Some Thoughts on Horton's Review of Wright's book

Michael Horton raises a few important issues in this book review. 

1) Modern misunderstandings about the gospel abound. The gospel divorced from history (the Old Testament) becomes just another philosophical thought. Hence, the importance of Biblical Theology. 

The traditional presentation of the gospel—e.g., the “Romans Road”—has little contact with the story the apostle is telling in that famous epistle, Wright argues. Abstracted from the story of Israel, the gospel becomes reduced to “Jesus bore God’s wrath in your place so you could go to heaven when you die.” That old-time religion had some legitimate pieces of the puzzle, but it didn’t put them together properly. Consequently, evangelicals have moralized the problem (sin merely as violations of a code), paganized the solution (an angry Father punishing his Son), and platonized the goal (going to heaven when we die).

 2) There's more to the cross than Penal Substitution. Many evangelicals say this, but for us, it is practically only about how propitiation. I understand the concern to be clear in the face of increasing denial (even among Christians) of this aspect of the cross, but we risk moving to the other extreme of the spectrum.

3) The intermediate state.

Finally, I have some questions about Wright’s solution to the “platonized” eschatology. Here as well, his criticisms of the whole Christian tradition are sweeping, encompassing the Reformation as well. However, these same critiques have a long history in Reformed theology. Luther pledged to put Origen “back under the ban” for his Platonic speculations, and no one emphasized more than Calvin the significance of Christ’s glorified humanity as the guarantee we will be raised bodily to share in a renewed creation. Harman Bavinck, Geerhardus Vos, Herman Ridderbos, John Murray, Meredith Kline, Richard Gaffin, and others showed me the differences between Plato and Paul. In fact, some, like G. C. Berkouwer, overreacted against “Platonism” by denying the intermediate state altogether—which Wright, happily, is careful to avoid. But what do we do with the passages that teach, explicitly or implicitly, a distinction between heaven and earth?  

I am currently reading a book about the relationship between Israel and the Church. One aspect of the discussion touches on our theology of the end times. I am an ammillenialist, and one thing we emphasise is inaugurated eschatology, in simpler terms, the already-but-not-yet aspect of Christian eschatology. Perhaps the implications of this issue for the average Christian is not glaringly direct, but how we view eternity (and therefore the present) will certainly shape how we live today.