N.T. Wright with quotes

False Teacher N.T. on justification and imputation.

[DWHalse]

I have enjoyed much of John’s teaching for thirty years. Nevertheless I am perplexed by his divisive atackes on other denominations and individuals. Wright is an adroit scholar considered to be one of the preeminent intellectuals of this century by a multitude of other Bible experts.
Wright is an originalist. By that he believes Scripture should be interpreted no more or less than what it meant to those who origainally wrote it. This term for interpretative method holds to the “fixation thesis”, the notion that the Bible’s semantic content is fixed at the time it was written. In other words it is related to textualism and is the view that the interpretation of the Bible should be based on what reasonable persons living at the time it was written would have understood the ordinary meaning.
My humble opinion holds that in John’s rigid world only his orthodoxy is valid. Wright is not a fringe teacher and if John would examine Wright scores of books, papers and You Tube video, he would be hard pressed to represent Wright in the way he does.
As John continues to charge millions of our fellow Christian who are Pentecostal or Charismatic he confuses many that sit under his influence. The division he brings is discouraging to thousands. We all should understand that we can agree to disagree without animus.
My fear for myself standing before the Lord would be that He would see that I brought division to His Church and caused many to stumble.
I continue to pray for all that fall into this category in pastoral positions.

[ProtestantismLeftBehind]

What would have been beneficial (rather that what JM has done) is actually try to understand what Wright is saying, why, how, etc., then go from there to explain in detail why he thinks Wright is wrong or right on this or that point. This would help others think through things.

[geraldpchuagmail]

Saying that NT Wright is wrong doesn't make him wrong. I think Johnny Mac should provide the reasons.

[brandonbabcock]

Thank you for including the quotes. I cross checked the quotes in the video, and sadly, McArthur is completely misusing and stripping Wright out of context for the sake of his own arrogant bent on Christianity. If you have a chance, read the context of Wright's books that Johnny Mac misquotes and misunderstands.

[lightlover]

Its hard to know what NT Wright really believes? Really? John loves a quote much more than he loves making an effort to understand the context of a quote. "It is confusing, it is ambiguous, it is contradictory, it is obfuscation of the highest level" is the blithering of a man whose zeal for black and white judgments have surpassed his comprehension level. The truth is, Wright is addressing more the wide interpretation of "imputation" in the absence of covenantal understanding than the doctrine itself. The real challenge is about priorities, something John simply cannot handle without a premature imputation of a black and white verdict on a man he doesn't even understand. John is one of the poorest when it comes to properly representing those he maligns and dishonors.

[andyheller]

I trust Pastor MacArthur and appreciate his defending the truth. He’s been called by God for his mission.

[jjreddog]

There is no New Perspective on Paul, the Scripture speaks to every Generation and the Holy Ghost interprets it right everytime to everyman
from every walk of life and it still speaks to me everyday, James in WA ST

[tedwilliams]

John McArthur criticizes everyone and I mean everyone....I have never read in the Bible of the ministry of Criticism, Mr. McArthur is a christian and people have been saved through his the ministry of criticism is not an office in the Body of NT Wright is not a false prophet and it's not even close.

[Sputnikin]

MacArthur needs to calm down with calling everyone a heretic. Sad, sad man. Doesn’t understand the gospel at all. He is more faithful to his Calvinist, conservative tradition than he is to Scripture.

[geraldarcuri]

It seems to me that it would be helpful for John MacArthur and N.T. Wright to have a focused set of discussions on the issues at question. These should be public, and held in front of an audience on neutral ground. There should be ample time for a Q&A session. There should be a pledge of good faith and Christian conduct made by both, the tone being characterized by the judgement of charity. I have read both men. I find value in both. I am no theologian, but I am no beginner in theology and the history of the church. I would find a face-to-face meeting enlightening. I only wish R.C. Sproul were alive to moderate such an event. He would keep things focused and good-natured.

[jaredmatthews]

For John Macarthur to say multiple times “I have no idea what he (NT Wright) believes” but then to go on taking him out of context in order to trash him in front of thousands is just painstakingly uncharitable and heresy hunting at its finest.

