Critiques of NPP

NPP writers generally hold that Paul was in agreement with the main points of contemporary Jewish soteriology. His quarrel with the law and Judaism was not with legalism as articulated by the Protestant Reformers, but with either the Jewish denial of Christ as Messiah (Sanders’ position) or, as in the case of Dunn and Wright, that Judaism was dominated by ethnocentric tendencies. These tendencies were influencing Jewish Christians over against Gentile Christians. In this case Paul was not exercised about matters of salvation—at least not directly. Being the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul was concerned with the burning question of how Gentile Christians were to be accepted into the church. In his original context, then, Paul addressed his teaching of justification by faith at the problem of racial and religious/ethnic segregation. Salvation was not the issue. ! Since Paul is not, or at least not primarily, using “justification� to address the problem of salvation by works, it follows that justification cannot be thought of as an element of soteriology— or least not as central to the gospel. The question that Paul is considering in the matter of justification is not “How can I be saved?� but “How can I be in or know that I am in the covenant people of God?� Justification is now thought to be less about soteriology and more about ecclesiology.We recognize that this summary of the NPP is extremely brief, but it captures the core of the NPP. What is evident about the NPP is that much rides on how we understand the soteriology of first century Judaism. (RCUS Synod Report)