One of the frustrating things about some writings within the so-called “New Perspective on Paul” is the mistake that justification by general good works can simply be equated with Pelagianism. The claim is made that Paul’s contemporaries were not Pelagians and, therefore, they were not guilty of “legalism” as Evangelicals understand it. What has been even more frustrating is to see Reformed Church historians allow this construction to stand.

The fact is that while it is easierfor Augustinianism to understand justification as being based on an extrinsic relationship and received by faith (and it is impossible for Pelagianism to conceive of such a thing), the fact remains that Augustine and many of his followers since have preached salvation by grace without understanding justification in this way. As Alister McGrath writes:

Luther’s understanding of “righteousness” as external to us led him to criticize Augustine, who understood the righteousness in question to be part of our being. Luther and Augustine agreed that the righteousness through which we are justified is given to us by God and not something which we ourselves can acquire–but they did not agree on the nature of that righteousness. For Augustine, justifying righteousness is an internal righteousness, something God works within us; for Luther, it is external, something God works outside us. And it is the development of this idea of an “external” or “alien righteousness” that led to the establishment of the characteristically Protestant idea of forensic justification.

Obviously, if one conceives of justification as an internal change that renders one acceptable to God, then the role of works will be far different from Luther’s view.

Following Calvin I think Augustine has much to teach us about grace, predestination, and pastoral wisdom in applying such truth. But, as far as the relationship between works and justification is concerned, Augustine was a heretic (note: in my vocabulary heretics can be saints. Augustine did not have the added centuries behind him that allowed us to understand justification better than he did). And if the Jews were all Augustinians rather than Pelagians, that doesn’t mean a thing as far as their having a soteriology that was acceptable to the Apostle Paul. The idea that we must reply to the rebuttal of Pelagianism by invoking the specter of semi-Pelagianism seems entirely beside the point to me, as far as vindicating Reformed Orthodoxy is concerned. If one has exegetical reasons for portraying the First-Century Jews in this way, well and good. But if the issue is simply why Paul might have had to oppose the Judaizers, there is another reason available. Augustinianism does not give us justification as an alien righteousness received by faith alone.