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  • From: "Tim Gallant" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Protestant Justification vs OT and Romans
  • Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 18:27:27 -0700

John and Jim,

No time to respond in detail. Let me just say this:

(1) Paul thinks eschatologically, which means that he doesn't reinvent everything, but it also means dramatic newness. We should not expect that he completely redefines the tzedekah/dikaiosune terminology.

(2) Paul himself tells us what God accounts as righteousness - faith (Rom 4). This faith stands over against the unbelief of Rom 1.18ff, which failed to give glory to God; note the contrast with Abraham in Rom 4.20.

(3) Virtually the entirety of Romans resonates with Isaiah, particularly from Isaiah 40-55. In this portion of Isaiah, Israel's struggle and Israel's hope is depicted in terms of a great courtroom event and the crisis is this: God has given Israel certain promises, and yet His covenant also requires faith and faithfulness, which has not been forthcoming. How then will those promises come to pass? God's own righteousness/truth/faithfulness (the terms are virtually synonymous in these contexts) be upheld in the face of Israel's suffering and her own unfaithfulness? The whole of 40-55 (and frankly, much of the rest of the book to the end) is about who God Himself provides the way for His promises to hold true. He finds none to help, and so His arm must save. And ultimately we find Him "treading the winepress alone." Only in Yahweh will Israel boast (familiar?) and be justified. Now: In that context, what is "justification"? Justification is when God relieves His people from their misery and says that the sins which have hung over them collectively are forgiven ("comfort, comfort My people....").

(4) Because Paul has a representative view of Messiah, he insists that Jesus has been raised "because of" our justification (Rom 4.25). That means that the emancipation, the triumph in the great battle of cosmic justice (for that is what Isaiah is about) has been definitively secured, even though only consummated for one Man. But that one Man is the representative head of His people, and therefore what is available in Him is real eschatological justification.

(5) Well then, is justification on the *basis* of something intrinsic in God's people? Is that Paul's point in Romans 4? No, I don't think so, since he indicates pretty clearly that Christ's own resurrection is the basis of their justification. But God does count faith as the righteous response to His own righteousness, truth, and faithfulness (Rom 1.17), and the one who has faith in Him as the One who raised Jesus from the dead will thus be justified. Meaning, in short, a pretty much instrumental view of faith, although I seriously question that Paul worked in Aristotelian categories to the degree that the Reformers did, if at all.

tim

Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church

http://www.timgallant.org
tim | gallant site group





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