A Pauline Theology of Justification: Forgiveness, Friendship, and Life in Christ

By James B. Prothro

Paul's teaching about justification is always important for understanding the apostle and for Christian theology. And, for that same reason, it is always debated. James B. Prothro's book looks at the apostle's words about righteousness, faith, the Mosaic law, and life in Christ to connect the dots of Paul's thought and to bring Paul into dialogue with major theological traditions. He offers an account of justification that is both forensic and thoroughly participatory, God's gift of forgiveness, friendship, and new life in Christ through the Spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Feb 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781725282926

James B. Prothro

James B. Prothro (PhD, University of Cambridge) is assistant professor of Scripture and theology at the Augustine Institute in Denver, Colorado. His books include A Pauline Theology of Justification: Forgiveness, Friendship, and Life with God and The Apostle Paul and His Letters: An Introduction.

Book preview

A Pauline Theology of Justification

Forgiveness, Friendship, and Life in Christ

James B. Prothro

For Heidi

O God, by whose grace, though sinners, we are made just and, though pitiable, made blessed, stand, we pray, by your works, stand by your gifts, that those justified by faith may not lack the courage of perseverance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.—The Roman Missal, Collect for Thursday after the Fifth Sunday in Easter.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Abbreviations

Lectio Sacra

1. Seeking Fresh Answers to Perennial Questions

2. A Legal Image—But What Kind?

3. Justification in the Jewish Scriptures

4. The Contention according to Paul

5. The Gift Received

6. Living on God’s Side against Sin

7. Vindication, Resurrection, and the Triumph of God

8. Revisiting the Law

9. Revisiting Faith, Works, and Perseverance

10. Revisiting Implications

Bibliography

Preface

This book reflects a long journey. In part, especially in its first few chapters, it recapitulates the argument of my doctoral dissertation, published as Both Judge and Justifier: Biblical Legal Language and the Act of Justifying in Paul with Mohr Siebeck in 2018 . That work has been cited now in several pieces by others, and I have learned that scans of certain chapters have even been used in seminary courses. I am very humbled and grateful that my nerdy dissertation in a saturated field was even noticed, let alone deemed helpful to scholars and pastors, and grateful as well for constructive critiques of the work. I am happy that its basic theses can be presented (and priced!) more accessibly here.

However, this book is only in part a summary of that one. Both Judge and Justifier was my initial entrance into scholarly work and was limited in scope. It was a study of the language and metaphor of justifying, but there were many related aspects of Paul’s theology that I had not made my mind up about yet—such as Paul’s view of the Mosaic law, the righteousness of God, the meaning of justifying faith, the effects of grace, and the role of the Spirit and participation. Developing my thinking about these matters since then has involved a lot of teaching in ecclesial and university settings, as well as opportunities to present and discuss research at annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Catholic Biblical Association. It involved studying all of the Pauline letters in greater depth, rather than the mere three that my dissertation treated, which came to fruition in a textbook survey of those letters’ arguments, contexts, and theology (now published as The Apostle Paul and his Letters: An Introduction with Catholic University of America Press in 2021). It also involved further study of dogmatic theology and how Paul’s words have been received, believed, and lived by Christians engaging his letters in sacred reading—Lectio Sacra—in various traditions. The present book is able, as a result, not only to address much more of what (I think) Paul thought about justification and to expand my previous research. It is also able to bring Paul into explicit theological dialogue regarding the issues that make this topic historically and practically important for Christian readers—myself included.

This book would not have come to print without the support and collaboration of many people. I am very grateful to Michael Thomson of Wipf and Stock not only for supporting the series Lectio Sacra and its vision but for publishing my book in it. The quality of the book was greatly improved by substantial comments from series editors Michael Gorman, Ben Blackwell, and John Kincaid. All errors are my own, but many good ideas and turns of phrase came from them. My colleagues Michael Barber and John Sehorn read through an earlier draft of the manuscript and offered insightful corrections and encouragements. I want also to acknowledge Jonathen Favors, who emailed and eventually had a video-chat with me during the coronavirus pandemic after he read my previous book. His interest and appreciation helped spur me on early in the course of drafting.

I am thankful for the personal and professional support of my friends at the Augustine Institute. Our president, Tim Gray, and provost, Christopher Blum, captain our ship excellently. Our Graduate School staff—particularly Katie and Rachel—and my colleagues Elizabeth, Mark, Brant, Lucas, Scott, and Sean make professorial life a joy. I am constantly edified through the work of our chaplain, Fr. James Claver, and by my friends at the Institute outside the Graduate School. I can think of distinct times when Clay, Casey, Kevin, Joe, and Ryan—usually unwittingly—refreshed my energy and my creativity between paragraphs. They all have my gratitude.

