MetaCatholic

(This is the second post of a series on Michael Bird’s The Saving Righteousness of God. The first post can be found here)

Chapter 2 of Bird’s book focuses on the meaning of righteousness, a topic on which much has been, is being and will be written, now and possibly unto the age to come. It is perhaps in this chapter that I felt Reformed dogmatics were coming closest to pulling Paul out of shape. In particular, I see the whole debate about imputed and imparted righteousness as an interesting historical argument, which may have had its own proper context, and been perfectly appropriate in its day, but which has (I think) nothing to do with the historical Paul. I’m with Wright when he observes that judges do not hand their righteousness over when passing judgement.¹ Bird himself doesn’t think this should be a major issue, and is inclined to leave imputation primarily to the systematic sphere.

On other debates he is, I think broadly right to see that relational and norming concepts of righteousness cannot be split apart (pp10-12). I am less sure about his view that forensic and transformative understandings are “linked logically rather than conceptually” (p18), though I think he is right to see, and work with the linkage that does indeed exist. I think in part that we disagree about how language works. Bird does seem to me to operate more with the idea that “words” have” meanings” whereas I work more with the idea that lexical units have semantic fields. Consequently, I think that the denotative meaning of a lexical unit is the least it brings to the sentence party, while its connotative meanings come along as expansive family and friends. The denotation thus shifts around, depending on context, and one or other connotation in one context may come to the foreground as denotation in another. One result of this is that I find greater fluidity and less need for fixedness in determining how different meanings interplay. It is, however, more a difference of emphasis, because Bird remains very attentive to context.

The main section of the second chapter is a whistle stop tour of interpretations around the idea of righteousness as covenant participation. Like him, I do not see apocalyptic eschatology and covenant theology as in opposition, though instead of finding links only in Paul’s underlying narrative world (p31 – a very Wright-ian theme that I’m not fully persuaded of) I would tend to see apocalyptic as providing a myth, and a language with the aid of which Paul thinks through his covenant theology and narrative. Bird is convincing (and I hope convincing to others) on holding the personal and the corporate together, the salvific and the ecclesiological. What I personally would have liked to see more about here is the undercurrent of theodicy that also runs through Paul’s argument, that this is to prove God is righteous (Rom 3:25-26).

I’m not going to say much about his third chapter, except that his emphasis on the importance of resurrection for justification is, in my view, vital and well-argued, nor much about chapter four except these brief remarks Unfortunately, imputed righteousness returns to the fray, although Bird does usefully show a range of views amongst the earlier Reformed tradition. That said, he actually argues for what he calls “incorporated righteousness.” As far as I know² this is his basic term, and he argues for it from a number of passages. I found this a very helpful way of looking at Paul’s argument, one that does justice to a number of themes, and one that offers a meeting ground for the old and new perspectives. My only qualification — and this is an idea I’m slowly working towards, is that there is, I think, also something that might be called mimetic righteousness. Incorporation into Christ by the Spirit actually invites faithful participation in his faithfulness, by which means his righteousness becomes mine.

What this section of the book shows is that working with the disagreements and tensions between different views can be done creatively and not polemically, and it is part of what makes a sometimes dense argument quite refreshing.

1. N.T. Wright What St Paul Really Said Lion 1997, p98. As an aside I note that I stopped using Wright’s book as an introductory text for a course for lay people precisely because he too gets bogged down in the ins and outs of this argument. What surprised me was that even those from evangelical churches had only a hazy grasp of the Reformation doctrine, and getting into those issues only got – in my view – in the way of getting into Paul. Apparently there are a number of evangelical churches where musical style is the article by which the church stands or falls. [↩]
2. and p70 n46 also suggests this [↩]