Gospel Allegiance Calls Us Beyond the Salvation Wars - Matthew Bates

And I think that is one of the pastoral strengths of this term, is it's a deeply relational term that, um, doesn't easily devolve into kind of a mere works righteousness or a mere legalism, um, where you're just, you know, like, okay, like obedience to the Lord means I do these XYZ things. If I check them off, that means I'm obedient or loyal. Um, I think that part one of one of the strengths is the relational dimension of that, like that if I'm going to know what my King wants, I have to, um, be in relationship with this King continually, and that, um, the King may call call different people to different tasks in life.

Okay, so please welcome to Anabaptist Perspectives, um, Matthew Bates, and we'll be talking about salvation by allegiance alone and his ambitious latest book, um, Beyond the Salvation Wars. Um, so yes, welcome, Matthew, and if you would like to give, yeah, just a brief introduction to yourself, that'd be great.

Yeah, thank you. Um, yeah, so Matthew Bates, a professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary, uh, and that's a more recent gig for me. I I jumped over to Northern just this fall after teaching for 14 years at, uh, Quincy University, which is, um, a Catholic Franciscan, uh, university in Illinois, uh, and at Northern alongside Nijay Gupta, and, uh, you might recognize Scott McKnight's name. He was, uh, in the position previously, so excited to be at Northern as it's a a better theological fit for me, uh, in terms of, uh, my own, uh, sensibilities. Northern's a Baptist heritage school, uh, by and large transdenominational at this point. Uh, have seven children, uh, and married to the lovely Sarah, so, uh, I'm busy with family life, uh, but also busy writing as, uh, I've been, uh, crafting a number of books along, um, the themes of gospel and salvation.

Uh, and then beyond that, I did work on early Trinitarianism. I wrote a book called The Birth of the Trinity, and then one on, uh, Paul's, uh, method of interpreting Scripture with the terrible title, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation. So that was some of my early career work, uh, that I've done, but, um, yeah, so been now a professor of, uh, Scripture or theology for some 15 years, uh, and love what I do. So that's just the real quick, um, and of course I'm, uh, a disciple of Jesus. That's that's pretty foundational. Don't want to don't want to omit that. So yeah, thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And yeah, I was familiar with several people at Northern, so when I saw you were moving there, that also struck my interest. No, the other books sound fascinating as well, but we'll stick to the salvation and allegiance themes, um, for this interview.

Yeah, I found your work through listening to another podcast, and it helped to put some pieces together, especially this theme, you know, okay, salvation by allegiance alone, that's a provocative title. We're going to have to get you to explain that, um, but it helped put pieces together for me because, you know, growing up in Anabaptist circles, I had access to teachers who had good ways of talking about faith and what does it mean, and, you know, it's a whole life, uh, response to God. Um, but I also had some of those same things that you identified with where, uh, one of your books you talked about, good works seem to play this role of friend and foe.

We're supposed to have them, but we're ambivalent because there's this very great danger is presented, like, well, you got to be very careful that you're not trusting in your works, and it it could end up, you know, discouraging serious effort. And I had come across, even thinking through Hebrews and teaching that in Sunday school, I was like, okay, faith here, like you can't separate faith and, you know, an active response to God's call. Um, but yeah, your ideas about allegiance, um, combining the beliefs and bodily action, um, that was, uh, very helpful as a term, and it also helped me think about the importance of, you know, confessing Jesus as Lord, saying that publicly. Um, it kind of united that, um, with the idea of allegiance.

Um, so maybe you could introduce that, you know, that theme, which has been a big theme in your work, and I'd especially like to know, like, how did you decide you're going to start writing about it? Um, you came across, I mean, yeah, the idea and how it became something with your writing project.

Thank you. Yeah, so this is a part of my own story, I suppose, as I was trying to sort these things out, was, uh, I grew up not in Anabaptist circles, but in kind of just Bible church, like kind of non-denominational, fundamentalist leaning kind of Bible church background. Um, and as part of that, as you mentioned, some of the concern within those circles was that we trust in Jesus and his accomplished work for us, that we, um, we see him as the Savior and the Lord, but we want to be careful with the Lord business because we don't want to, like, believe that we're saved by submitting to him as Lord. We need to confess him as Lord, but, um, but we don't want to be confused and think that we need to do any works, right?

