works righteousness and the NPP

a few years ago i was heavily into the teaching of men like n.t. wright and dwight pryor and, as a result, came to be an adherent of the so-called 'new perspective on paul'.. at the time i sort of brushed over the controversy surrounding it simply because i wasn't reformed and i could never understand some of their doctrines (like predestination etc. - which especially abhorred me).. since that time i have found a massive respect for the reformed tradition and would now consider myself a calvinist - john piper being instrumental in my mini-conversion (his work on romans 9 especially) as well as jonathan edwards, who i consider to be one of the greatest theological and philosophical minds to have ever lived.. there is a beauty and a glorious nature to the reformed doctrines of grace and it has a very systematic way of approaching the scriptures which appeals to a mind like mine.. but since that time the whole new perspective controversy has reared its head again with john piper writing a book in response to n.t. wright's theory of justification and, now wright is in turn writing a response to piper/carson etc., i've started looking at some of the issues again in light of what i've learned since i originally came across the new perspective..

at the moment i just want to look at the question of legalism and the way the reformed tradition considers paul to be attacking 'works righteousness' in his letters (especially romans & galatians).. i have to admit i still find it hard to accept that jews in the first century had a 'works righteousness' mentality and i still think its a caricature of judaism in general.. personally i think e.p. sanders' covenental nomism is still more or less correct - that jews were in the covenant by God's grace and mercy alone and they didn't have to 'earn their salvation'..

just looking at the old testament (or the tanakh) it seems obvious that jews never saw the law (hereafter Torah, due to 'Law's' somewhat negative connotations) as some kind of burdensome task that the Lord had made them accept (see Psalm 119: 'O how i love your Torah, i meditate on it all day''), nor does it make sense to say that God rescued Israel out of slavery in Egypt and took them to Mount Sinai in order to once again enslave them, this time to the 'Law' and its onerous requirements which they needed to keep in order to remain in covenant with the Lord.. it makes God look like a harsh taskmaster and makes his relationship to Israel look like a kind of abusive marriage..
according to Sanders convenental nomism says that Jews were already in the covenant with the Lord by his mercy and grace and the precepts of the Torah were supposed to be a joyful response to this grace.. they weren't earning their place in the covenant by doing any works, they were simply responding as any thankful Jew would to God's saving acts of the past..

this now leads to the question as to what Paul was referring to by 'works of the law' in his letters.. James Dunn's study of second temple Judaism lead him to the conclusion that 'works of the law' doesn't mean good deeds done to earn your salvation.. instead it means more or less covenental 'boundary markers' that show who was 'in' the covenant of Israel (kashrut/dietrary laws, sabbath observance and circumcision were the three main things that seperated Jews from their pagan neighbours).. these boundary markers had become something of an issue of pride for Jews of the first century, who used them as a kind of corporate boasting against the pagan nations..

Paul, then, is objecting to Jews (both believing and, according to scholars like Mark Nanos, also non-believing) requiring Gentile believer to take up these 'works of the law' in order to be considered a part of the covenant.. instead, as far as Paul is concerned, all they need to be a part of the covenant of Israel is faith in Jesus the Messiah of Israel - they don't have to become ethnic Jews..

the interesting thing is as far as i can tell John Piper more or less actually agrees with all of this - he doesn't believe God asked for works righteousness from the Jews.. he seems to think that, though the Law wasn't about earing your own salvation through works, it had nevertheless been turned into such a thing by the first century and so, in effect, Paul was talking about works-righteousness after all and so 'works of the law' does refer to such legalistic acts of righteousness trying to earn covenant.. what piper seems to be responding to mostly, however, is n.t. wright's reformulation of what righteousness and justification are.. wright has a more eschatological and corporately minded/ecclesiological view of it, while piper has in mind the more traditionally reformed individualistic and soteriological reading..
i'll try and look at this issue in more depth in another post..