Additional discussion on "Offstage Perspective"

I appreciate Mark Mattison's "Paul Page", which linked many of you to my blog.  He was a pleasure to meet and to work with.  His first response to my article was that it seemed merely a defense or vindication of Restoration doctrine.  My response to him might be helpful for seeing its true significance.

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Rather than to "vindicate Campbellite doctrine", the intent was to use the issue of baptism as yet another way to vindicate the NPP (as such, I am standing "within" the NPP, even if "offstage" from the usual circle of dialog). In short, if Paul was happy with an "active" convert (who entered-covenant/secured-salvation by means of baptism), and the Lutheran tradition is quite unhappy and opposed on the basis of "works" (and so transmutes baptism into a post-conversion rite to spare the "passive convert" from such activity!), it obviates that  the Lutheran and Pauline definitions occupy very different categories. So, Sanders looks to have made a correct distinction between Pauline and Lutheran definitions of "works".  The NPP is vindicated.

Put directly: is baptism, or is baptism not, a "work" of the sort Paul would condemn? Our Reformed opponents, in Lutheran tradition, insist that it is. Now, if "meritorious works" (or legalism as demonstrated by medieval Catholicism) were Paul's actual target, the Lutheran tradition would be vindicated in their condemnation of salvific baptism. Conversely, if Paul does not target salvific baptism then, by "works", he means something other than "legalism." With Sanders again, we do better to search for the genuine Pauline definition away from the context of Luther's experience, turning instead to that of the Judaizing conflict. So, rather than actually vindicating Restorationist doctrine, the NPP overturns the Reformed critique as non-Pauline. The vindication of the doctrine of salvific baptism (and Campbell's legacy) will stand or fall with exegesis, and I stand in good exegetical company (including Luther, Calvin, and modern evangelicals) when I make this the assumption of my article.

This really hits a crucial matter in the debate, especially in view of the Reformed backlash against the NPP. The matter of works--applied either towards covenant-entrance or covenant-maintenance--in the achievement of righteousness is of critical centrality. The notion of "covenantal nomism" has come under attack. Likewise, the question of whether one's works, performed to maintain covenant status, involve "legalism" as per Reformed theology is lively in the critique of NPP. There is a critical distinction between the covenants, in that only the "New" has a conversionary dynamic (hence, works that are at play in the context of covenant-entrance--like baptism). The members of the "Old" covenant community entered by birth (even circumcision then becomes a work of covenant-maintenance). Clearly the application of works to covenant-entrance/conversion is where most of the sparks fly in the current debate, but the Reformed opposition also winces at the notion of works contributing toward the ongoing standing of a covenant member. My article applies the issue of baptism to the critical moment of covenant-entrance, stressing that Paul does not share the Lutheran rejection on the basis of works. Sanders (at least in establishing the two incompatible categories for the definition of "works") stands vindicated.