Or else we might, um, fall afoul of, uh, the principle of justification by faith alone. So, um, some confusing tension around that that I, you know, I was trying to sort out as, um, you know, as I grew up in those circles. Um, and I confess I didn't find the frameworks to be very satisfying, um, but at the same time, I was interested in other things. I was studying physics and science and doing doing completely other things. Um, and, uh, really it was when I took a New Testament course when I was in college that, uh, my life was changed, um, through this course. It was changed prior to that, but this course was, uh, you know, if we were to talk to our Wesleyan friends, maybe we would say, you know, it was the second act of grace or something along those lines.

And so that was something that, uh, as I spent this intense time reading the New Testament, it was a January term intensive course. So it was just a three-week course, but but I did nothing but read New Testament, listen to lecture on New Testament, think about eat, breathe, sleep, New Testament. And that really actually kind of shook me up a bit as, uh, made me realize I didn't know how to read the Bible very well. Um, I thought I did, but I didn't really have any clue how to read the Bible. Um, and then beyond that, it it kind of just awakened the need for me to repent in my life in a whole bunch of ways as I was kind of just really grappling with the New Testament's clear call to obedience and helped me kind of move out of the framework of cheap grace, perhaps.

Um, and, you know, and to get involved in service. I got involved with, you know, serving in the inner city in an inner city ministry at that time. And, um, so that was a a real transitional point in my life. Uh, and, uh, it helped me then to begin to take the Bible seriously as a as an intellectual project, not just, um, as, um, something that's like God's word that descends from on high, uh, but is something that really would require the best of my thinking and the best of my historical thinking, learning how to think in ancient categories and how to bridge to modern, you know, through that, um, contemporary categories. Um, so anyway, eventually, um, I was working as an electrical engineer, um, after college and eventually went to seminary.

Um, and it was while I was actually taking my first course in seminary, um, we were given the opportunity to read any books we wished out of like a 50-book bibliography. So the professors, it was actually a co-taught course. They give us like a list of 50 books. They say, "You choose out of these 50, anyone you want to, any ones you want to do, read and do little mini reports on or whatever we had to do, little book reviews." Um, so as part of that, I I chose an NT Rites, uh, The Challenge of Jesus. And it was when I was reading that that I first had the inklings of faith in a more allegiance direction.

Wright, um, in that book recounts an episode where the Jewish historian Josephus, um, is actually leading his people. So Josephus is a a general of sorts in the war against the Romans, okay? And things aren't going well. There's a lot of factualism, okay? So he ends up having to to call some people to repent and to be allegiance to him. And it uses the language of faith, like the, it's the same word group, like it's all, it's actually the adjective form of, of, of pistos, it would be the the word in Greek, but it's it's the same root, pistis, pistuo. All these are all related terms, right, in Greek. Uh, so whenever we talk about believing in Jesus, having faith in Jesus, the pistuo word group, uh, and, uh, it's all interconnected, right, in Greek.

So that got me thinking, right? Like, what what is going on with this language of, uh, you know, of faith as allegiance? And is there something more to that that could be helpful in in thinking through faith works issues? So it was kind of just like filed in the back of my mind. So that's the first, uh, part of the story. I have more I could say if you want to continue to probe, but we'll we'll see maybe where you want to take us next.

Yeah, I remember hearing NT Wright mention that same one somewhere, and that was clarifying. I also noticed in, you know, your latest book, you've added quite a quite a few more sources, examples having to do with emperors and and so on. Um, I mean, maybe just, you know, unpack directly a little bit more of the, you know, why use allegiance instead of faith and. Yeah. Yeah, what that adds. Yeah, yeah, in truth, it's really just a continuation of the story I was telling. Um, so maybe I'll I'll I'll answer that in story form a bit. Um, as I continued to do, uh, graduate work in the New Testament, I went to University of Notre Dame where I was, um, studying under a Lutheran scholar of surprisingly, right, as you think it's like a Catholic framework, which it is, but, um, there's obviously a lot of, um, different folks.

