It’s a subtle semantic, but it’s a necessary discussion, as Jesus needs to stay as the central tenet of Salvation.

So if this is what Wright is saying, I would agree with Wright (even though I like Piper) because the central core of salvation and the Gospel is the person of Jesus Christ, not the justification of the believer. Although the justification of the believer clearly happens, it is only because, within, and due to the person of Jesus Christ and WHO He is, and what HE did.

Really? I’m pretty ignorant of the Reformation, but I’m well versed in the early church fathers, and it’s pretty obvious that Reformed theology looks nothing like the theology of the ECFs… unless perhaps by the ECFs they mean “Augustine only, and no one else”? And modern writers that want to see their Reformation theology in continuity with Augustine tend to overstate the similarities by twisting Augustine’s views.

As far as Wright’s escaping of the imputation/impartation debate, I think there’s more to be said. Wright attempts to escape the debate by saying (my paraphrase) “Paul himself does not mean either of those terms by the words he uses, but is talking about the judge’s own righteousness”. Wright sees Paul saying that the just judge pronounces righteousness. But this thrusts him straight back into the imputation/impartation debate as soon as you ask Wright “well, on what grounds does the just judge pronounce the person righteous, and in what way does the judges’ declaration make them righteous?” It seems to me that in such a system there are three options.
1) The person is either actually a morally unrighteous person or actually a righteous person themselves before the judges comes to make a pronouncement. If they are actually righteous and the judge pronounces them righteous as a result, then the judge is recognizing their righteousness.
2) If the person is morally unrighteous then they could be made actually righteous through having the righteousness of Jesus and/or God imparted to them through the Spirit. Thus the just judge can pronounce the righteous because they have actually been made righteous.
3) If the person is morally unrighteous, then they could have the fictitious legal righteousness of Christ imputed to them, leading the court to declare them legally righteous when they are not morally righteous.

Piper seems to think that Wright has gone for the invalid fourth option of saying that the allegedly just judge declares righteous for no good reason a person who is not righteous in any way. The judge in this situation simply acts wrongly and unjustly, acquitting the guilty. Now I have absolutely no problem with the concept of God giving forgiveness out of pure mercy (indeed, I firmly believe he does), but if this is what Wright is actually saying (which I am not convinced it is, but Piper seems worried it is) then we have to question the notion that the judge is actually acting justly in this instance by acquitting the guilty.

By the by, I firmly hold to option 1 that Paul’s talk of the righteousness of God is referring to a standard of righteousness that God accepts and recognizes as righteous. (There is no particular reason to think any law-courts are involved in this though… apart from the Reformers’ predispositions to see law-court language everywhere in Paul due to their Latin translations when there is in fact virtually none in the Greek.)