Justification

That is not only what the Old Testament usage would demand;27 it is not only what is indicated by the post-biblical second-temple literature of which John Piper is so cautious. It is massively indicated by the argument of Romans itself to this point, provided we actually read what Paul says, particularly in 2:17-3:8, rather than merely assuming tha

He says it all sincerely. This is God's single plan, through Torah-equipped Israel, for the world.

It would have been taken for granted that "God's righteousness" referred to the great, deep plans which the God of the Old Testament had always cherished, the through-Israel-for-the-world plans, plans to rescue and restore his wonderful creation itself, and, more especially, to God's faithfulness to those great plans.

It is as though Paul cannot get tired of saying it: if you want to know who we are, we are people in whom God is at work, because of and according to the pattern of the Messiah, for the benefit of you and of the wider world.

Romans 2:1-16 must take its place, not as an odd aside which doesn't fit with what Paul says everywhere else, but as a central statement of something he normally took for granted.

(the "gospel," we note, is not simply "Here's howto be saved"; it is the good news that, through Jesus as Messiah, the Creator God is putting the whole world right).34

The "works of the law" against which Paul warned were not, he suggested, the moral good deeds done to earn justification (or salvation), but the particular commandments and ordinances which kept Jew and Gentile separate from one another.'

Why shouldn't he just toss words around and let them fall in neat sound bites unrelated to the subtle and sustained line of thought he has been following?)

Ecclesiology-so often scoffed at by those who see it as merely "horizontal" rather than the really important thing, the "vertical" dimension of soteriology-is non-negotiable. In Christ there is no vertical and horizontal. Paul was not a Platonist.