Lastly and most significantly, I want to thank my wife, Ashley, and our children, Sophia, Heidi, Elizabeth, and Charles. You are a constant source of strength and tenderness from the Lord. Words can hardly express the place you have in my heart. Thank you for loving and supporting me, and for letting me love and support you. This book is for Heidi, whose love for Jesus inspires me. I treasure our daddy-daughter dates as much as you do.

James B. Prothro

Greenwood Village, Colorado

Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

June

29

,

2022

Abbreviations

AB Anchor Bible

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. Edited by David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992

AcBib Academia Biblica

AnBib Analecta Biblica

BBMS Baker Biblical Monograph Series

BBR Bulletin for Biblical Research

BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament

BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium

BHT Beiträge zur historischen Theologie

BibInt Biblical Interpretation

BJS Brown Judaic Studies

BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

BZNW Beiheifte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

CBET Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

ConBNT Coniectanea Neotestamentica

CTQ Concordia Theological Quarterly

CurBR Currents in Biblical Research

EBib Etudes bibliques

EKKNT Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament

EstBib Estudios bíblicos

EvT Evangelische Theologie

ExpTim Expository Times

FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments

GKC Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. 2nd ed. Edited by Emil Kautzsch. Translated by A. C. Cowley. Oxford: Clarendon, 1910

HThKAT Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament

HThKNT Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament

IBHS An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Bruce K. Waltke and Michael O’Connor. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JJT Josephinum Journal of Theology

JSHRZ Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit

JSPL Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters

JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

JTS Journal of Theological Studies

LCC Library of Christian Classics

LD Lectio Divina

LHBOTS The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies

LNTS The Library of New Testament Studies

LW Luther’s Works. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann. St. Louis: Concordia, 1958–86

LXX Septuagint

Neot Neotestamentica

NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament

NovT Novum Testamentum

NovTSup Novum Testamentum Supplements

NSBT New Studies in Biblical Theology

NTAbh Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen

NTS New Testament Studies

OCD The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 4th edition. Edited by Simon Hornblower et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012

OIS Oriental Institute Seminars

OTP Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. New York: Doubleday, 1983, 1985

OtSt Oudtestamentische Studiën

RB Revue biblique

RBS Resources for Biblical Study

SBAB Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände

SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

SBT Studies in Biblical Theology

SCS Septuagint and Cognate Studies

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

SNTW Studies of the New Testament and Its World

ST Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. Edited by John Morten­sen and Enrique Alarcón. Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas, vols. 13–20. Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012

StBibLit Studies in Biblical Literature (Lang)

SVSPPS St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press Popular Patristics Series

TBei Theologische Beiträge

TC TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism

TGST Tesi Gregoriana, Serie Teologia

TS Theological Studies

VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum

WA D. Martin Luthers Werke, Weimarer Ausgabe. 65 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–1993

WBC Word Biblical Commentary

WJW The Works of John Wesley. 3rd ed. 14 vols. Reprint,Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986

WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament

WSA Works of Saint Augustine

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kune der älteren Kirche

ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Lectio Sacra

The Lectio Sacra series engages the sacred reading of historical biblical texts in a scholarly manner that remains accessible to the nonspecialist, proposing an integrated vision of biblical interpretation. Biblical commentary is only the cottage industry that it is because of the interests of over two billion living people for whom the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are received and read as holy books. The Lectio Sacra series (reading texts as sacred) is, broadly speaking, interested in close historical readings for the sake of the text’s reception in religious tradition. Such readings are likewise focused on influential (or significant but neglected) interpretations of the way in which they illumine those texts and speak to the ongoing life of those who live by and believe them. Indeed, in the eyes of many modern and most ancient readers, reading the sacred page for all its worth calls for explicit attention both to the words on the page and to the text’s reception and instructive value among those who hold it sacred.

Different readers and interpretive traditions will, of course, have different visions of how Scripture and theology fit together. Combined with the array of potential texts, receivers, and theological issues—ancient and contemporary—that can be treated, this makes sacred reading naturally a forum in which diverse interests should have a voice. Accordingly, this series does not impose confessional nor methodological straightjackets on its authors but welcomes diverse perspectives and studies. By engaging relevant questions through biblical texts and their reception in its various volumes, this series will provide a home for a wide range of studies that integrate exegesis and the theological task and so contribute to the world of contemporary biblical and theological scholarship.

