Piper Wright Quotes

While I agree with Wright's claim that covenant theology is more crucial for understanding justification than Piper suggests, I argue that it is Wright's version of covenant theology (viz., reducing different types to "covenant nomism") that generates false choices...At least as defined by its confessions and dogmatic consensus, Reformed theology is synonymous with covenant theology...This federal theology gathers various biblical covenants under two broad types: law and promise, or the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. P.12

Yet both [Wright & Piper] miss the point that covenant theology highlights. None of the Reformers taught that God's essential righteousness is imputed or transferred to believers. Rather, they taught that the meritorious active and passive obedience of Christ as the faithful Servant of the Lord has be imputed to believers. So if the covenantal context is too faith in Piper's construal, missing form Wright's account is the third party in the courtroom--namely, the Last Adam, who as covenant head and mediator fulfills the terms of the law-covenant and bears its sanction on behalf of those whom he represents. Wright's objections can be properly addressed not by bracketing covenant theology but only by offering a different covenant theology. P.26-27