Um, and I was writing on Paul's use of the Old Testament. Uh, and so as part of that, I was looking actually at an overall theory of Pauline scriptural interpretation, like what we might call a Pauline hermeneutic. Um, and, uh, Paul really binds together, um, his hermeneutical statements with, um, with with statements about the Old Testament and about his theory of interpretation. It's all connected to the gospel. So, like, some of our our our statements about, like, that are our clearest statements about the content of the gospel, um, Romans 1, 2 through 4, 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 5, these passages, like in Romans 1, 2 through 4, Paul talks about the gospel being pre-promised, promised in advance, right, um, and through the prophets.

And so, as we're thinking about, like, as I was thinking about that more, and then I was reading 1 Corinthians 15, right, um, where it talks about, you know, Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Like, I was really forced to do very close work on the gospel. I was working on the gospel in detail. And one of the convictions that emerged as I worked in detail on it was that the gospel had mostly a royal shape, um, that it's about the Christ. It's about, um, that that that term, the Christ, isn't an empty signifier. We were so used to hearing it, we kind of just read right past it, right? And we just kind of see it as an alternative way of saying Jesus.

But that's not that's not actually correct. Um, scholars who have really studied the term Christ would identify it as an honorific term. Um, and so, like, honorifics in our society, some honorifics might be, um, something like, um, a doctor. Like, um, on the one hand, like, that's a there are a variety of technical degrees. Like, you could have a PhD or an MD or whatever it might be. And, and, um, you're you've you've accomplished, you know, that degree. But if someone chooses to refer to you as Dr. So-and-so, um, that's their way of honoring your accomplishment, right? It's an honorific. And so there were similar kinds of things in Jesus's world. And, uh, and so, yeah, one example would be Judas Maccabee, like was called the Hammer.

This became a title, right? The Maccabee actually means that. It means the Hammer. Um, and, uh, and similarly, uh, got, you know, Caesar Augustus, like whenever, um, he came to be like venerated, right? Um, uh, by, uh, the title, his real name is Octavian, but by the title Augustus, like that, that's actually an honorific, the Augustus part. We just use it today and we almost think of it as his name. Similar, a similar thing has happened with Jesus Christ, right? We tend to think of Christ as as just an alternative way of saying Jesus. But when we really dive into it, we find that it's actually a a royal term, um, and that it means the Jewish king who would arise, you know, through in connection with the promises of David and who would who would have such an enormous importance that the nations would, in one way or another, either stream to him or he would lead them through his law, or there would be a variety of visions of this in the Old Testament.

Um, but it's also an honorific title. So coming to recognize, for instance, like that Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 5, when he defines the gospel, right? It's not about like Jesus's death or his about the Christ's. Okay, now Jesus is the Christ, but we have to pay attention to that specific use of language. So recognizing that the gospel was royal, that really kind of brought together the two things I was thinking about, like, like, like faith as allegiance. Um, and on the other hand, what does it mean to respond to the gospel then? Um, it means to give loyalty to a king. Um, so it was really like as those two kind of pieces of data sort of sparked together that the full-blown thesis of of kind of gospel allegiance or a royal allegiance model, um, came to fruition.

Uh, and then of course I had to look at a lot of evidence to see is this true? Like, is this a valid way of, of, you know, I had to look at a lot of linguistic data. Um, so yes, anyway, that's that's the basic.

Yeah, very good. Now, and that idea of royalty also helped a lot. Um, you know, growing up, we talked a lot about the kingdom of God and the specific focus was often on, you know, the ethical teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and so on, um, which are really good. Um, but seeing that as, you know, the royal gospel helped to connect pieces because often we felt just a little bit of didn't know how to integrate, you know, the teachings of the kingdom and then the statements about the Christ. Um, so that helped. Uh, but speaking of the royal gospel, how would you put the gospel in one sentence? Well, the quickest sentence I would use if I was to just do one sentence would be Jesus is the saving king or Jesus is the rescuing king.

