What do Anabaptists say about justification by faith?
In response to my last post, my friend Matt raised good questions about Anabaptists and their understanding of justification by faith. I started to copy down some quotes and felt like it was just too much material (and the material was just too good) for a comment, so I’m making a new post out of it. Here’s Matt’s comment:
Pat, would you mind clarifying some issues for me. Anabaptists believe in “believer’s baptism” but how is this belief expressed? In other words, how does one become a believer? Or, to put it a third way, does justification by faith play a decisive role in Anabaptist traditions?Also, does the (seemingly) anti-Luther leaning of many Anabaptists alter or skew the way that Pauline texts are read. If the basic logic of the text sounds Lutheran is it to be thrown out automatically?
First, I’d like to say that much of early (and even contemporary) Anabaptism is characterized in its opposition to Luther, so I don’t think we need to be hesitant about identifying an “anti-Luther leaning” of Anabaptists. I’m not so keen on the fellow myself, he said some horrifically awful things (aside from his views on justification). Also, Anabaptists (especially 16th century ones) have a very high view of Scripture; there will be no throwing out of Scripture. From the Anabaptist perspective, they are being more faithful to the Word than “the scribes,” which include Luther. As a matter of fact, the early Anabaptist laity was so biblically literate that their opponents accused them of being demon-possessed: how else could they know Scripture so well? In response to Matt’s comment, I did leave the initial comment:
My gut reaction is that it is that Anabaptists do not believe that you “earn” your salvation through works, but that “works” or “deeds” are a requisite part of the faith in Christ which leads to salvation/justification. In that way, it doesn’t completely disagree with justification by faith, but it argues for a more holistic understanding of faith.
But I would like to explore some Anabaptist sources here. These are all from the classic resource Anabaptism in Outline edited by William Klaassen (1981). The first quote is from Klaassen himself and the others are from 16th century authors, for which I’ve given both page numbers and years.
Anabaptists were one and all agreed that the process of salvation begins with God’s gracious act in Jesus Christ. There can no longer be any question about this. Once Luther’s formulation on faith and works is seen as one way of several to set out the problem, our minds can be more open to consider the Anabaptist view. Anabaptists, too, believed that man [sic] is saved by grace and not through any merits of his own.
But they were equally certain that man was not saved in spite of himself. God has graciously provided a way of salvation, but in order to benefit from it man must freely choose it for himself. This implied that man could choose, and it was a rejection of the Protestant doctrine of the bondage of the will. The will was set free by God’s grace and then man could choose to do the good that God desires for man.
~William Klaassen (in his introduction to the chapter on “The Work of God in Man” in Anabaptism in Outline, 1981, p. 41)
Faith alone and by itself is not sufficient for salvation. . . . With the heart man believes to righteousness and with the mouth confession is made to salvation (Rom 10). Now we do not wish to be mouth Christians only . . . Rather, faith must express itself also in love to God and the neighbor. . . . O, we wish to be good evangelical Christians; we boast about our great faith, but have never touched the works of the gospel and faith with the smallest finger. Therefore we are, as stated above, nothing but mouth Christians, ear Christians, and paper Christians, but not action Christians.
~Balthasar Hubmaier (Anabaptism in Outline, p. 43, from 1526)
Faith is the obedience to God and the confidence in his promise through Jesus Christ. Where this obedience is absent there all confidence is false and a deception. This obedience must be genuine, that is that heart, mouth and deed coincide together. For there can be no true heart where neither mouth nor deed is visible. And where the heart is not honest all words and works are nothing but deception. An evil heart betrays itself with pride and impatience. A good heart proves itself with humility and patience.
~Hans Denck (Anabaptism in Outline, p. 46, from 1527)
Therefore, when one speaks of justification through Christ, one must also speak of that faith, which cannot be without works of repentance, yea, not without love, which is an anointing. . . . Again when one speaks of works, one must preach not, after the manner of the work-righteous, the works of law but the works of faith; that is a turning away from works, creatures, and your own self, through faith in Christ the crucified one, not as what man can do from himself, but what he really can do in the power of faith; which thereby are not man’s works but God’s, since the willing and the ability to turn to God are not man but the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
~Michael Sattler (?) (Anabaptism in Outline, pp. 56-7, from 1530); he goes on to say “blessed be he who remains on the middle path” between “work-righteous” on the one hand and “the side side of the scribes” (i. e., Luther and friends) who teach “faith without works” on the other. Though this may not be a fair assessment of Luther, I think the “middle path” greatly interests me in this NPP research.
