I strongly suspect that this article will strike many of you in differing ways. Some of you have been profoundly influenced theologically by N. T. Wright. Your response to what I will say may be quite negative. Others who have been confused and bothered by some of the things Wright has written will applaud my concerns. In either case, I only ask that you give my comments a fair hearing.

 My first exposure to Wright came in the form of a short book titled, The Grace of God in the Gospel (Banner of Truth, 1972, 192pp.). Wright was one of four contributors to the book (the others being Philip Gardner, Michael Sadgrove, and John Cheeseman). What may surprise many is that the volume was a rigorous biblical defense of five-point Calvinism. The book has been completely revised and issued as the product of one author, John Cheeseman, titled Saving Grace: An Introduction to the Christian Gospel (Banner of Truth, second edition, 2024).

 Wright subsequently pulled his name from the book as he gradually departed from a strict Calvinistic understanding of the gospel. If you can get your hands on a copy of this short volume in its original printing, do so. It is actually quite good.

 I have been greatly helped by Wright in several of his books. Perhaps the most influential is his volume, Jesus and the Victory of God (Fortress Press, 1997). His treatment of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 is alone worth the price of the book. I also profited from his short volume, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (InterVarsity Press), and often required it as a text when I taught at Wheaton College. The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress Press, 2003, 817pp.) may be the best defense of the bodily resurrection of Jesus ever written. I have also enjoyed his Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (Harper One, 2008). What I enjoyed most is his emphasis on the new heavens and new earth as the eternal home of God’s people.

 There are a few other books by Wright that I’ve found helpful, but I’ll stop with these.

 So, what leads me to issue this “cautionary” word about Wright?

 First, his endorsement of what is known as the New Perspective on Paul is extremely bothersome and carries with it a subtle threat to the integrity of the biblical gospel. If you are not familiar with this, here is a brief summary.

 Advocates of the New Perspective argue that for the past 500 years or so, following the lead of the Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther (d. 1546), most have read Romans as a treatment of individual soteriology. Paul’s focus, so Luther believed, was the gracious provision by God of the righteousness of Jesus Christ to those who believed, thereby making it possible for the sinner to be restored to a right relationship with God.

 As articulated by such scholars as Krister Stendahl, E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N.T. Wright, the “new perspective” places more attention on the tense relationship between Jew and Gentile. Stendahl was the first to popularize the notion that the focus on individual salvation was more the result of the excessively introspective conscience of western culture than anything that Paul himself envisioned. Thus, it isn’t so much soteriology that concerns the apostle as it is ecclesiology. The most pressing question isn’t how to gain entrance into the people of God, but what are the markers that identify those who already are, and how might they remain in the covenant. Sanders insists that the Jews of Paul’s day were not legalists and did not believe in salvation by works. The covenant God had established with Israel was rooted in grace and based on divine election. If the Jews obeyed the law, it wasn’t in order to get saved but to stay saved. Entrance into the covenant was by grace. Obedience to the law was necessary to remain within that covenant. In sum, notes Craig Keener, Sanders

 “argued that nearly all of ancient Judaism affirmed that Israelites as a whole were graciously chosen as part of the covenant, and remained members of the covenant unless cutting themselves off through apostasy. Judaism was thus a religion of grace, and works confirmed rather than earned a place in the covenant” (Commentary on Romans, 5-6).

 Thus, the works of the law (Rom. 3:20, 28; Gal. 2:16 [3x]; 3:2, 5, 10) that play such a prominent role in Paul’s theology were, purportedly, not legalistic deeds performed apart from God’s gracious enablement, designed to merit salvation, but were markers or badges of Jewish national identity and privilege, such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, and dietary regulations. Works of the law, therefore, were not viewed by Paul as a way to get in but a way to keep Gentiles out. It is this ethnic exclusivity that Paul seeks to address and overcome by stressing that faith in Jesus alone grants entrance into the covenant community. For a helpful and ultimately persuasive response to this understanding of “works of law”, see Thomas R. Schreiner, “’Works of Law’ in Paul,” NovT 33 (1991): 217-44.

 Without in any way wishing to diminish the importance of multi-ethnic unity in the body of Christ, I remain convinced that Paul’s primary aim in Romans is to address the question of how one might be reconciled to God. I should also point out that it is misleading to trace this view to the sixteenth century and Martin Luther. The fact is that virtually every prominent theologian and commentator on Romans prior to Luther likewise saw the letter’s primary purpose as an articulation of the gospel and the manner in which God has declared us righteous through faith in Christ alone, thereby securing for us the forgiveness of sins and reconciling us to himself. Stephen Westerholm has done an excellent job in documenting the perspective of those preceding Luther, even when they differ on their views of divine election and divine sovereignty and the relation of the former to free will. See his Romans: Text, Readers, and the History of Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022). Among those cited by Westerholm as defending the traditional perspective on Romans are Origen (185-254), Chrysostom (347-407), Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428), Theodoret of Cyrus (393-460), Pelagius (354-420), Augustine (354-430), Peter Abelard (1079-1142), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), John Wyclif (1330-1384), William Tyndale (1494-1536), John Colet (1467-1519), Erasmus (1466-1536), Martin Luther (1483-1546), Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), John Calvin (1509-1564).

