Am I misreading Wright here?

BTW: I do not believe Wright is putting forward a works based righteousness but I did say that he has perhaps opened the door for performance to creep in as a basis of salvation. I like your point about how the “old perspective” is also in danger of a subtle works based righteousness, which that perspective has opened the door to.

Agreed that we should work hard at intentionally keeping our unity but how does this look in CT? Also I am not sure I agree with you in saying “in ways where we have opportunity” In SA today this is an issue we should be actively, intentionally seeking ways to be practically be united and to express our unity in the gospel… This is what Cape Town will see and experience as good news, i.e. the gospel that works.

Racial reconciliation:
I think the talk given at our Synod recently was right in saying that there is only one race, is correct. Biblically we are of the same parents. Ethnicity is another thing.

In Christ our ethnic, gender and economic status is … well, we are one new person in Christ.

So, the world of differences should rightly belong in Christ – the only acceptable human before God – if there is to be any true reconciliation pleasing to God.

What I am saying is that because the Gospel demands that we realise our oneness, we should work hard at intentionally keeping the unity we have in the Spirit. Demonstrating it in real ways where we have opportunity.

Justification by faith:
I think we should just be a little careful of the Justified by faith doctrine that leads to an ethical cul-de-sac.

What the Evangelical Church could inadvertently be preaching is a man-centered Gospel which still smacks of the self-centeredness we were supposed to be saved from. It’s about me and me getting to heaven free of charge. But I suppose I should do some good stuff in the meantime ….

A God-centered Gospel concerns God and His Kingdom and his mission to renew all things through the Man Jesus. Those who see that they are selfish and careless as people in God’s world, destroying themselves and others and in danger of God’s righteous judgement, repent from their wrong thinking and turn to follow Jesus as disciples of God’s will. In doing so, they eagerly call on him to forgive them and begin that renewal in them, or they remain part of the old creation destined to be destroyed.

Faith in Christ and being part of the people of God is not a passive thing in the Bible. It is a change of allegiance from my will to God’s will. A seeking to lose one’s life for Jesus and the Gospel … or we can have no part in Him – quite radical!

NT Wright:
I don’t think Wright is talking a ‘works’ righteousness, but a righteousness that is only found through faith. Once a person exercises faith in Christ, they are included in Christ, and that is where they are found to be righteous (Eph 1).

On the ‘performance issue:
To be included in Christ by faith means we enter the life of the Spirit of Christ which bears the fruit and signs of a real faith, not a dead faith, as in James (although only in taste of the fullness of the future). We become witnesses of the Spirit’s work in us as a people of grace. That is the only performance there is that I can see … and that is a co-operation with the Spirit … who actually does the work.

Wright would agree that we will fail, but this does not disqualify us, but forces us to look back at the cross and thank God that he will get us there. However, if there is no participation in the Spirit of Jesus we should be concerned (not to say we are not saved).

What I am not convinced of his effectively equating justification with ecclesiology (doctrine of the church/people of God). I think that justification is the basis of our ecclesiology, hence the arguement in Roamans and Galatians where the ecclesiology is bad he takes them back to the gospel.

There is also a faint echo I get but cannot quite put my finger on it that Wright has opened the door for performance as a basis for being put right with God by saying that justification in the present is by faith in the future vindication of God’s people. Wright would not say this but there is something about this that makes me uneasy.

btw, Wright sees Justification not so much as something you get, like salvation, but an identity.
The identity is God’s people. You are justified if you are God’s people.
But who are God’s people who are right before him? Only Christ (the new Israel) and those who have died and are alive again and are included in Him (their new identity).
How are we included in Him? By faith.
What does that faith look like? It is a people who recognise in Jesus all that God is about in the world, and trusting in Him, are being shaped by the Spirit to participate with Christ in His mission and be that one new human community in Christ.