[matthewturner]

Either MacArthur is intentionally misrepresenting Wright, or he just lacks the ability to understand. What’s worse is it may be both.

[ChungPoFat]

According to the New Testament, "the Gospel" is not an account of how we are saved. "The Gospel" is a message that Jesus, raised from the dead, has been crowned Lord and King of the whole world. Receiving this message in faith and bending the knee to this King, who---as a representative of Israel and the whole world---has also carried our sins and released us from them, causes the recipient to be saved.

Therefore, there is absolutely no contradiction between Dr. Wright's words "justification by faith is not what Paul means by 'the Gospel'" and what St. Paul says in 1 Cor 15:1-2 (at 4:20 in the video). It obviously helps to truly seek to understand the point of your opponent before voicing grandiose rejections. They only serve to make you look silly in the eyes of people more informed than you.

[joelcaldwell]

I’ve come to dislike John MacArthur very much. He is arrogant beyond belief. Not a humble man! He misrepresents NT Wright. It would be more honorable for JM to have debate with the much more honorable NT. I never hear anything that sounds like love coming from MacArther’s lips. Praying for Mr. MacArther’s repentance.

[allnations]

I've only read about 2, 000 pages of N. T. Wright books so far, and only listened to a handful of podcasts and videos - which is only a small proportion of his works. And I'm no academic. So I probably can't claim to have grasped all that he's saying yet.

But my very non-academic impression so far is that Wright doesn't seem to flat disagree that there is an action which God does to individual human hearts which saves them (what we might have called 'justification'); only, he seems to think Paul's main focus when using the term 'justified' probably wasn't mainly to describe that individual, spiritual action.

Rather, I think Wright may think that in using the term 'justified', Paul was probably mainly reassuring the early community of believers in Jesus that they were indeed the people whom God deemed to be 'in the right' - even ahead of the ultimate Day of reckoning - without them needing to become proselytes to Judaism - a body of people identified simply by the faith of Jesus.

And I think Wright seems to understand Paul as a person who came to understand that the Lord Jesus Christ - and His cross and resurrection, and second coming - was and is the fulfilment of the hope of first century (in Paul's case, Pharisaic) Judaism (a hope which extended beyond the salvation of individual souls to include also the resurrection of the body and even the restoration of God's good creation itself). 

So the 'gospel', I think Wright believes Paul to have been saying, was the glad announcement that that larger hope or story - Israel's story - the story of a fully restored creation, was now being fulfilled. It was a story in which, as it turned out, the cross and resurrection of Jesus indeed was central - a story which indeed had individuals being acted-upon inwardly and spiritually and then becoming themselves actors in the bigger story. It had a personal and spiritual plot, yes; but the plot also had a corporate plot, and will ultimately include the physical body and even the whole created world in its plot. The 'gospel' was the announcement that the glad ending to that long story had now been inaugurated in a sense, even though it is yet to be culminated at Christ's Second Coming. All of that was the 'gospel', in Wright's understanding of Paul. So it was indeed a bigger story than just how individual souls got saved - but at the same time it didn't deny that individual salvation was intrinsic to the story.

So none of that, as I understand Wright, seems to me to be a denial that there is an action which God takes to and in an individual which saves him in the present (what we might call 'justification') with a salvation which will be seen full-bloom at the last Day. Only I think Wright perhaps might want to suggest that that personal, spiritual action wasn't what Paul was mainly discussing when he used the term 'justified'. I've heard Wright say that his only goal is to be true to what Paul was saying in context: not to deny that there can't also be a more particularly-focused view of a mountain-peak that one can take than the more panoramic view which Paul for his own purposes may have been taking of the wider mountain-range (the 'mountain-view' is my own metaphor, not Wright's). I've even heard Wright suggest a term which might better describe that inner, individual experience or action which God takes - and it was a Biblical term! (Don't quote me, but I think it may have been 'atonement'.) So Wright isn't denying the reality of such an experience: he's just wanting to identify what Paul was mainly having to deal with and what he was discussing and his use of terms in answer to the issues his first-century readers were facing. Wright is just wanting to understand terms more precisely than perhaps many of us have cared to.