 Wright’s endorsement of the New Perspective has led to a new and misguided understanding of justification by faith, as seen in his book, Justification: God's Plan Paul's Vision (InterVarsity Press, 2016, 279 pp.). Wright’s argument has been thoroughly refuted, at least in my humble opinion, by John Piper in his book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright (Crossway, 2007, 239 pp.).

 In his treatment of justification Wright pushes against the notion that the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed/reckoned to us through faith. This is deeply disturbing. It leads to a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel itself. Says Wright: “’The gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved” (What Saint Paul Really Said, 133). Again, “Justification is not how someone becomes a Christian. It is the declaration that they have become a Christian” (ibid., 125). One more should do: “I must stress again that the doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’” (132).

 This perspective on “the gospel” is sufficient reason to be suspicious of Wright’s overall theology.

 There are several issues in Wright’s theology that I find bothersome. His view of biblical inerrancy is slippery at best. When pressed to articulate whether or not he believes the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts, he is somewhat evasive. He takes the same approach when launching his critique of all things dispensational. By the way, I’m no fan of dispensationalism, as you know. But when pressed on whether or not there will be a rapture of living saints at the time of the Parousia, he is again evasive. He decries, and rightly so, the idea that Jesus is coming back to take all his people back into heaven for all eternity. But he never, at least so far as I can tell, affirms that a literal translation of the saints, what Paul refers to as being “caught up . . . in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17), will occur.

 Of even greater concern is the way he hedges his bets on the issue of penal substitutionary atonement. There are in some of his earlier writings references to PSA, but these give way to a greater emphasis on Christus Victor in more recent years. Yes, Jesus defeated Satan and the powers of darkness when he died and rose again from the dead, but only because he first suffered and satisfied (propitiated) the wrath of God on behalf of those whom Satan held in bondage.

 I’ve also noticed how he fudges on the question of eternal conscious punishment. I don’t hear him denying outright the reality of hell, but the way he reconceives the notion of God’s justice in punishing all unbelievers gives me pause. So, again, my concern is with the way Wright gets fuzzy about certain doctrines that I regard as the hallmark of biblical Christianity.

 You may wonder why Wright has moved in this direction. I may be wrong, and he may well push back on me if/when he hears this, but I believe it has largely to do with his disdain for American fundamentalism. And by that I don’t mean exclusively theological fundamentalism, but also what he describes as the “ultraconservative (as it seems to a Brit) policies in society, government, and foreign policy” (Surprised by Scripture, 27). American fundamentalism, especially in its earlier expressions, was sadly characterized by cultural withdrawal, political isolationism, separationism, legalism, and a “circle-the-wagons-and-wait-for-the-rapture” perspective on how life should be lived, often with an angry and judgmental tone toward all who might ever so slightly deviate from its views. There is a sense, then, in which I tend to agree with Wright’s reaction, but that is no warrant for blurring the boundaries of the theologically foundational truths embraced by most fundamentalists.

 Wright simply doesn’t like the emphasis in American fundamentalism, or in the broader American evangelical wing of the church, on individual salvation. He pushes back against the emphasis on the work of Jesus to secure for each believer the forgiveness of sins and the status of being justified by faith alone. He doesn’t explicitly deny the latter, but tends to focus more on God’s purpose in and through Jesus to redeem the whole creation and restore the order of all that was lost in the fall. I certainly don’t deny the latter emphasis, but neither am I willing to overlook or deny the centrality of personal salvation. No, it’s not solely about “me and Jesus and going to heaven when I die,” but the gospel most assuredly does address that urgent need.

 The bottom line is that I sense Wright’s disdain for all things Republican and politically conservative. He is as concerned (perhaps more so) about the Christian’s impact on society and the environment as he is about the Christian’s eternal soul. He doesn’t deny the importance of the latter’s relationship with God, but his focus is increasingly on the former.

No, I have never met N. T. Wright in person, aside from sharing an elevator with him at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society years ago when he debated Tom Schreiner on the subject of justification. But I’ve heard him speak many times in person. His eloquent, British accent alone can easily lead one to the think of him as smarter than everyone else.

 I suspect that some of you may be frustrated that I have not addressed other points of emphasis in other books of Wright. I understand your reaction. But I never intended this to be an exhaustive response to everything he believes or has written.

 Am I suggesting that you cease reading his books or listening to him? No. He still has great insight into things we all need to hear. But read with a discerning eye and ear. Be alert to places where he seems to talk around questions rather than answer them. Be wise, and sift what he says. I’m happy to call him my brother in Christ, and wish him well. I also pray that he will return to a more explicitly robust Pauline (Augustinian/Lutheran/Calvinistic/Evangelical) view of the gospel.