Channels, Fall 2016

Channels • 2016 • Volume 1 • Number 1 Page 33 system. However, this only demonstrates that the law-court analogy cannot be taken to the extent that Wright takes it. It does not establish the necessity of Christ’s external or passive righteousness to be imputed into the believer. This leads us to the second observation. There are different passages in Pauline literature that address the idea of Christ’s right- eousness being given to the believer (2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:9; I Cor. 1:30), but the most con- vincing one is found in Romans 4:3-8, in light of the context of Romans 3:21-26. The New Testament scholar, D. A. Carson, argues that Paul’s discussion of “justification” in Romans 3:21-26 indicates that God justifies the ungodly by setting Christ as the propitiation for their sins. He affirms, “In short, the flow of the argument is not affirming that God credits something intrinsic to us or properly earned by us or reflective of us to be our righteous- ness, but it is arguing that God counts us righteous, even though we are ungodly, by crediting faith as such righteousness—that is, faith in the justifying God who justifies the ungodly by setting forth Christ as the propitiation for our sins. Thus God credits us with a righteousness we do not have. 54 Carson continues by saying that, in the same way that God credits faith to Abraham as righteousness (4:3, 9), he also credits righteousness apart from works to the ungodly (4:6). 55 In addition, Simon J. Gathercole makes an interesting observation in his exegesis of Romans 4:6-8. He explains that God’s justification of David “apart from works” has two components that can be seen metaphorically as two sides of a ledger that records both sins and righteousness. 56 Both Paul and David understood that true blessing consists of having one’s sin forgiven, covered, and “nonreckoned.” (4:7-8). However, this happens simultane- ously with “God’s positive reckoning of righteousness on the other side of the ledger.” Where there was no righteousness, David was without works, God “creatively counts right- eousness (4:6).” 57 This is Paul’s explanation and theology concerning God’s justification of the ungodly. A “Both-And” Approach Undoubtedly, the NPP has contributed immensely for the advance of biblical scholarship. To deny the importance of the works produced by Wright, Dunn, Sanders, and many others regarding Pauline studies is essentially a tragedy, since they are crucial for a right under- standing of the Apostle and his theology. For this reason, there are generally three princi- ples derived from the NPP scholarship that certainly guide the believer to a better knowledge of the Scriptures, and they ought to be emphasized here. First, the NPP method 54 D.A. Carson, “The Vindication of Imputation: on Fields of Discourse and Semantic Fields,” in Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates, eds. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier (Downers Grove, IL: InterVar- sity Press, 2004), 61. {expound here} 55 Ibid., 63. 56 Simon. J. Gathercole, Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1-5 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002), 247. {expound here} 57 Ibid., 248.