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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <DHindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: Corpus-Paulinum <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>, Bill Ross <wross AT farmerstel.com>
  • Subject: Justification By Faith
  • Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 11:27:55 -0500


Message text written by "Bill Ross" <wross AT farmerstel.com>

>I hold that Paul declares that God counts people as righteous because of
their faith and remits their sins.

The language of Paul regarding a substitutionary death are not to be
regarded as a strict penal substitution, actually satisfying justice in our
place, but rather providing the grounds for God showing *mercy*.<

Bill,

I have held back from responding for a day, hoping someone else would take
a stab at a response. I fear that your post may not be in the format that
the list was designed for. Normally, you would define the problem or
question to be treated, and the proposed solution should include references
to source materials and corroborating opinions in published literature.
While you did cite a biblical reference, the scope of what you are trying
to imply cannot be settled by one quote alone.

Please allow me to offer a comment or two:

If I understand you correctly, you are solving the problem of two
apparently competing systems of justification by interpreting them as
complimentary? Actually, this idea is similar to a view adopted by J.
Jeremias several dacades ago.

The concept that the kind of faith that Abraham had prior to his act of
obedience was more important than the act itself does repeatedly show up in
the Pauline corpus. This is not the same as saying that faith remits sin,
though. Your first premise would seem to assume that justification comes
through faith, which in turn sanctifies the believer, which in turn brings
the benefit of salvation. This kind of interpretation forms a
past-present-future framework. Investigation will show that justification
has past as well as future reference, sanctification can refer to a past or
future event, and salvation is too complex to fit entirely in a future
context.

Substitionary death, in your opinion, actually serves as a vehicle for God
to show us mercy, correct? Usually, and I presume this is where you feel
your approach is "novel", the substitutionary death of Christ is the
centerpiece of salvation dogma. In your view it is actually what makes
faith effective. A problem with this view is that the high estimation which
the author(s) of the epistles hold the Christ figure would argue against
it.

Also, will you be able to systematically support your view? The Pauline
epistles are notorious for not systematically presenting these subjects,
and attempts by historical-critical scholars to create a systematic outline
from them have not met with much success. This means that you may not be
able to do so either if you restrict yourself to the Pauline corpus alone.
Don't forget the additional problems that will arise when you choose
citations, as there is debate concerning which epistles are authentic
productions of Paul, and concerns over the level of redaction involved
before they took their present shape.

If you are intent on pursuing this course, I would recommend researching
antecedents to these ideas in the Jewish scriptures, as well as the Jewish
non-biblical literature of the intertestimental period (apocrypha,
pseudepigrapha, etc.), and see if you can tie up some of the loose ends.
However, I am certain that this is already a well traveled road, and I
would look for existing literature on the subjects involved. For a good
review of German critical scholarship up to around 1912, see if you can
find a copy of _Paul and His Interpreters_ by Albert Schweitzer (1912; out
of print but available in many libraries), and the relatively conservative
InterVarsity press publishes a _Dictionary of Paul and His Letters_ (1993;
1,038 pages, and only $24). Do not forget the links to books on modern
Pauline scholarship available in the Corpus Paulinum home page.

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
DHindley AT compuserve.com




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