Jesus is the forgiving king. Just some way of quote, like, I'm trying to capture two ideas in that sentence. Like, on the one hand, it is the king, right? That's the basic gospel fact. Jesus is the Christ. That's that's the most consistent summary of the gospel in the New Testament. You look at like, what's the gospel? Like, whenever our New Testament authors do it, they're going to like say Jesus is the Christ is going to be their briefest summary they give. I think it is important to qualify that to describe what kind of king he is, like that he's a king who brings rescue in some way. Um, and so that would obviously be trying to highlight statements like in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 5, where it talks about like him dying for our sins in accordance with the scriptures or things like that, like that in in that action, like he's he's in some way rescuing, but it also would link to other models of atonement, right?

Of him winning the victory over death and over sin and over evil spiritual powers. So it kind of connects to the the Christus Victor model or could be connected in that way. So I think that's um a helpful way of starting, um you know, in terms of just giving the most brief definition of the gospel we can, uh because it really does like accomplish like the the rescuing or healing dimension of the gospel, but also like his kingship.

And yeah, this probably goes beyond one sentence a little bit. You've also done quite a bit of work on what is the basic content of the Bible as. Do you mean the content of the gospel you mean? Yeah. Yeah, the basic content of the gospel. Yeah, so it does go beyond the idea of Jesus just being the Christ. Um Obviously, we want to fill that out with a larger narrative. And I think it's important to recognize it is a narrative. It does take a storied shape. Um And the easiest way to remember it is to remember that the storied shape is kind of a V-shaped pattern, right? That it's, um and that insight is not new to me.

Lots of people have described this trajectory, right? Where, um if you wanted to break it into three stages, you could maybe talk about the incarnation, you could talk about the crucifixion, and you could talk about the resurrection unto enthronement, right? Like that, uh that would be a way of kind of like getting the three parts. Like he, Jesus, begins in glory alongside the Father, right? And then he's dispatched on a divine mission. So the Father sends the Son to take on human flesh, uh and does so in a very specific promise-fulfilling way into the line of David. Uh So the incarnation is, uh is central to the gospel, and it often gets neglected. Uh It will will often in our church traditions affirm the gospel, of course, affirm the incarnation, of course.

But we don't we often don't see it as part of the gospel. We'll we'll tend to focus on the cross, um which is indeed part of the gospel, right? But um if we miss the incarnation, we begin to miss the logic of the gospel, which is that Jesus is taking on human flesh, not just to die for our sins, but also to become the ideal ruler so that we, and also the ideal human, so we can see what it means to be fully human. And also so that once he's crucified and raised to reign, there's a human who's now ruling the cosmos. Jesus is like taken on human flesh. And so now, like the cosmos is receiving the proper image bearing that it was designed to receive, uh as humans are made in God's image in order to to bear his image correctly into creation.

It's an active idea. Uh That isn't happening until, at least in the full sense, until we have the model human, the model king, who then begins to do this. And then we then can get united into that rule, uh by our own transformation into the image of Christ. So, um anyway, yeah, the the full gospel involves, um obviously the idea that the Father sent the Son to take on human flesh. Then he dies for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. He's buried, uh which is really talking about the the reality of his death, right? And then he's raised on the third day, uh according to what the scriptures. And then he's seen, like he's he's witnessed, right?

People see him. And then after that, then we get the part that I think gets gets neglected also, like incarnation gets neglected, but enthronement, right? Then he's raised to the right hand of the Father where he begins to rule. And then the Father and the Son send the Spirit. Uh And then there will be a final judgment. So the sending of the Spirit, right, is uh helps kind of like connect the Trinitarian pieces too. The gospel is about the Father who sends the Son so that the Father and the Son then can send the Spirit.

Yeah, thank you. That's very helpful. So you've talked a lot about baptism and brought in practices of baptism, um in talking about this as allegiance. And you describe kind of the pledge accompanying baptism, um as an oath of allegiance.

Um And I'm I'm curious about that from a couple angles. Um One is just a little bit of the details, like, you know, what's our historical evidence for that? Do we know much about the specifics of, you know, what the person is saying, um as they're baptized? And then also, again, with my Anabaptist sensitivities, we've had lots of controversies, um over, you know, the things that Jesus said about not using oaths and so on. And so maybe a little bit on the angle, how is the baptismal oath different than the, you know, when James says, don't swear by anything or Jesus says, uh don't use an oath?

