Philip Ryken considers the words of Tim Keller on the New Perspective at a Pastor's Colloquium at Trinity Evangelical in Deerfield, IL.
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Great comment and highly highly important I think. Understanding the importance of justification and likewise imputation and hugely important to how practical ministry plays out. Mike Horton and the guys on the White Horse Inn/Modern Reformation have been talking about this for a while.
Posted by: tom becker | 05/17/2006 at 01:39 PM
I am afraid that our vocabulary is confusing on this issue. NPP, if we can speak about such a diverse school as being about one thing, is about the first-century Jewish context and what Paul's writings mean in the light of that context, specifically what Paul means when he uses "just-" words. An NPP proponent may conclude that NPP leaves no biblical support for the Reformation doctrine of justification, but that is not a necessary conclusion of NPP.
What I see as problematic about Keller's story (or perhaps Ryken's recounting of it) is that it fails to distinguish NPP as a question of Pauline theology from the soteriological views held by some NPP proponents. NPP may be wrong, but you cannot disprove NPP simply by refuting the doctine of the interdependence of justification (as defined in Reformation theology) and sanctification.
Also, I wonder what Keller's point actually was. Was he affirming that our standing before God is not dependent upon the righteousness of our works, or was he affirming the more naturally applicable point that the pastor's standing before God is not dependent upon the fruitfulness of his ministry? According to Reformation theology, both are true, but I suspect that the second affirmation is particularly important for pastors to remember. If Keller was making the second point, I do not see what the somewhat-NPP-associated soteriology has to do with it.
Basically, by telling a cursory story, we come away knowing little about either NPP, Keller's point, or what the student and professor were actually talking about. All we get is that NPP is bad, which we knew Ryken believed before he wrote this.
Posted by: Warren Dodson | 05/18/2006 at 08:46 AM
Wow, I would have loved to have been there. This was the first I heard of it and I am a student! Doh. I'll have to root around and see if I can find audio of the meeting.
Thanks for posting this Steve. I would be very happy if men like Keller and Carson were able to recapture the center of Evangelcial theology.
Posted by: Tim Etherington | 05/18/2006 at 11:33 AM
Tim, this isn't an open meeting as I understand it. It's an invite thing for church leaders. So probably no audio around.
Posted by: Steve McCoy | 05/18/2006 at 11:45 AM
Warren, aren't you being a bit hard on Ryken and Keller? I'm not sure how you fail to see the connection. To advocate NPP is to advocate the works of man over the work of God. It is to advocate my performance over God's faithfulness - be it for sinners or pastors (is there a difference?).
Many sinners cannot believe they stand as accepted by God simply because of the rightesousness of Christ. Many pastors cannot believe they stand as accepted by God simply because of the righteousness of Christ. Anytime our work is more important than Christ's work we have it wrong. Our theology (even our soteriology) does affect our practice. Isn't this a fundamental Reformed principle?
Posted by: Scott Eaton | 05/18/2006 at 09:46 PM
Thanks Steve. I misunderstood the bit about Keller talking to a student. It looks like most of the guys from ACE are going to be there too: Dever, Ryken, Duncan. Should be a good one. Wish we got a peek behind the curtain on this one!
Posted by: Tim Etherington | 05/19/2006 at 08:44 AM
I agree with Warren, I don't think that we get much from Ryken, except a cheap recruitment call to say if you like Keller you'll be on our side against NPP.
Scott, I wouldn't be so quick to say that the NPP exalts mans works over God. Have you read any of the NPP advocate's works? There is a balanced article at www.biblelighthouse.com called 'Within the Bounds of Orthodoxy?'
Posted by: billmelone | 05/19/2006 at 11:02 AM
For what it's worth, I appreciate Keller's statement. I find it something attributable to his affiliation with the late Jack Miller's "Sonship Course"... at least that's the same language that would have been used in the course. I know I took it at Miller's church before his death.
Miller's school of thought came under criticism from folks like Jay Adams and Banner of Truth for being a deviation from the Gospel and essentially antinomian.
http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/articles/article_detail.php?261
Heresy hunt enough and you can find people who'll call Keller's words heresy and use the same arguments against them.
NPP is just the target du jour. It's works salvation we hear.
Sonship and Keller (before the new NPP whipping boy) were antinomian we hear.
It reminds me of Jesus' words... "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn." Matthew 11:16-19
Moving on though, I really don't see why Keller's statement is opposed to NPP... for one thing... NPP is in the eye of the beholder. Whose version of NPP? A real person like Sanders? Wright? Dunn?
A straw man?
How about Don Garlington who has produced fine work that is self-consciously reformational yet helped by insights from the school loosely called NPP.
I don't think Garlington's version would be antithetical to Keller at all.
To those thinking NPP is about advocating man's performance over God's work of grace, I just have to wonder what you're reading to prove this....hopefully not the "truly reformed" equivalent of a Chick tract. That's all so called "confessional" presbyterians seem to be able to produce: caricatures and abstractions that make fine straw men but are to that degree false.
Furthermore, Wright himself has said that the reformers answered the questions of their day biblically... that there is no salvation by works and salvation is by grace alone. He simply states that these were not the questions being addressed directly by the text.
Again, I prefer Garlington's construct of the matter in his commentary on Galatians.
With reformationally sensitive constructs of NPP like Garlington's, how can the whole NPP automatically oppose Keller's statement?
There's some basic dishonesty about NPP in the reformed community that betrays their so called allegiance to the decalogue, specifically the command not to bear false witness.
While the great confessions of the reformation are wonderful treasures, they are quickly reaching the status of traditions equal with scripture if not above scripture in these debates to the point that faithful exegesis is no longer required.
Personally, I don't think that faithful scholars who have benefitted from the NPP school when it has served their exegesis like Garlington are at odds with the confessions automatically.
We're just facing a self-proclaimed magesterium who with pope like infallibility claim to hold the key to tradition's proper interpretation.
I'll stop.
I was in the SBC once. God bless you there.
Posted by: Chuck | 05/22/2006 at 09:53 AM