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Judgment & Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul

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VanLandingham asks us to put aside our confessional spectacles and to take seriously the plain meaning of St Paul's teaching about the final judgment. When we do so, he argues, we will discover that Paul believed, just as his Jewish contemporaries believed, that "an individual's behavior during his or her lifetime provides the criterion for this judgment: good behavior is rewarded with eternal life, bad behavior with damnation." Paul may have differed with his fellow Jews on precisely which deeds where proscribed, permitted, or required; but he remained thoroughly Jewish in his conviction that the final judgment was based on deeds: "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified" (Rom 2:13). VanLandingham therefore denies that the justification that occurs at the beginning of Christian existence is properly understood as a proleptic experience of the final judgment--God's eschatological judgment let loose in history, as one of my professors liked to put it. Paul, VanLandingham insists, consistently distinguishes between the two justifications.

I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that if VanLandingham's exegesis of the Apostle Paul stands up against critical scrutiny, it will initiate a revolution in Pauline studies. Given my lack of competence in Greek and New Testament studies, I am unable to offer any judgment on the matters addressed; but I am impressed by VanLandingham's thoroughness. Clearly he knows well the Scriptures and the intertestamental literature, as well as the secondary scholarship.

What are the consequences for the various Christian traditions should VanLandingham's exegesis prove sound? The Catholic and Orthodox traditions will have no problem absorbing his exegesis, since it basically confirms the consensual exegesis of Paul in the first millenium. Arminians, too, should be able to receive his exegesis, given their affirmation of salvation as synergistic process, yet it will still require some significant adjustments on their part. But VanLandingham's book represents a direct attack on the fundamental positions of the Lutheran and Reformed traditions. If he is right, the Lutheran and Reformed confessions are wrong, plain and simple. No longer will Lutherans be able to proclaim that the Scripture teaches that believers experience the eschatological acquittal in the present moment of faith. No longer will Reformeds be able to declare that the Scripture teaches the forensic imputation of Christ's righteousness to the believer.

This book is must reading for all students of the Apostle Paul

I don't care about our "confessional spectacles" mentioned by the other reviewer. Prior to Van Landingham, I have never been totally happy with either the Reformed Perspective or the New Perspective on Paul, because neither position supports a plain reading of the Bible in totality. This book shows in a very methodical, rational, manner with convincing arguments from both biblical and ex-biblical texts in early Judaism, that grace was given because of Abram's faith, that "justification" was never meant to be forensic, as NPP asserts, that it is not about being declared righteous in the final judgment, but rather "to be made righteous" (transformed), here and now, so that the beginning of salvation is by faith, but the final judgment is by works, from a transformation that God enables through a genuine faith relationship with God. It makes a lot of sense. Suddenly, when you ditch what we have been taught (Reformed view) that we have so taken for granted for and start to take the Bible at face value, Van Landingham's interpretation makes the most sense.

This is not to say that Luther, or even the NPP, was "wrong". Rather than looking at "right" or "wrong", perhaps we should give the Holy Spirit more credit than is due Him. In the time of Luther, the grace theology WORKED. At a time when most people believed in God but was trying to earn their salvation, Luther's theology drew people closer to God with genuine faith, setting many free from the oppression of the clergy. Today, when many Christians have gone quite the other way, sitting on a false sense of "assurance of salvation", so perhaps God has raised up theologians such as the NPP mob and now Van Landingham, and perhaps there'll be others too, with a basic message that, "hey, it's not about you going to heaven, but about being a light unto the world, fulfilling God's mission". Each view will be useful for a different group of people. NPP might be good for the lukewarm Christians with little fruit. Van Landingham's post-NPP view might be good for preaching the good news of transformation.

In an age where people don't even believe in God's existence, a message of salvation = going to heaven is both irrelevant and unfruitful, whereas a theology of "faith that works" will be more attractive to non-believers and seekers and will draw more people into the knowledge of Jesus Christ. I believe the Holy Spirit has been at work in our theologians to fulfill His purpose and we haven't even acknowledge Him!