Showing posts with label Salvation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salvation. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Triune Nature of Salvation

In her cracking book book, Images of Salvation in the New Testament, Brenda Colijn notes the triune nature of salvation in these terms:

Throughout the New Testament, as in the Old, sōtēria is regarded as the work of God. It is provided by the Father, accomplished by the Son, and applied by the Spirit. The Father is the source of sōtēria; he sends the Son into the world so that it might be saved (Jn 3:17). Jesus is the mediator of sōtēria. He came to seek and save the lost (Lk 19:10), and salvation comes only through him (Acts 4:12). Jesus provides sōtēria through his healings, forgivness, his death and his life (Rom 5:10). The power of sōtēria is the power of his resurrection (1 Pet 3:21; cf. Rom 1:4). The Holy Spirit makes sōtēria actual in the lives of believers by setting them apart for God and making them holy so that they can share in the glory of Christ (2 Thess 2:13). [p. 137].

Friday, October 02, 2009

Paul and salvation in Judaism(s)

I've added what I think is an important paragraph to my "Salvation in Paul's Judaism" article about Paul's discontinuities as being intra or contra Judaism:

My own view is that Paul very much straddles the “contra” and “intra” Judaism fence depending on what part of his career one looks at, what we make of the gravity of his rhetoric, and contingent upon what social pressures he was facing at the time. Paul is intra-Judaism insofar as most of his community debates can normally be paralleled in halakhic discussions and they are often analogous to similar debates that took place among Jews in the Diaspora (Paul was not the first Jew to argue about food and circumcision and the Gentiles!). On the top of that, Paul’s rhetoric fits the sectarian context of second temple Judaism with rancorous polemics between sects and Paul never intended to set up a new religious entity. Yet Paul can also be seen to be contra Judaism in a very real sense as he seems to be willing to go where very few Jews would wish to follow by lowering the currency of Israel’s election in including Gentiles as part of the “Israel of God”. Indeed, Paul’s exegesis of Lev 18:5, his anthropological pessimism, the triadic link of law-sin-death that he makes, and attributing the law to angels are too raw and radical for most of his contemporaries to accept as “in-house” debates. In any case, Paul’s contrariety will depend entirely on which salvation scheme in Judaism we are talking about for it seems that Paul knew several. In Rom 1:18-32, his critique of idolatry and pagan immorality mirrors the “ethical monotheism” of Philo, Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach as Paul doubts the existence of pagan philosophers who have a soul that is on its own sojourn towards God and the heavenly Jerusalem. Paul evidently knows of a “covenantal nomism” whereby grace is embedded in the covenant and obedience is merely the appreciative response to maintain one’s election, yet his objection remains that covenantal grace is only efficacious in the context of covenantal obedience which is precisely what Israel lacks (Romans 2–3, 9–11). Paul responds most virulently to an “ethnocentric nomism” (Gal 2:1–3:24; Phil 3:1-9) whereby Christ is merely an add-on to the Sinaitic covenant so that Christ tops-up rather than displaces the salvific function of portions of the Torah. This effectively keeps the butterfly in the cocoon and locates salvation exclusively within the Jewish constituency. Paul strenuously objects that the gospel is the good news that pagans can be saved by becoming Jews. Paul also responds to a “sapiential nomism” (1 Cor 1:10–3:23) that I postulate as a scheme arising in Corinth that perceives in Christ and the Torah a means to wisdom, power and glory. Finally, Paul opposes an “apocalyptic mysticism” that locates salvation as something acquired through law-observance coupled with visionary ascents to heaven couched in the language of Hellenistic philosophy (Colossians).

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Paul and Sola Gratia

Can Paul's theology be summarized as an expression of sola gratia? If faith and obedience are the necessary means or necessary evidences of salvation, is this really by grace alone? Recently Francis Watson has written: ‘The Reformational assumption that Pauline theology is summed up in the phrase sola gratia should be treated with considerable caution’ (Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, p. 346). In my mind, Paul’s remarks in Gal. 1.15-16 and 1 Cor. 15.8-10 seem to correspond remarkably well with a sola gratia principle indeed. What Watson has undermined is perhaps more akin to a monergism that leaves no room for conversion and obedience as the necessary pre-condition of salvation. The only genuinely form of monergism in this regard is probably some type of universalism. Incidentally, I hope to have a seven page review of Watson's book out soon, it's been a cracking read, easily one of the top five books in Pauline studies in the last ten years.

Monday, December 10, 2007

The Story of Salvation

"When Christians speak of salvation, they telll a story. It is a story that stretches from even before the creation of the world to its final redemption, when the plan of salvation conceived by God from eternity is to come to fulfillment. While God's dealings of old with God's chosen people, Israel, play an important role in this story, ultimately it revolves around Jesus Christ and his death on the cross."
David Brondos, Fortress Introduction to Salvation and the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2007), p.1.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

G.E. Ladd on Salvation

The eminent Baptist NT scholar G.E. Ladd wrote:

"Salvation consists of fellowship with God in the midst of earthly existence and will finally mean the redemption of the whole man together with his environment ... In sum, the Greek view is that 'God' can be known only by the flight of the soul from the world and history; the Hebrew view is that God can be known because he invades history to meet men in historical experience."

The Pattern of New Testament Truth, 39-40.