So to answer your first question about like kind of the historical evidence for oaths, um actually the term sacramentum, right, means oath that we we we get, you know, the seven-fold sacraments in certain traditions, right, like are connected to, um originally to the oath kind of idea that is is is part of all this. Um So in terms of the the oath language specifically in the New Testament, uh around baptism, um we would see, for instance, that in 1 Peter where Peter talks about it being a pledge, um that your baptism is a pledge of your good conscience, um toward God, which I would think would also involve toward the Christ in God. Um We also um see it just in the idea of calling upon the name of the Lord, like that that calling upon Jesus's name in baptism, the name part, like it suggests like his authoritative position, like those who have done studies of name language, like the name above every name, those that kind of stuff, right?

The name part has to do with reputation and authority, especially with Jesus's reputation and authority in the cosmic realm, that he is the he's the highest authority over all principalities and powers. So calling upon his name then would be a recognition that he is the supreme power, uh to whom you owe your allegiance. So that language, um you can track trace it back into the Old Testament, but calling upon the name of Yahweh in the Old Testament of the Lord, right, is also an oath practice, um in in in certain contexts in the Old Testament. So um so we see evidence in that direction. And then we see evidence from early church history, like people like Tertullian, who mention, right, that um that as part of the baptism, um that you made a pledge.

Um So we we do see evidence from it that this continued into early Christian history. Uh So that's the basic evidence um for, um uh there's also a really interesting one. um uh And this Alan Street uh is uh um Caesar and the Sacrament, his book, uh helped me clarify. I was aware of the idea of oath as, or allegiance as an oath, but he he foregrounded some of this. And well, I I don't know, I'd have to dig up the reference, but there's a reference in Acts 22 where it talks about Paul uh baptizing um himself, probably like, uh to call upon the and calling upon the name of the Lord. Um And uh that language there seems to speak of oath, uh probably in context.

Anyway, uh there, I think, is good, strong evidence for this uh idea. And it connects also to Greco-Roman realities where troops would would swear their loyalty to Caesars or to generals or to a whole bunch of different kind of, like, yeah, it connects to the Greco-Roman world more broadly and makes sense both within the Jewish world, the Greco-Roman world. Yeah, anyway, so back to your your um your your second question, um which was uh about, um you know, kind of tension over that with an Anabaptist circles about oaths. Uh I don't, it's a great question and I don't have a ready answer. Um I would say that um we, first of all, just need to deal with a historical reality, which would be that um it does seem that early Christians did use oaths of allegiance to Jesus and that this was considered part of what um what was saving, right, calling upon the name of the Lord.

Uh And in that way, right, confessing him with the mouth um was a a form of, uh I do remember that word, it's the homologao. It is a, um it's it's a word that intends public confession, for instance, when we have um that in Romans, uh you know, um uh where in Romans 10, 9 through 10, where it talks about, uh you know, that um if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. Um And so, yeah, uh I I think we have to, on the one hand, just say that's just how early Christians operated. So they didn't feel the tensions we feel. My hunch would be that that it's probably a a slightly different register that whenever um there's a concern with especially oaths um in the New Testament, that it has to do especially with vows and with uh making vows toward God to fulfill certain kinds of promises that you don't have control over.

Like those are contingencies, right? If I, if I in ancient Israel, I was to swear to offer a lamb to the Lord or something like that, right? Like I, I don't have the absolute ability to fulfill that vow, right? I I may find that I actually, you know, as circumstances unfold, don't have a lamb to offer, um even though I had intended that, even though I'd even vowed it. Uh And in so doing, if I swear, you know, by the Lord himself that I'm going to fulfill that vow, I if I if I don't fulfill that vow subsequently, I bring the Lord into disrepute. Um So like it's it's a way, it it's a concern with slandering the name of the Lord, right?

If I, um so I think it has to do especially with the legal sphere and with maybe with uh undertaking of vows um would be a lot of the concern around some of that. Um And so that when we're swearing our loyalty to King Jesus, of course, there is the same concern that we may deny the Lord someday. And um and in so doing, uh we may bring the Lord's um name and offering into disrepute. And you'll notice the author of Hebrews is concerned about that, um that uh those who, and and Peter as well, like the those who have uh started on the path, right, of following Jesus, if they turn back, um then they are actually um bringing the Lord's um sacrifice and offering into disrepute.