Faith is not the empty illusion that those men think who only bear it about with them in their mouths, and know no more about it; who think that Christianity is in words only, and therefore hold and regard each and all as Christians, no matter how they live, if they but confess Christ with the mouth
True and well-founded faith, however, is not of men but a gift of God, and is given only to those who fear God. . . .
~Peter Riederman (Anabaptism in Outline, p. 63, from 1542)
Those who accept this announced Christ by a true faith which according to the doctrine of Paul, was given us of the Father unto wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and deliverance, are in a state of grace for Christ’s sake and have God as their Father; for by faith they are born of him. . . . And this we say, not by our own merits and works, but by grace through Christ Jesus. . . . [T]herefore it is that they sincerely fear the Lord, and by that fear die unto their flesh, crucify their lusts and desires, and shun and abhor the unclean, ungodly works which are contrary to the Word of the Lord. . . .
They show indeed that they believe, that they are born of God and are spiritually minded; that they lead a pious, unblamable life before all men. . . . They walk in all love and mercy and serve their neighbors. In short, they regulate themselves in their weakness to all words, commandments, ordinances, Spirit, rule, example, and measure of Christ; and therefore they live no longer in the old life of sin after the earthly Adam (weakness excepted), but in the new life of righteousness which comes by faith, after the second and heavenly Adam, Christ. . . .
~Menno Simons (Anabaptism in Outline, p. 69-70, from 1552)
It's not our issue: Anabaptists and the New Perspective on Paul
I would like to share some wisdom that was emailed to me about why Anabaptists might not be all gung ho about the New Perspective on Paul. I alluded to something similar in a previous post, but I think this puts it better. The email was from Dale Fredrickson, who is a NT PhD student at Claremont and has (in the meantime) planted a house church based on John Howard Yoder’s Body Politics. He suggested that the reason not many Anabaptists are “in on this discussion” is because “the discussion is not important to them. What I mean is that Justification by faith has never been our issue. Justification by faith arises out of the Lutheran main line and evangelical manifestations.” That is the vibe that I get as well, but I think that Anabaptists have an opportunity here to speak from the authority of their historical tradition and make a significant contribution to the debate.
Dale also recommended picking one passage and doing a historical-critical study, also looking into what Anabaptist interpreters have said about it. That may be a good way to narrow the focus of my term paper for Paul and the Law. I am also doing a shorter exegetical paper for the course, but that doesn’t leave much room for exploring the Anabaptist perspective… it would simply be an Anabaptist exegesis, since I’m doing it! Another approach to the term paper would be to list out some of the main points of the NPP and explore them one at a time from an Anabaptist perspective. That may be too much for a 10-15 page paper, though. Well, whatever I do, I’ve gotten geared up to go on the topic, borrowing books from a couple libraries and even one friendly fellow church member. I’ve borrowed Toews’ Romans, Yoder’s Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited, Elias’ Remember the Future, and (even though it’s not Anabaptist) Harink’s Paul among the Postliberals. It would be great if the Believers Church Bible Commentary series had a commentary on Galatians. It is much needed and I wonder if they’ve assigned anyone to the task yet.
Well, you can expect more thoughts on the NPP later! Adios for now.
An Anabaptist, Judaizing Paul?
I mentioned my search for sources where Anabaptists can be found wrestling with the New Perspective on Paul (NPP). After much searching through books and journals, it does appear that Anabaptist interaction with the NPP is scant. The primary resource, it seems, is Toews’ commentary on Romans. I have found, however, a short chapter in John Howard Yoder’s posthumously published The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited (which is searchable on Amazon) on “Paul the Judaizer” in which Yoder mentions Krister Stendahl’s landmark essay, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” (Harvard Theological Review, 1963). Many reference Stendahl’s article as the beginning of the NPP, though the term was not coined until later. Yoder’s chapter was originally a lecture at Bethel College (KS) in 1982 [update 1/21/07: hear audio files of the lectures here] and it argues that Paul was a Judaizer of Hellenistic cultures, rather than a Hellenizer of Jewish culture (in the words of Peter Ochs’ commentary at the end of the chapter).
I hope to do my term paper for Hagner’s “Paul and the Law” course on an Anabaptist assessment of the NPP. Frankly, I’m surprised at the paucity of available sources on this. It seems like a topic that would be of interest to a great many Anabaptists. Perhaps all the Anabaptists are just saying, “Well, yeah, of course… you think this is ‘new’? What’s the big deal? Where were you when we were challenging Luther himself rather than his memory? You may get bad reviews, but we got burned at the stake!” It appears that most of the small references I’ve found assume that the NPP is a good thing without critically reflecting on the matter. I guess I’ll just have to take it on by myself for now . . . unless any of my friendly readers would like to offer some reflections!