Series Editors:

John A. Kincaid

Ben C. Blackwell

James B. Prothro

Editorial Board:

Jason Byassee, Vancouver School of Theology

Michael Gorman, St. Mary's Seminary and University

Jennie Grillo, University of Notre Dame

Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary

Isaac Morales, OP, Providence College

Lucy Peppiatt, Westminster Theological Centre

A Pauline Theology of Justification

Forgiveness, Friendship, and Life in Christ

Lectio Sacra

Copyright ©

2023

James B. Prothro. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-8291-9

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-8290-2

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-8292-6

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Prothro, James B., author.

Title: A Pauline theology of justification : forgiveness, friendship, and life in Christ / by James B. Prothro.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books,

2023.

| Lectio Sacra. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers:

isbn 978-1-7252-8291-9 (

paperback

). | isbn 978-1-7252-8290-2 (

hardcover

). | isbn 978-1-7252-8292-6 (

ebook

).

Subjects: LCSH: Paul, the Apostle, Saint. | Bible. Epistles of Paul—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Justification (Christian theology)—History of doctrines. | Forgiveness—Biblical teaching. | Friendship—Biblical teaching.

Classification:

bs2655.j8 p76 2023

(print). |

bs2655.j8

(ebook).

02/07/23

1. Seeking Fresh Answers to Perennial Questions

Justification in Paul—Still Important, Still Controversial

Justification is central to the Christian teaching of salvation. All who affirm classic Christian teaching, whether charismatic or Catholic or Orthodox or Baptist, embrace this teaching.¹

Modern Pauline scholarship is rife with controversy over justification, and yet a position is unavoidable since the apostle weaves justification into the fabric of his thought.²

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that justification, the idea that in Christ God justifies sinners, is an important part of the good news of Jesus Christ for the apostle Paul. It is a ground for the believer’s life of peace with God and of future salvation on the last day. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God (Rom 5 : 1 ). ³ Therefore, since we have been justified now by his blood, how much more will we be saved through him from wrath? (Rom 5:10). And it is those who receive the gift of righteousness who will reign in life through Christ (Rom 5:17). Being washed, sanctified, justified counteracts the unrighteousness that blocks one from inheriting the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9–11). The integral place of justification in Paul’s soteriology comes as no surprise, indeed, since justification and justice or righteousness are deeply connected in Paul’s writings with the character of God and the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection. ⁴ The good news that God justifies sinners in Christ reveals God’s own just character, a demonstration of his righteousness (Rom 3:25–26). Christ was handed over for our transgressions and raised for our justification (Rom 4:25) and became for us wisdom from God, righteousness and holiness and redemption (1 Cor 1:30). And how this justification is received is a theological battlefield on which Paul fights insistently against opponents: we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law (Rom 3:28).

Justification does not appear explicitly in all of Paul’s letters. He does not use this language in 1 Thessalonians, for example. And Paul can express the saving work of Christ in many other ways—such as redemption, adoption, liberation, or salvation (e.g., Rom 6:22; Gal 4:5; 1 Thess 5:9). But among Paul’s many images, justification expresses a distinct and important aspect of God’s saving work. Indeed, Paul sets high stakes on whether people follow his teaching about justification particularly. Paul calls his audience fools only twice in the letters he has left to us. He calls the Corinthians fools when they petulantly object to the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:35). And he calls the Galatians fools or, better, stupid for following a non-Pauline teaching that required gentile (i.e., non-Jewish) believers to be circumcised and follow the Mosaic law in order to be justified (Gal 3:1). Such an alternate teaching about justification, he says, amounts to a different gospel for which the Galatians are deserting God (Gal 1:6–7). Which gospel and which teaching about justification they follow has serious consequences: Behold I, Paul, am telling you that if you get circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you . . . You have been cut off from Christ, you who are pursuing justification in the law. You have fallen from grace (Gal 5:2, 4). Like the resurrection, justification is one central and decisive part of Paul’s view of the good news.

However, if it is no exaggeration to say that justification was important to Paul, it is even less an exaggeration to say that it has been one of his most controversial teachings. Biblical scholars and theologians have put forth no dearth of explanations for what precisely it means to be justified and why Paul was so insistent that it did not come by means of the Mosaic law. Modern Pauline scholarship is rife with controversy over justification.⁵ And this is hardly a situation introduced by modern academics with too much time on their hands. Controversy about this teaching began in Paul’s own lifetime. As Acts tells it, Paul’s teaching that justification comes by faith in Christ apart from the Mosaic law was quickly misinterpreted. In Acts 21:17–26, the apostles in Jerusalem warn Paul that other Jewish followers of Jesus in their area had heard that Paul’s message was not just a positive call to receive salvation in Christ but also a rejection of Jewish heritage and all of the law of Moses (including, perhaps, the Ten Commandments). Acts emphasizes clearly that this was not Paul’s meaning.⁶ And Paul’s own letters show that he opposed libertine misrepresentations of his gospel, which had spread even to places where Paul had never preached a word. Indeed, Paul writes to Rome, where he had never yet visited, Some claim that we say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come.’ Their condemnation is just! (Rom 3:8). But even in a place like Corinth, where he ministered in person for quite some time, this misinterpretation of his gospel persisted. The epistle of James, emphasizing that justification comes not by faith alone (Jas 2:24), appears to many to have been written in part to counter such misinterpretations of Paul.⁷

