Indeed, has Paul Really Said?

Chapter 4: The Righteousness of God and The Whole Counsel of God

Our detailed analysis of Wright's efforts to present a new persective on Paul, along with the term righteousness, has been important, but there is a broader discussion that is needed. What Wright does to the theology of the Apostle Paul is massive, and stands in contradiction with a host of other biblical writers within both the Old and New Testaments. It is one thing to suggest that the church, throughout history, has failed to understand Paul's teaching on faith and justification; it is even more troubling for one to suggest that such a misunderstanding has extended to the other writers of Holy Writ - even the whole counsel of God's Word.

These are not small issues.

By modifying the connotations of Paul's writings, massive conflicts are thus manufactured. By this it cannot be said that Wright's "Gospel" is harmlessly confused. Just as a slight modification of the gravitational force would transform the entire Universe, so too does Wright's modification of Paul create an upheaval of the harmony of Holy Writ. It is here that the reader is reminded of the true influence of each of the biblical writers, and it is not the influence of an extrabiblical-second-temple Judaism.