Wright on Imputation 

Don’t Tell Me N.T. Wright Denies Penal Substitution 

What's Wrong With N.T. Wright? 

N.T. Wright is not a heretic. People often don't take his quotes in the context of the system he is advocating. I often hear people irrationally repeat mantras like, “he denies imputation” and “he is a heretic” even in the face of being proven wrong by showing them many times from N.T. Wright’s own writing where this is not so. It is Wright’s system that gives us the context and meaning of his words. So what does this mean with respect to N.T. Wright? N.T. Wright arrives at the same conclusions as classical Reformed Theology but does not use the "classical" language. So for example, he arrives at Jesus paying for our sins and we being given Jesus righteousness through the believer being in "union" with Christ. In his system we are united to Christ who fulfills God’s purposes for Israel by the Holy Spirit so that all that belongs to Christ (i.e. payment for our sins as the representative of Israel and the True Israel and righteousness and justification before God) also belongs to us. Wright is entirely correct that Jesus didn't come just to save us from our sins so that we can get to heaven (though that is definitely a central part of it). He came to undo the effects of the fall of the 1st Adam and fulfill what Adam was created to do. Adam was to take dominion over the earth and transform the raw glory of the garden into the eschatological glory of the New Jerusalem. The Bible starts and ends this way. Abraham's seed the 2nd Adam, the True Israel - Jesus Christ to whom we are united by the Holy Spirit will possess the gates of his enemies. The gates are the judicial, political and cultural center of the city. We are to make disciples of all the nations. This is what Wright is getting at.