As time passed, Paul’s teaching about the mode of justification—by faith and not by works of the Mosaic law—became a disputed point as it was seen in the light of new questions and controversies. A famous and early example is Marcion of Sinope (ca. 140 CE). Marcion used Paul’s contrast between the Mosaic law and Christ’s gospel, which Paul occasionally called the Old and New covenants (see 2 Cor 3:4–18), to erect a sharp division not merely between old and new customs or dispensations of salvation history but between different gods: the evil God of the Old Testament and the kind and gracious Father of Jesus Christ. Orthodox clerics fought vigorously to show that Paul’s letters teach continuity across the testaments—the same God with the same saving plan—even if the New fulfills the Old in the coming of Christ and the giving of the Holy Spirit.⁸ Paul rejected the necessity of certain works of Moses’s law (e.g., circumcision), but not the old covenant or the God who redeemed Israel.

Later, Paul’s same affirmations were filtered through another debate about human anthropology, carried on especially by Pelagius and his followers on the one hand and Augustine (joined by Jerome and others) on the other. Pelagius, objecting to a kind of lazy piety that excused sin, insisted that humans were not only created for righteousness but that they remained naturally capable of doing all that salvation demanded without God’s transformative grace. Augustine’s own prior writings on grace and human frailty may have occasioned some of Pelagius’s ardor, but Augustine responded by doubling down on the extent to which original sin mars humanity’s abilities.⁹ Paul teaches that one is saved by grace in Christ and the reception of the Holy Spirit and not by works of the law (e.g., Rom 5:15–21; Gal 3:1–5). On Augustine’s reading, without the intervention of grace, humans cannot do any saving works at all. Humans need not only to be told what to do but must receive divine power and direction to do it—the gift of the Holy Spirit who unites us to God, cleansing and directing our hearts and minds, to make us righteous and bring us to salvation.¹⁰

Paul’s words were heard again in a new context when Martin Luther felt the burden of prayers, vows, and the sleaze of indulgence preachers in sixteenth-century Germany. When he read Paul reject the law’s works for salvation, he heard a rejection of rites and ceremonies and penances that were imposed (or that he thought were imposed) upon him for salvation. He saw such works, like the circumcision demanded of the Galatian gentiles, as human attempts to earn God’s saving favor, attempts that were doomed to fail because of human imperfection. Faith and faith alone could receive the promise of salvation, and so any works—whether burdensome ceremonies, sordid sins, or even acts of love—are immaterial when it comes to the justification of the sinner. Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith, not works, was a rejection of any kind of works-righteousness. Indeed, for Luther and those who followed him, understanding that justification is received only by faith and not by any works is itself the heart of the gospel and the true meaning of Christianity.¹¹

These same discussions, whether among those holding fast to Augustine or Luther or among those who would revise their positions, continue today among Paul’s interpreters. But, in the latter half of the twentieth century, Paul’s words were considered from yet another angle: a rediscovery of and new (for many Christians) perspective on ancient Jewish practice. Readers of Paul after the atrocities of the Shoah (the Holocaust) questioned the popular depiction of Judaism as a religion focused on earning God’s favor through works—a depiction that had become dominant especially since Luther. Proponents of this view contended that most readers of Paul had wrongly read Luther’s struggles against the works and merit of the medieval church into Paul’s words about works of the law, caricaturing Judaism as a religion of works marked by a fearful striving to earn salvation.¹² Beginning especially in the later part of the twentieth century, scholars read ancient Jewish texts afresh and saw a different picture, one of a religion of grace that rested on unearned divine favor. Humans were expected to keep the law (or atone for their sins when they had failed), true, but this was in order to maintain their status within God’s covenant, not because they were trying to earn it.¹³