Yeah, I think that's helpful. And I mean, one thing I thought about is if I'm going to make a commitment to you about something, whatever it might be, and then I were to invoke an oath on that, I'd be saying, you know, basically inviting God to judge me if I don't fulfill this thing for you.

But if I'm talking to God and committing myself to God, it's all, well, there's automatically, it's to God to start with. So it's automatically kind of in that oath thing in the sense of God will judge me if I'm not loyal. Yeah, thanks for those comments. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, to come from a different a different angle, um especially where you highlight, you know, faith as allegiance, submitting to the royal king, um that involves bodily things and so on. And yeah, I've really appreciated your emphasis on allegiance.

You know, the circles I've been familiar with, they tend to talk about obedience, which um closely relates. Um But one of the critiques we get, and I think sometimes it's it's justifiable, other times it's not necessarily, is that, you know, we're replacing the a focus on God's action with moralism, or we think kind of a flat moralism, or we have kind of our, you know, our code, the obedience becomes kind of stylized. Here's the list of things that we expect to qualify as obedience. And we think, okay, we're demonstrating our faith because we're we're checking some of these boxes. Um And I feel that critique. I feel it sometimes from, you know, more Calvinist friends who are like, no, this is about the glory of God or whatever.

I mean, they emphasize obedience too if they're proper Calvinists. Um You know, but I feel that. I don't like their way of answering the question, but yeah, I'm curious if you thought about that in terms of a kind of a pastoral risk where we're always talking about allegiance and it leads to, yeah, I don't know, the wrong kind of human focus. Sure. I think that's actually one of the strengths of the allegiance model is that I think it gives biblical language that is true, like that I do think that um the word pistis in Greek faith means many things, but one thing it can mean in context is allegiance. And I think when we're talking about responding to the royal gospel, that's the best way of summarizing.

I mean, sometimes it means other, sometimes it just means trust, sometimes it means belief. It's a big word, right? But um I do think as a way of summarizing, it's an accurate way of summarizing to say allegiance. And I think that is one of the pastoral strengths of this term is it's a deeply relational term that um doesn't easily devolve into kind of a mere works righteousness or a mere legalism um where you're just, you know, like, okay, like obedience to the Lord means I do these XYZ things. If I check them off, that means I'm obedient or loyal. Um I think that part one of one of the strengths is the relational dimension of that, like that if I'm going to know what my king wants, I have to um be in relationship with this king continually.

And that um the king may call call different people to different tasks in life. It could be that it, for instance, if um if I was an apostle to uh the Jews, uh like Paul was, right, that uh God might call me to live um a a law-obedient life um in ways that other people might identify as legalistic. Uh God might call me to keep a kosher table so that I could be a a good apostle to those Jews. Um Do am I saved by keeping a kosher table? No. Does it risk confusion? Yes. Right. Um But nevertheless, like to be faith to be allegiance to the king might demand that I live a a law-obedient.

It would always demand that I fulfill the intent of the law, but it might demand that I live a a what other people might perceive as a legalistic um kind of uh life. Um But also, but if I was called to be an apostle to the Gentiles, right, um then um such strictures may not apply to me and and may actually harm my my mission, right? Uh To be allegiance to the king for one person uh could be quite different from the other, especially with these matters that are are what we might consider adiafora, like that are matters of indifference, right, as the New Testament puts it. Um Those things aren't matters of indifference in terms of our obedience to the king if we're attuned to to his voice, right?

It it may be actually a matter of of moral failure. If I was to, if I was called to be an apostle to the Jews and I shirked that, right, by not actually being allegiance and being lazy about it, uh then then I'm actually in disloyalty to my king. So I do think it helps actually with some of these um these challenges, these pastoral challenges that uh we have faced. And it's not just the Anabaptists, it's across the tradition, especially with the you choose the Protestant tradition. There has been a struggle with how do we handle the idea that we need to actually be obedient to the Lord with questions about works righteousness and questions about legalism.

