The NPP and JF models are not mutually exclusive - but Tom Wright suggests that what has been called ‘justification by faith’ is a misapplication of the phrase, if Paul is to be understood correctly. We can still have the traditional meaning of the phrase, but it is inaccurate to call it ‘justification by faith’.

Incidentally, if it’s of any interest, I found Andrew’s first paragraph above helpful, but the second paragraph less so. I was responding mostly to the second paragraph. Also, we had the first meeting of our teaching team on Romans last night, in which I tried to summarise the difference (as I understand it) between the reformation view of JF (going back to its origins in Luther), and the NPP view - amongst many other things to do with Romans. It was a lively occasion, generating at least as much light as heat, if I can put it that way.

Romans, to me, illustrates much of the whole argument concerning NPP and JF. If the theme of the letter is taken to be "the righteousness of God" - Romans 1:17, you can see the differences in a nutshell. Traditional evangelical theology takes ‘righteousness’ as something which the gospel transfers from God to the sinner. Romans 1:16-17 tends to be interpreted this way, and the NIV mistranslates the verses in order to bring this interpretation across; likewise much of chapter 3, where ‘righteousness’ is discussed further.

If, on the other hand, you view ‘righteousness’ in a covenant framework, and take its meaning, in relation to God, to be ‘faithfulness to the covenant’, then Romans becomes a developed  argument showing how God has remained faithful, and fulfilled the covenant in Jesus. (Within this framework, the problem of Israel in 9-11 is in the central flow, and not an afterthought following 6-8).

Historically, the issue of God’s faithfulness to the covenant was of crucial importance to 1st century Jews, in the light of their experiences and disappointed expectations since the return from exile. Seen in this historical light, the actions and thinking of Paul before and after his Damascus road experience can be better understood.

Within the ‘covenant’ framework, there is a secondary metaphor, that of the law court, with God as judge, in which Israel is placed through her disobedience and national failure to experience ‘forgiveness of sins’ (a topic of pressing concern to 1st century Jews). Here, God’s ‘righteousness’ is his character as judge - impartial, fair, defender of the helpless. ‘Righteousness’ only applies to the defendant (the accused) if they are acquitted of the charges brought against them. Until Jesus stood in the dock for Israel, there was no such possibility. Because Jesus was acquitted, he was vindicated as righteous. Israel’s righteousness now depends on trusting in Jesus as her representative, and obeying him as her Lord. But here is Wright’s point: the righteousness of God is distinct from the righteousness of the defendant. The metaphor does not allow for the righteousness of the judge to be transferred to the defendant.

Returning now to JF - the word ‘justification’ means ‘to be declared righteous’. (If there were a verb or noun in the English language to make clear its root identity with the word ‘righteous’, that would be very helpful). In reformation thought, ‘justification by faith’ is the gospel; it is that which describes our transfer into the kingdom of God. According to Wright et al, ‘justification by faith’ is not a description of how you are transferred into the people of God, but a description of how the people of God are to be identified. In this sense, the term is brought forward from Jesus’s vindication through his resurrection to a vindication (justification) of all who believe in him now, and brought backwards from the vindication of all who believe in Jesus on the day of judgement, so that the people of God may be identified in the on-going present.

This distinction may seem small, but it has huge implications. For we now have to ask: if justification/justified by faith is a term describing the identity of the people of God, how did the people of God appropriate that faith? Wright suggests that it works like this. There is the proclamation of Jesus’s death and resurrection: his victory on the cross over sin and death. The Holy Spirit works to create faith in the hearer. The hearer responds by giving their life in obedience, confessing with their mouth as well as believing with their heart, as Romans 10:10 has it.

So now, the gospel has become a proclamation, such as Peter gave on the day of Pentecost, before it is an explanation. To put it even more succinctly, the gospel is Jesus, before it is a doctrine about him - eg justification by faith in its traditional meaning.

Underpinning this is a view of the old and new covenants as providing ‘boundary markers’ for identifying the people of God. In the old covenant, the boundary marker was observation of the Torah - for diaspora Jews in particular: circumcision, sabbaths and food laws. In the new covenant, the boundary marker is faith in Jesus, to which one would have to add the presence of the Spirit.

Traditional reformation theology sees the function of the law as showing up our moral failure. The Jews are viewed as legalists, proto-Pelagians, trying to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. To the more honest, it leads to the cry of failure which Paul expresses in Romans 7. But Luther was profoundly influenced by the effect of medieval Catholicism (and his translation of the Latin Vulgate bible), and may have misunderstood some key aspects of 1st century Judaism. In the former (medieval Catholicism as Judaism), ‘works of the law’ are seen as efforts to win God’s favour. In the latter (1st century Judaism), ‘works of the law’ are seen as compliance with the Torah as a boundary marker of the covenant - over-zealously and ethno-centrically applied as they were.  In the former, ‘boasting’ (Romans 2:17, 23; Romans 3:27) is the misguided arrogance of the moralist. In the latter, it is Israel’s sense of ethnic superiority, used by her to separate herself from the surrounding nations in a way God never intended.

In my understanding of Wright, Romans 7 in particular, and much that Paul says about the law elsewhere, show that the law had two functions: it provides the boundary marker identifying the people of God, but on a profounder level it also confines and corrals sin. God never intended that the Torah in itself should be the means of fulfilling the ultimate purpose of his covenant, which was to redeem the entire creation. That would only come through the one that Israel and the Torah brought forth - Jesus, through whom the entire distinction between Jew and Gentile was demolished - on the principle of faith. 

I’m sorry this has been such a long reply. For myself, I feel the truths highlighted in the reformation understanding of JF do have to be preserved - while recognising that they sit within a rather broader perspective of Paul, which makes better sense of Romans, and his other letters: Galatians in particular. I agree with Alister McGrath, who has written a history of the doctrine of JF, when he says that if Wright is correct (about JF) then Luther is wrong; but they can’t both be correct! He concedes that the church’s historic understanding of JF may not have reflected the primary meaning of the term in Paul, for all the biblical truth which it may have contained.

Romans gains new light with these insights. In particular, the gospel is not just Romans 1:16-17 (however we interpret those verses), but Romans 1:2-4 as well - where the proclamation of Jesus as one to be believed in and obeyed now emerges with full force. There is no longer a split between ‘faith’ and ‘obedience’ - which has always dogged evangelical interpretation. Peter’s address in Acts 2 is now seen as the gospel in its full colours; Isaiah 52:7 is the ‘evangelion’ (LXX) proclaimed in its application to Jesus’s victory and reign.

Romans 1:16-17 now becomes ‘the faithfulness of God to his covenant - - - from faithfulness to faithfulness’; the latter use of ‘faith/faithfuless’ can mean God’s faithfulness, Jesus’s faithfulness, or even the faith of one party (God/Jesus) to the faith of the other party (Jew/Gentile). It relates rather more directly to verses 2-4, which previous interpretations have tended to detach from each other.