The New Perspective on Paul

Some of the comments I made below regarding the so-called Federal Vision (FV) could equally be made about the so-called New Perspective on Paul (NPP) with which FV has sometimes been associated.

We must distinguish between E. P. Sanders, Jimmy Dunn, Tom Wright and others, and them and FVers.

I hold firmly to, preach and regularly defend the Reformation and post-Reformation "sola"s of salvation in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, to the glory of God alone and to sola Scriptura, but I think there are things to learn from NPP, not least a more corporate understanding of salvation.

Go for the corporate and you get the individual thrown in. Stick with the individual and you may never get the corporate.

We may also distinguish:

(1) What Paul meant

(2) What Luther said

And debate whether or not (2) necessarily follows from (1). I think it does! But Luther was not Paul.

There is some value in trying the read Paul as a Jew against the background of Second Temple Judaism with reference to Inter-testamental and 1st Century literarture. But in so doing, no one need sell out on the Reformation, go over to Rome or give up on the gospel.