Mm - hmm Yeah. So part of the response I hear there is is actually personalizing it and saying not only is this about, you know, what we might call basic righteousness, like don't commit adultery, um but also these things that are specific callings to an individual and it's all wrapped in that allegiance to the king. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can think of even moral scenarios like, you know, a Robin Hood-like scenario where, um you know, they're in the face of gross injustice, um you know, by the state, like that that it would be actually, you know, allegiance to the king to to work on behalf of the poor, you know, even if that was illegal.

That could be a that could be a calling, right? That is an allegiance calling to the king that we have to navigate with our like other kinds of loyalties and statements in the New Testament where we're called to, you know, to submit to the state. But our higher loyalty to to Jesus, right, like might give us a framework for thinking about civil disobedience. I do think it's a helpful term. Um And, you know, regardless of whether it's helpful or not, it's true, which I think is is the more important. Um um It's the more, it is pastorally useful, but maybe I at least my conviction is it's pastorally useful uh because it's in fact true.

So uh anyway, that's a little bit on the pastoral implications of allegiance. Yeah. Thank you. So your most recent book, which just came out not too long before we were recording this. Yeah. Yeah, just a couple of weeks ago.

Pre-ordered and got the copy called Beyond the Salvation Wars. And I don't know if you didn't want to step into enough hot button issues before, you sure did with this book. Yes.

But you're bold enough to suggest that the gospel allegiance model really gives some tools for for thinking well and hopefully moving past some of the disputes between Protestants and Catholics. Yeah. Introduce us to a little, introduce us to that a little bit.

Yeah. So Beyond the Salvation Wars, it was a deliberate strategy in publishing this material to a degree that I wanted to have kind of a core model where I talked about the central, maybe the central, the most central issues in this whole conversation, which is what is the gospel, what is faith, what is grace, what works. And I really deal with those in the first book that you mentioned, Salvation by Allegiance Alone, but even more in a second book that followed that up called Gospel Allegiance, where I really get into um some more disputed issues. I I do more work on faith, more work on uh works and works of the law, but especially on grace, which I hadn't really treated yet.

I have a whole chapter on that. So I wanted to kind of secure the foundations of that, those kind of core issues, as those are often matters of debate. And then I wanted to apply it, see like how useful is this to maybe solving um some other long-standing controversial issues in the church or not solving, but contributing at least to the conversation, right? Um Baptism, how is that saving, is it, right? Um Uh Questions about regeneration, does that happen like before we can even give faith as uh the reform position would tend to say or simultaneous with, or is that more a human decision, right? How does that work? Like how, like how do we, how does that coordinate with God's grace to larger questions?

Um And so, yeah, this book, the second book is dealing with more controversial topics. Um And the idea was partly that I would be hope, I was hoping that the that the core model would get some consensus around it, that people would say this is true. Or if it wasn't, then there would be opportunity to correct untruths there Um and then apply it to these these more uh controversial issues. Uh So it's creating some good conversation um so far and uh getting a really strong response to it. Um There's been uh some very strongly positive responses and maybe predictably uh those who are wed to a Calvinist framework. Um The Gospel Coalition, for instance, uh had a quite honestly a very inaccurate review um as they just don't even get the facts right in the review at all.

Um Uh It's it's highly misleading review, but also a quite uncharitable review in my judgment. Uh But it is uh it is creating some waves. Yeah. I mean So one piece of that uh book was you said you wanted to, I think you said use the word like re-aim the Protestant critique of, you know, Roman Catholic um doctrines of salvation.

And by saying re-aim, I took you to say, you know, there was something very much right about the Protestant instinct to to critique this and something that needed to be critiqued. Um But the classic Protestant way of framing that in terms of how they think about justification by faith and what our works of law and so on are misconstruing it a little bit and re-aim. So yeah, could you just elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah, you're right. Um So, you know, part of the project is to um to ask uh both Catholics and Protestants to rethink how we're talking about salvation. And the claim isn't here that we like like both groups are totally wrong or that anything I'm saying doesn't have some sort of footprint in the tradition somewhere.

Um I want to be careful like that this is like perceived as some sort of like, you know, out of out from left field novel project. It's more of like a a careful reading, hopefully, of uh the apostolic witness of what the New Testament and the early Christians um said about how we're saved. And to um to ask Protestants and Catholics to consider some of their most um careful ways of articulating that could be more nuanced, um I guess, um and that there are ways to get even closer to the truth. So it is a very much a um a continually reforming kind of project um for the church. And it's really got a long-term aim of unity for the church.