E. P. Sanders' Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People
I have to read Sanders’ book by Wednesday and I’m struggling with grasping his arguments. I haven’t found Sanders’ writing to be the easiest to read (particularly for someone not familiar with all the historical scholarly arguments and counter-arguments about Paul), so I’m going to try to distill some of the core of his book here. Sanders thinks that Paul’s mission in his letters revolves around what it means to “get in and stay in” the Christian community. As such, his exclamations about the law are not theoretical postulations in some kind of existential vacuum, but “spring from and serve other convictions” (143). Those “other convictions,” those which Sanders believes are “central and identifiable,” can be seen as Paul’s surviving letters assume and argue:
[T]hat God had sent Jesus Christ to provide for the salvation of all; that salvation is thus available for all, whether Jew or Greek, on the same basis (‘faith in Christ,’ ‘dying with Christ’); that the Lord would soon return; that he, Paul, was called by God to be the apostle to the Gentiles; and that Christians should live in accordance with the will of God. (5)
Furthermore, Sanders continues, the “central characteristic of [Paul’s] thought” is the “christological interpretation of the triumph of God” (5). These central pieces of Paul’s “thought” must be distinguished from the “getting in and staying in” framework that motivates much of what he has written (or at least, what has survived of his writing). The terminology he uses for the transfer from “not being saved” to “being saved” is not necessarily part of his central “convictions,” but rather is the means by which he makes his arguments for diverse cicrcumstances.
What is Paul attacking when we read negative statements about the law in his letters? Paul is opposing the “standard Jewish view that accepting and living by the law is a sign and condition of favored status” (46). Instead, Paul believes that one becomes “righteous” through Christ’s death when one has faith in Christ.
What is wrong with the law, and thus with Judaism, is that it does not provide for God’s ultimate purpose, that of saving the entire world through faith in Christ, and without the privilege accorded to Jews through the promises, the covenants, and the law. (47)
And so, after an exegetical exploration, Sanders concludes that we can at least see a “limited rejection of the law” (48). The limitation to Paul’s attack on the law, however, is only when it is viewed as the means through which one enters the saved community, because that transfer for Paul can only be faith in Christ. In Sanders’ estimation, following certain regulations within the law itself is a matter of indifference (“neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything” [Gal 5:6; cf. 6:15; 1 Cor 7:19], etc.).
Paul nevertheless viewed the law as given by God, but had to reconcile this with his christological and soteriological conviction that “salvation is by faith in Christ for all” (144). Sanders argues that this conundrum “plagued him and led to some of the most difficult and tortured passages in the surviving correspondence” (143). He had to speak of the failure of the law to achieve salvation, but not attribute this failure to God who gave the law. Sanders states that Paul did not come to a “true, final, and unalterable view” to resolve this dilemma (145), as far as we can tell.
How do we reconcile the bad statements about the law with the good? Paul “makes no distinction between the law which does not righteous and to which Christians have died and the law which those in the Spirit fulfill” (145). Sanders’ “solution” to this problem is that they come out of different central convictions listed above: “One has to do with how people enter the body of those who will be saved, one with how they behave once in” (145).
If all this seems confusing, like there is no systematic glue holding together Paul’s thought on the law, it is because “there is no single unity which adequately accounts for every statement about the law” (147). And yet, Sanders does not want to say that Paul is just utterly inconsistent, but rather that, as has been pointed out, “Paul held a limited number of basic convictions which, when applied to different problems, led him to say different things about the law” (147). So Sanders says that Paul is “coherent,” but not “systematic” when it comes to his writings about the law.
I’m still working on the book, so I think I’ll stop there for now.
Quotes promoting the New Perspective on Paul
I’d just like to throw these out there for an idea of how NPP fans promote the NPP. The first is from The Paul Page, which is maintained by Mark M. Mattison. The second is an Anabaptist reviewer of John Toews’ commentary on Romans. They both make some pretty bold claims:
What is this new perspective? At its core is the recognition that Judaism is not a religion of self-righteousness whereby humankind seeks to merit salvation before God. Paul’s argument with the Judaizers was not about Christian grace versus Jewish legalism. His argument was rather about the status of Gentiles in the church. Paul’s doctrine of justification, therefore, had far more to do with Jewish-Gentile issues than with questions of the individual’s status before God.
This new perspective on Paul promises to help us:
* Better understand Paul and the early church;
* Reconcile contemporary biblical scholarship with theology;
* Build common ground between Catholics and Protestants;
* Improve dialogue between Christians and Jews; and
* Flesh out a theological foundation for social justice.
