The New Perspective on Paul and the Christ Followers Self Understanding

**This is mostly a set of questions that are being asked of Protestant Christians, particularly those that hold to the "New Perspective on Paul."** I have really enjoyed the work of modern "New Perspective on Paul" (hereafter "NPP") authors (now before someone tells me: Yes. I am aware that there are various streams of "new" perspectives on Paul). That said, one thing that has been bothering me as I have read books by these authors (namely Bates, deSilva, McKnight, and Wright) is that they rarely, if ever, acknowledge how Christians are to mentally process experiences of personal sin, or sin related guilt regarding repetitious sinful patterns, as a real presence within the Christian life. For example, Wright has said (in both his written response to Piper, and in numerous interviews and lectures) that Final Salvation (or in his words, "Final Justification") is based upon "*the whole life lived*", but he doesn't understand this to be a type of merit theology, but instead as God "*bringing the future verdict forward into the present*" through faith in Christ. Now, although these NPP authors argue that it is the Spirit which currently affects salvation in the life of the believer and transforms the Christian into really *becoming* righteous (not just *declared* righteous), the issue gets more complex when one considers how the "intentional sins" of Christians, and God's very real demands on his people to be holy, can coexist together in such a way where, on one hand, a Christ follower is joined to Jesus and his people by faith (or "*allegiance*" - Bates), and on the other have very real sin in their daily lives. However, David deSilva adds this in his book *Transformation* that needs to be considered: > “God does not show favoritism” (Rom 2:11). The authors of the Old and New Testaments—and the books in between—affirm this as a core characteristic of the just Judge (see, e.g., 2 Chr 19:7; Sir 35:13–16; 1 En. 63:8; T. Job 4:7; 43:13; Acts 10:34; Gal 2:6; Eph 6:9; Col 3:25). Paul similarly affirms it concerning God as an absolute, not just as a characteristic about God that is at play for those who don’t know his Son. What the gospel, therefore, cannot mean is this: When God comes to judge the world, God will treat you as righteous when you are not; you’re saved from being judged on that day no matter what you do, how you live, for whom you live; Jesus’ righteousness is enough to get you off the hook with God; God expects nothing from you. If we think this is what Paul’s gospel means for us, we have to be prepared to say that God **does** show partiality. God will judge his Son’s friends according to one set of standards and everyone else by another set of standards—and he will declare innocent those in the first group who would fail the test if they belonged to the second group. Such a view is naive and even unjust on our part. If Paul went to such lengths to negate any claim to privilege before God on the part of the Jewish people, who had a significant pile of scriptural texts to legitimate their claim to enjoy special favor from God, he would not allow us the comfort of believing that God will have a double standard when it comes to Christians at the judgment. and elsewhere... > >"From Paul’s point of view, moreover, there are really only two directions for our investment of ourselves—feeding the agenda of the “flesh” and feeding the agenda of the “Spirit.” Basically, one only seems to have any form of assurance that they can expect Wright's *future verdict* declared of them at the resurrection/ final judgement of Christ, only if their life reflects more holiness than sinful behavior patterns (combined with deSilva's point about God's impartiality here). I haven't read an NPP author who addresses the tension here in a practical way (Wright's book on virtue aside, because he boils sanctification down into virtue ethics in which we become trained by new ways of thinking), but I wonder if any NPP proponents could offer some insight into how they individually process the following questions: 1. Mentally speaking, how is the Christian supposed to think of themselves (currently "a child of God" in concept, but not really until the resurrection/judgement of Christ?) and their present relationship to God if they see more failures in their discipleship than victories? Does God's disposition change towards you when you sin or do good? 2. How should the Christian deal with the mental pressure presented by the idea that the eternal scales seem to tip with each *self-investment* (see deSilva's quote above) they make, and not succumb to throwing up their hands in frustration and giving up on pursuing Jesus when they willingly sin in some fashion? 3. Should the Christian understand the sacrifice of Jesus to cover intentional sins after conversion, or should they see these sins as adding to the "flesh" side of judicial scales weighed upon them at the return/judgement of Christ, and try to do enough good to even off the sin?