I realize in the short term it may just cause more squabbling, uh but in the long run I do hope that it um is something that will uh be um a model that doesn't solve all the Catholic Protestant problems, um but does offer maybe um a truer path forward um in some very carefully nuanced ways. So um yeah, it does as part of the book, it does walk through um issues of justification by faith. And one of the problems within Protestantism, and speaking as a Protestant here, um in my judgment is that um from the very beginning, Protestantism sort of baked into its DNA that justification by faith is the heartbeat of the gospel. And by that, it was intended personal justification by faith.

Luther is like like worried that God is angry about his sins. He's trying to offer penance, right? And he finds relief when he realizes that the righteousness that God gives is a gift, right? And that he's justified by faith and by faith alone. And this for him is the the definitive good news. The problem is when we look at scripture with, with I think with really a careful fine-tuned comb, like look with great care, scripture never says that personal justification by faith is part of the gospel. Um That that's just not how the gospel is defined. The gospel is a royal narrative about what Jesus has done. It's not about like what we get out of the gospel other than like it's about what Jesus has accomplished for the group.

Like Jesus accomplished various things for the whoever happens to be part of his people, right? He has accomplished forgiveness. He he has provided the means for justification. But the idea that we personally get it as part of the gospel, I don't think actually is part of the gospel when we read with care. So my project on the one hand affirms the Protestant uh the insight that justification by faith is a true doctrine. That is true. We are justified by faith. And I think what if we speak truly about how the Bible defines faith, we could even say faith alone. If we if we by that, we mean something that's more like holistic, like something bodily or like allegiance, right?

But um but at the same time, we could say that justification is a benefit that comes from the gospel uh and that it's actually not part of the gospel. So it's partly about rearranging our our categories of salvation so that we can be even more exacting, so that we can say that it's true. Justification by faith is a true doctrine, but that doesn't mean it's part of the gospel. It means that it's uh it's connected to the gospel uh through benefit and through response to the gospel, but isn't exactly the gospel itself.

Yeah. Well, and I do want to affirm you said it's not intended to be novel in the sense of it wasn't there before. And yeah, the things you're saying definitely have that footprint. I mean, I think I find you doing very good work to put them together and and fill in details and so on. Um I think depending on someone's theological background, they're going to feel completely novel.

Um But again, I I very much see it as as building on things, putting pieces together in ways that are uh for at least for me have been very helpful. And yeah, while we're talking about um the Protestant critique and then maybe in turn how you critique Protestantism a little bit, you argued for a distinction between imputed righteousness, which is the way kind of classically Protestants have talked about Jesus' righteousness is imputed to the believer and argued for something different, slightly different, which you term incorporated righteousness. Yeah. So um really I'm I'm trying to yeah uh discuss uh different models of how righteousness is uh felt to be possessed by the individual believer. On the one hand, Catholics have favored ideas of what we might call imparted righteousness um uh or secondarily, they might talk about that as infused righteousness.

And I won't try to get into that right now because you kind of asked more about imputation. Uh Protestants have tended to favor ideas of imputed righteousness, um which usually, uh especially within the reform tradition, for instance, have involved the ideas of Jesus being the righteous one, that his active obedience is credited to our account um in terms of how salvation happens. So the idea is I'm not righteous, but I need some righteousness. Well, how do I get it? Um Well, it's actually Jesus' own righteousness that then is credited to my account and then I am found to be righteous. Um And so the problem with imputed righteousness from a biblical standpoint is that it's not how scripture describes it.

Um Scripture doesn't say that Jesus' righteousness gets credited to my account anywhere. Um It says uh instead that faith is credited for righteousness, which is quite different, right? Um That faith is credited for righteousness. Um And so whenever we we kind of dive into that a little bit, I think that when we see that um that allegiance is is the kind of the core idea there, it might help us to see like why is it that we get right with the king whenever we give allegiance to him? It's because all the benefits that attend the gospel become ours whenever we give our loyalty to King Jesus, right? That faith is credited for righteousness because we are we're in right standing with the king whenever we we we turn away from our previous loyalties and we pledge loyalty to him.