To appreciate the significance of Wright's book, we must go back to the publication of E.P. Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977, which exploded like a bombshell in Pauline studies by demonstrating that Protestantism has consistently misinterpreted the Judaism of Paul's day. Most evangelical Christians are still unaware of Sanders' work and "the new perspective on Paul" with which New Testament scholars have been grappling ever since. But like most meaningful scholarly discussions, the positive insights of "the new perspective" are certain to filter into the church's collective consciousness as the issues are tested, weighed, and confirmed by the teachers of the church.

To date, most books on "the new perspective" have largely been inaccessible tomes prepared for the seminary classroom. However, with the publication of Wright's little book What Saint Paul Really Said, the church at large now has access to the best insights from contemporary Pauline scholarship. I highly recommend it as one of the most useful introductions to the topic, as it puts into proper context the works of E.P. Sanders and others while simultaneously retaining the integrity and theological consistency of Paul's writings. But Wright goes far beyond that, spelling out for us in clear and lucid terms what "the new perspective" means for our interpreting and applying Paul's writings today.

Wright's focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul's gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord (pp. 45,88,113,114,151). The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel's expectations. Romans 1:3,4, not 1:16,17, is the core of Paul's message to the Romans, contrary to traditional thinking (pp. 52-54,126). Justification is not the center of Paul's thought, but an outworking of it:

Wright brings us to this point by showing what "justification" would have meant in Paul's Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God's faithfulness to his covenant.

Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul's autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel's land for peace. Wright writes:

When Saul became a Christian, Wright contends, he maintained the Jewish shape of his doctrine, but filled it with new content. The zeal of Saul the Pharisee was now the zeal of Paul the Apostle; God's covenant faithfulness (righteousness) with regard to His people was indeed fulfilled, in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah.

Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather "the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God's people" (p. 94) after they had responded to the gospel message.

Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism "from within" even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God's covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.

At this point Wright carefully documents Paul's use of the controversial phrase "God's righteousness" and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is "justified" cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is "righteous" if his judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is "righteous" if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:

However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul's theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God's love (p. 110).

Wright then goes on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The "works of the law" are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather "sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision" (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:

The debate about justification, then, "wasn't so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church" (p. 119).

Commenting on Philippians 3:9, another key text, Wright points out that it is:

Similarly, in Romans 3:27:

Properly translating the doctrine of justification into contemporary terms, Wright notes with irony that this doctrine, which was principally concerned with unity and acceptance in the body of Christ regardless of social barriers, has been one of the most divisive doctrines in the history of Christianity, particularly between Catholics and Protestants who have interpreted it as a question of precisely how salvation is to be attained (pp. 158,159). He also draws out the social implications of a gospel in which Jesus is proclaimed as Lord over all things (including "politics," pp. 153-157,164) and which will not allow for a rugged individualism. "The gospel creates, not a bunch of individual Christians, but a community. If you take the old route of putting justification, in its traditional meaning, at the centre of your theology, you will always be in danger of sustaining some sort of individualism" (pp. 157,158). Hence Wright destroys the artificial distinctions between spiritual piety and social concern.

Lastly, Wright concludes the book with a chapter considering A.N. Wilson's book Paul: Mind of the Apostle, arguing contra Wilson that Paul was not in fact the founder of Christianity, but rather the faithful herald of Messiah Jesus.

At once sweeping and incisive, Wright's book makes great strides in the muddled waters of Pauline scholarship. My only criticism is that in his sweeping style of writing and thinking, Wright comes up short on subtlety at points. For example, in his chapter on christology, Wright seems overly eager to read back Nicene categories of thought into Paul. Nevertheless, overall What Saint Paul Really Said is a book that will challenge the reader in an exciting quest to understand better the meaning of the New Testament and how it ought to be used in the church today.

Mark M. Mattison