Justification

It is of course popular to say that, since the language of "righteousness" is essentially "relational," "justification" actually means "the establishment of a personal relationship," a mutual knowing, between the believer and God, or the believer and Jesus. But this is extremely misleading

That is not only what the Old Testament usage would demand;27 it is not only what is indicated by the post-biblical second-temple literature of which John Piper is so cautious. It is massively indicated by the argument of Romans itself to this point, provided we actually read what Paul says, particularly in 2:17-3:8, rather than merely assuming tha

But its own internal irony, claiming the Scriptures as its sole authority but needing to misread them to force through its central point, has come home to roost, albeit through the oblique and frequently misleadingly stated so-called new perspective.

Thatis precisely not what 2:17-20 is saying. The boast is "Well, but I am the solution to this Problem."

Rather, unless we are absolutely forced to deny it, we should assume that when Paul appears to be laying down first principles about God's future judgment, he is laying down first principles about God's future judgment.

His "acts of righteousness" are thus the acts he performs as outworkings or demonstrations of his covenant faithfulness. But, even at that point, "righteousness" does not mean the same as "salvation."

Ecclesiology-so often scoffed at by those who see it as merely "horizontal" rather than the really important thing, the "vertical" dimension of soteriology-is non-negotiable. In Christ there is no vertical and horizontal. Paul was not a Platonist.

Paul has announced in Romans 3:21 that God has been faithful to the covenant; Romans 4, so far from being an "illustration" or "example" of this (as though Abraham could be detached from his historical moorings and float around like a lost helium balloon wherever the winds of ahistorical hermeneutics might take him), is the full

It would have been taken for granted that "God's righteousness" referred to the great, deep plans which the God of the Old Testament had always cherished, the through-Israel-for-the-world plans, plans to rescue and restore his wonderful creation itself, and, more especially, to God's faithfulness to those great plans.