Ben. Union with Christ seems to be a huge theological concept for all three Reformers, one that sometimes seems to threaten to swallow up other aspects of Christology, and theology in general not to mention the theology of the sacraments. Since medieval theology also had such a concept of union with God in various ways, why is this such a big emphasis for the Reformers? Stephen. Their intention was never to oppose tradition just because it is tradition but to... Read more

Ben. Because of the medieval Catholic theology of ‘merit’ an awful lot of energy is expended by these Reformers on refuting the idea that our good works earn merit, or that anything we could do could fall into the credit category in so far as it could contribute to our salvation or justification. The problem with this is that the NT says nothing about merit, and it says quite a lot about rewards for good works (e.g. 1 Cor. 3).... Read more

Ben. Your critique of Wright and Campbell especially, in regard to their misunderstanding of the Reformers seems right on target. In some respects, they have mistaken later Calvinism and Lutheranism for Calvin and Luther. What would you see as their gravest errors either in their evaluation of the Reformers, or their evaluation of Paul? Stephen. I think that because the NPP was reacting against the so-called “Lutheran” interpretation of Paul it is the figure of Luther that looms larger in... Read more

Ben. Calvin has always struck me as the most exegetically grounded and systematically clear of these three Reformers, however much I might differ from him on this and that. In some cases, he appears to be cleaning up some of the mess Luther left behind because he wasn’t consistent. At the end of the day, what do you see Calvin really adding to the conversation about justification, Christ’s righteousness, sanctification, the free will of human beings that we have not... Read more

Ben. The discussion by Luther and Melanchthon on the meaning of ‘en auto’ in 2 Cor. 5.21 is interesting. ‘en’ (plus the dative) can mean many things other than ‘in’. It can mean for example ‘by’. Furthermore, ‘auto’ can mean it rather than him. So for example in Rom. 1.17 it probably means the righteousness of God is revealed in it (i.e. in the Gospel), not ‘in him’. And in 2 Cor. 5.21 it could certainly read ‘and the one... Read more

Q. Of the three Reformers you focus on, the one who seems nearest the mark to understanding Paul, in my view, is Melanchthon. He talks about both the forgiveness of sins associated with ‘justification’ and also the real change in the believer worked by the Holy Spirit. But even he gets confused it seems when he thinks of the former in terms of legal language. So let’s be clear— being pardoned is not the same thing as being declared righteous.... Read more

Ben. Have you read Chad Thornhill’s excellent book The Chosen People? In it he shows how Paul should be situated within the early Jewish discussion of election, which is one thing, and salvation which is another. Election is a corporate concept ‘in Israel’ and then ‘in Christ’ and does not guarantee the salvation of particular individuals. And furthermore, often election is just about being chosen for a particular historical purpose like Cyrus ‘my anointed one’ in Isaiah. It says nothing... Read more

Q. One of the major confusions of the Reformers, it seems to me, is making the mistake of equating initial ‘justification’ with ‘final justification’ at the return of Christ. And the reason for this mistake is that there is a nearly complete failure to recognize that in Paul there are three tenses to salvation— I have been saved, I am being saved (working out my salvation as God works in me to will and to do), and I shall be... Read more

Ben. Let’s deal with a terminological issue briefly. Erasmus got his forensic or imputation idea about dikaiosune from reading the Greek in light of reading the Latin Vulgate, not from profound study of the semantic field of the Greek. Calvin in particular, being a lawyer, fell right in line with this law court use of the language. But the word dikaiosune means righteousness, over and over again in Greek literature. It normally has a moral not a juridical sense and... Read more

Ben. It seems clear at least to me that when Calvin says our sin was imputed to Christ and his righteousness was imputed to us, based on a (mis)reading of 2 Corinthians 5, and when he also talks about us putting on the robe of Christ’s righteouseness, that he is saying something Paul himself is not saying. Early Jews didn’t talk about imputed righteousness, they talked about actual righteousness. When Dan. 12.1-3 speaks about the righteous getting the good resurrection... Read more