DaveB,
By “relevant texts” in Paul, I of course was including the eight I quoted. I appreciate your references to Wright and the dilemma in Paul of not being justified by works, but being judged according to our works. Many in the New Perspective think the first refers as usually specified to the works “of the Law,” while the second refers to good works in general. I suspect it’s more complicated than that, and involves the differing tenses of justification that you cite, and Paul’s understanding that the vital good works produced in us by faith are ultimately credited to God’s doing, and thus will be the criterion by which we will be pronounced righteous or acquitted at the future day of judgment.
Perhaps a central conundrum with ideas of instant ‘legal’ justification is whether Paul’s understanding of believing correct doctrines implies that persevering through a process of growth in actual righteousness is then not essential. My impression is that Paul does not see being ‘justified by faith’ as implying that we are then exempt from the painful consequences of sinful choices, or of God’s judgment in that sense. I.e. it’s vital to affirm that acceptable faith leads to a changed life that “works by love.” Maybe that’s just another way of saying that I doubt the classic reformed tendency to define justification essentially as an ‘imputed’ righteousness.