The New Perspective on Paul

The Faith and Thought blog has an excellent synopsis on the "New Perspective on Paul." If you don't know much about the New Perspective (NP), I really recommend that you read this synopsis before continuing on here.

To synopsize the synopsis, the New Perspective is a response to studies in Judaism, notably E.P. Sanders's Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that indicate that first century Judaism was not legalistic in the technical sense meant by Luther and the other Reformers--a system of law by which an individual would attempt to earn salvation. If this is true, then it follows that the classical Protestant understanding of Romans and Galatians is faulty, since the Reformers viewed Paul as struggling against precisely this sort of legalism, which the Reformers considered to be analogous to their own struggle with the medieval Roman Catholic Church. According to the New Perspective, first century Judaism understood that God's choice of Israel was completely by grace; keeping the Law only kept one in the covenant; it didn't earn one's way into it.

I first learned about the NP from my days at Gordon-Conwell. I should stress that it was one of my favorite professors, Dr. T. David Gordon, who introduced me to the New Perspective in his classes on Galatians and Romans. This is important to note because Dr. Gordon was (probably still is) an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of America, extremely Reformed in his thinking, and consciously in the tradition of the Reformers and English Puritans. He has one of the most logical minds and sharp wits it has been my pleasure to encounter. The New Perspective has been attacked popularly because it is seen to undercut the Reformed understanding of justification, and thus to undercut the core beliefs of the Reformers. Dr. Gordon is evidence that one can be fully Reformed in one's thought, subscribe to the New Perspective, and remain logically consistent. There is nothing in the New Perspective that contradicts the ideas of Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistable grace, or Perseverence.

I feel that it is important to lay out the foundation that the New Perspective is not inherently anti-Reformed, in order to set up a counterpoint: although the New Perspective does not, by itself, contradict traditional Reformed theology, it does offer an insight into the development of that theology, and perhaps an insight into how misunderstandings of key scriptures led to Reformed theology taking the particular shape it did. It is my conviction that the key passages that are used to support Calvinist distinctives were misunderstood by Luther and the Reformers, leading to an over-individualized view of election as well as to an overly passive view of how an individual enters into salvation.

Next in the series: The New Perspective and the Development of Reformed Doctrine.

Tags: new perspective, divine election