I personally think it might help to understand Wright's interpretation of Paul, if we imagine that we are countering the modern Hebrew Roots movement (because that's the closest thing we have today to the type of issue which Paul was constantly having to respond to for the sake of the early churches). The modern Hebrew Roots movement - like the early 'Judaizers' whom Paul was constantly contending with - have somewhat different issues and questions to those which Martin Luther was grappling with. And if we were to answer their specific rethink of the message of the New Testament and its relationship to the Old, we might have to deal with questions of eschatology, ecclesiology and soteriology, etc. in a broad, corporate sense, as Paul did - but that wouldn't be a denial of any individual aspects and experiences within those themes. Or even if we imagine we're countering that form of modern Dispensationalism which portrays the whole world reverting under some form of Levitical law (including sacrifices) in future. That's a bit closer to the types of issues Paul was having to address, than Reformation-era issues, if I understand Wright right.

Maybe the term 'justified' itself can aptly describe both a particular mountain-peak that's part of a larger mountain-range, and a more panoramic view of the whole mountain range? To mean both what God says about the redeemed community (they are the 'justified'); and the action which God initially does for an individual to bring him into that community in the first place ('justify' the individual). Both. Perhaps? Or maybe there really is another Biblical term which describes that initial individual experience more aptly, as Tom Wright suggested there might be (like to receive 'atonement'). I don't know. I haven't read enough of Wright yet, and I'm not as academic as many of his more avid readers are.

[jm]

MacArthur’s counter-argument boils down to, “Wright’s interpretation is different from what we’ve believed for a long time therefore he is a HERETIC. And that’s super bad.”

Seriously, Wright’s theory may be imperfect but I simply can’t stand the knee-jerk, dogmatic, and simplistic response — this too-common attitude is, for me, one of the biggest turn-offs to modern Christianity. Whereas MacArthur could have counter-argued based on exegesis he simply calls Wright “Wrong”, acts offended, and implies a bunch of insults.

[Ckphoto]

One time I spoke out against N. T. Wright and the others said that I couldn't understand him... that I needed to get his books for lay people.

[ProtestantismLeftBehind]

1:14 John MacArthur says he doesn't know what N.T. Wright believes (affirms), but then at 1:14 Wright's book is mentioned, The Day The Revolution Began. From the title I learned Wright believes the revolution began with Jesus. Jesus is the primary figure of the book. I can understand this one simple thing that Wright affirms. But this leads me to question if John really has read what Wright has written or just thought about the title of the book. John said he read hundreds of pages of Wright's book or books but doesn't know anything he affirms? Really? Something smells fishy.

[robertsandeman]

John MacArthur tends to criticise, everyone who thinks different to himself, James White has a better approach he rather seeks to understand the others perspective, and whilst having differences, displays absolute respect to N T Wright, he can see that there is very little difference, when you look at the heart of the issues, John MacArthur would do well to take note, As someone looking in at American Christianity, there is often an arrogance very closely linked to nationalism, amongst many of their Bible teachers, but as always there are some wonderful exceptions, Paul Washer is one of my favourite speakers, a man who displays a humility an almost anti-nationalistic approach, a truly Christ centred, A truly, I'm a weak, man, clinging to a powerful God, as he often says, there are no true men of God, only men who truly know their own weakness and know how much they need to cling to the all powerful Lord Jesus, and to be fair, maybe that is John MacArthur, but he needs to be careful, to not demonstrate the arrogance and nationalistic fervour, that so often seems to be a characteristic of his talks and displayed attitude.

[GregAlterton]

This is just sad. I've watched for years as self-appointed guardians of "sound theology" have tried to take Tom Wright down, and to have Wright come back with his calm and soft way, eviscerate them, and they've never known they've been eviscerated. N.T. Wright is always a bit of heavy lift. But when he's done explaining his topic, it's like someone has blown a huge hole or breach in the stone wall theological construct that we've built around ourselves, or that we've allowed others build around us. What's through that breach is a much broader picture of what God accomplished in Christ, and what He continues to accomplish in us, than we ever imagined or comprehended.