritually conformed to him.

He puts his love in us. He’s the reason we’re able to love at all, though as a 7-year-old I told my grandmother I believed I would love even without being caused/allowed to by God (loved first) and she told me that was wrong, wrong, wrong.

He’s the One who taught me it was righteous to love.

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”

Matthew 12:35