~ Mark M. Mattison, The Paul Page
Toews embraces “the New Perspective on Paul” (NP), which might be unknown to some readers. In contrast to traditional Protestant interpretations, NP places Paul squarely within first-century Judaism. From this perspective, Paul thinks in continuity with Judaism, rather than opposing it; teaches salvation by grace and obedience to the law, rather than pitting grace against law; focuses on corporate, rather than individual, salvation; and is theocentric, rather than anthropocentric, concerned primarily with defending the righteousness (faithfulness) of God, rather than explaining how sinners can be saved.
~Jerry D. Truex, review of John Toews, Romans, Direction 24.2 (2005): 292-5.
Looking for Legalism: The New Perspective on Paul and the Early Church
I am taking two courses this Winter that have so far had some interesting parallels, especially in regard to legalism. My “Paul and the Law” class is taught by Don Hagner, along with some very capable doctoral students giving presentations. It is an introduction for me into the New Perspective debate on Paul (I will refer to the New Perspective as the NPP and the Old Perspective as the OPP–Not to be confused with: “You down with OPP? Yeah, you know me”). I’ve had a vague sort of concept of it, but now I’m starting to learn some of the basics. The NPP is trying to say that the OPP is colored by a “Lutheran” understanding of Paul. That is, the OPP is allegedly reading too much of a Reformation-like “justification by faith” emphasis into Paul. Therefore, the OPP (typically consisting of more conservative Protestants) is projecting their negative attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church (at least as it was in the 16th Century) into their understanding of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism.
The NPP authors, as I understand, consist of something of a not well-defined historical trajectory including W. D. Davies to Krister Stendahl to E. P. Sanders to N. T. Wright to James Dunn. This group would instead argue that the primary issue in the Pauline corpus, particularly Galatians and Romans, is a reaction against a “national righteousness” consciousness or simply a “national pride” that hindered them from accepting Gentiles into their fold. Paul’s arguments on “justification by faith,” therefore, should be understood as part of the Jewish-Gentile debate and not the central core of his theology (if that can even be found!).
The OPP seeks to prove that Judaism was legalistic in the time of the NT. That way we can say that Paul was reacting against that legalism and not just a closed-minded “national identity.” Both sides use rabbinic literature to make their case, but it is notoriously difficult to determine what from rabbinic literature (Mishnah, Talmuds, Midrashim, etc.) backdates into the first century. If the rabbinic documents do lean on the legalistic side, maybe Judaism was reacting against a perceived libertarianism in Christianity. It is hard to know.
If so, it would be similar to the reaction of the early church towards the Docetic and Gnostic threats in the second century. In my class on “Early Church History,” taught by James Bradley, we are learning that though elements of “grace” can be found in the Apostolic Fathers, we see a distinct move towards legalism. Bradley suggests that this is a reaction to the perceived libertarianism in Gnosticism. If the NT documents are a reaction against legalism, can the established, orthodox church really be considered 100% orthodox when it has gone too far towards legalism? Then again, one of the complications here is that the early church does not have an established NT canon. So it is somewhat anachronistic to judge the early church against the standards of the NT documents as we understand them today.
Isn’t ironic that if the NT does indeed emphasize grace over a “covenantal nomism” that the church itself was drawn towards legalism not too long into its beginnings? The Reformation “Lutherans” no doubt saw themselves as recovering the biblical vision of grace after a much longer period of legalistic leanings had taken place. To me, though, it seems so much more messy than an either-or dichotomy. Looking at Paul (let alone the entire NT canon), even Galatians itself, we can see a concern for both grace and ethics. I wonder if it could be both the OPP and the NPP. It seems rather presumptuous for us to proclaim that there was only one characteristic of Second Temple Judaism that a Christian Jew (or Jewish Christian, as Hagner would say) like Paul is reacting against, and that we know what it is for sure.
I know that the major concern for OPP people is that it leads to a dual path for salvation for Jews and for Christians. Hagner is adamant that there is only one way. I think that starting with that theological presumption taints our reading of the material. It only proves the point for me that OPP followers are reading the NT with Luther & Augustine colored glasses. I think theology should come after our exegesis of the texts.
It should be interesting for me to think through the issue from the perspective of Anabaptism after a close reading of the relevant texts. Anabaptism has some history with legalism and my own predisposition, I think, would be for the NPP. After a brief search for articles relating directly to an Anabaptist perspective on the NPP, not much turned up. I did discover that John Toews’ commentary on Romans shares the NPP and two articles that rely on the NPP from an Anabaptist perspective can be found here and here. But I have to try not to make prejudgments here. If I do end up on the side of the NPP, I don’t want to get there uncritically.
By the way, for more on the New Perspective, check out The Paul Page.
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Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
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