Here is an intelligent critique of Wright’s view on justification. This is not by someone who agrees with him on all matters; but the author is well known and respected, Craig Blomberg.Excerpt:
Put another way, those who find sixteenth-century formulations of theology the best ever produced in Christian history and not to be tampered with in any fashion, even on the basis of Scripture itself, will struggle with Paul’s repeated references to the Christians being judged according to their works. While Gal 5:6; Phil 2:12-13; Eph 2:10; and numerous other texts all clearly speak of the role transformed living must play for the truly justified person, too many Protestants recoil at the thought that Paul’s texts on judgment according to works (esp. Rom 2:6-11, 13-16, 25-29; 1 Cor 3:10-15; and 2 Cor 5:10) might mean exactly what they say when read in straightforward fashion. Of course, no one is justified by works, in the sense of God’s legal declaration of right standing with him. But the Spirit (note, e.g., his crucial role in Romans 8 and Galatians 5) proceeds to indwell the justified person, enabling one to obey God’s righteous standards, not perfectly or anything close to it, but in a way that one could never have done before. The justified are thus marked out as living to some degree in morally virtuous ways that demonstrate the reality of their experience with Christ. To this degree they can be said, in the final analysis, to be judged favorably on the basis of their works.
Throughout his prolific writing career, Wright has increasingly centered his attention on the breadth of the gospel message being much more than how an individual attains salvation, defined as life in heaven after death. Instead, Wright wants to keep reminding us that God’s plan for his creation extends to the re-creation of the entire cosmos, climaxing in new heavens and new earth. Fixate on the Reformers’ (understandable) preoccupation with how an individual becomes right with God (crucial in its day against medieval Catholicism) and one may miss the bigger picture, in which the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham through the children of Israel as progenitor of the Messiah looms even larger. Begin with this bigger picture and justification by grace through faith rather than works of the Law follows necessarily, but it will be understood in the larger, less anthropocentric but fully theocentric context of God’s Lordship in Christ over the whole universe. end of excerpt
It makes sense of Paul, does it not?
For the full critique, not a long read btw, you can go right here