Justin Taylor Interviews Doug Moo about Galatians

Over at TGC is a great interview by Justin Taylor with Doug Moo. They talk about how Doug came to Christ, his Galatians commentary, his future writing projects, but also how Moo changed his mind on justification.

Moo now argues that for Paul, justification is both now and not yet. Whereas in his Romans commentaries (all  three of them or five if you count one volume Bible commentaries) he argued that justification for Paul was initiatory and a present experience. But in Galatians, while there is also a definitive justification by faith, there is also a final justification that Paul urges his audiences to press on towards. Moo’s remarks are quite interesting and in the comments in the post is a lot of paranoia that Moo has gone Wrightian or even Catholic … ooh …. aah!

I read a lot of book reviews and I remember very few of them. However, I do remember James Meek’s review of Guy Waters and his exasperation with Waters’ claim that seeing justification as now and not yet leads to a “two-staged event” which is bad (see JETS 48.3 [2005]: 653-55). Meeks  retorts that the same view was held by Hermann Ridderbos, Geerhardus Vos, G.E. Ladd, and I would add Leon Morris, Michael Gorman, Richard Gaffin, and Tom Schreiner. The ultra-Reformed paranoia that ascribing a present and future aspect to justification means packing up one’s bags and moving to Rome has left me with more frustration that trying to explain the LBW rule in cricket to an American.