This, then, brought many to revise their view of Paul’s arguments about justification. If Judaism is not to be characterized as a religion of works-righteousness, striving to earn God’s saving favor, then that cannot be what Paul meant to reject when he insisted justification was not by works of the law. What did he mean to say, then? For some, justification was still a doctrine taught against Judaism, but instead of opposing works-righteousness, it opposed Jewish exclusivism and ethnocentrism.¹⁴ Judaism believed in grace, but many Jews, it was argued, were caught up in the idea that grace (even in Christ) was for Jews and not for gentiles unless they joined the Jewish community by being circumcised and observing other customs prescribed in the law. Paul’s insistence on justification by faith, not by circumcision, was then a doctrine that especially opposed ethnocentrism and proclaimed a place for gentiles in God’s people. This New Perspective on Paul that came with this new perspective on Judaism, then produced its own aftereffects. Some opposed it as a potential threat to historic Protestant beliefs and emphasized data that undermined it.¹⁵ Others, however, saw this as just another way of demonizing Judaism and of reinscribing a separation between Paul and Judaism. Rather, even as an apostle, Paul saw himself remaining within Judaism, even if other Jews did not agree with him that Jesus was the Messiah.¹⁶ Still other readers began to focus on Paul’s apocalyptic view of a cosmos dominated by evil powers from which Christ liberates humans—a message directed not specifically against Judaism or works but positively unveiling the unexpected grace in whose light all things must be reevaluated.¹⁷

The intersection of these different viewpoints in and after the New Perspective in the last forty years has created a fray in which numerous views of justification in Paul, and what Paul’s doctrine of justification is really about, have emerged. As Michael Gorman summarized the situation in 2009, The doctrine of justification is in crisis, or at least in flux.¹⁸ Nonetheless, the basic interpretive questions seem to have remained fairly constant since Paul’s day. What does this teaching propose and what does it oppose? What vision of salvation does Paul’s teaching present? And why does Paul emphasize that justification comes through faith and not through the law? Is justification by faith and not works of the law a proclamation that God is unconcerned with our deeds when it comes to salvation, or that we should be unconcerned with them? Does it proclaim that God’s grace is renewing us to be able to do truly righteous deeds and so be saved? Is it a rejection of human striving to earn God’s favor? Is it a rejection of ethnocentrism and exclusivity? Is it all of the above?

These are important questions for biblical scholars and theologians. And the answers to these questions also have direct bearing on pastoral ministry and each believer’s outlook and life of faith. If Paul is more interested in liberation from evil powers than forgiveness of guilt, what types of sin should ministers today spend time pointing out and trying to heal? If Paul’s teaching really is more about telling first-century Jewish believers that they should accept gentiles, should the mostly-gentile church of the 2020s reverse this by trying to celebrate and include particularly Jewish expressions of the worship of Jesus today?¹⁹ Or does it call us to strive to erase all kinds of discrimination and difference in Christ—whether based on denominations, racial heritage, or disagreements about moral behavior or cultural norms (since Moses’s law, too, was both moral and cultural)?²⁰ How should parents answer their daughter who leaves the funeral asking where grandpa is now? The answer will take different shapes if one believes that grandpa’s salvation rests only on his faith, whether he behaved faithfully or not, or if one believes grandpa’s life of cruelty can counteract his weekly profession of the creed.

The way groups evaluate such questions depends on many things, of course, but for those who desire to follow the spirit and the content of biblical teaching, what Paul says about justification plays a key role. There have been countless books written on justification in Paul, and scores of them just in the last forty years. They sell because readers are interested (a) in knowing what Paul said and meant and (b) in bringing his words to bear on debated questions of Christian theology. The two are interrelated, and the trouble is that (a) is a moving target. New investigations into Paul yield more genuine insights as Paul’s texts are analyzed afresh. But further nuance in our understanding of Paul’s words calls also for fresh evaluations of broader theological questions and doctrinal formulations. If one means to do theology in a biblical (or at least Pauline) mode, one must be ready to refine one’s theological syntheses on the basis of the text or, at the least, refine the way in which one’s theological positions relate to the text.²¹ No matter whether one holds a nuanced or a wooden view of the relation between what Paul said and what I believe, what Paul teaches about justification is always significant. It is always the right time to consider this topic.²²

Theological Perspective on a Historical Apostle

So this will be, yes, another book on Paul and justification. But from what angle will we look at things? What kinds of questions will we pursue? As is likely clear from the preceding paragraphs, this book is theologically interested. I am not interested merely in the apostle’s letters as the historical correspondence of an ancient Jew who led communities in the early Jesus movement (which Paul’s letters are, without qualification). I am also interested in them for their religious value—whether in individual lives, in the practice of Christian communities, or in ecumenical dialogue. As a Christian and with other Christians, I read because I am interested in listening to the historical Paul and sharing his faith to the best of my ability and in my circumstances.

But it is because of this religious interest, not despite it, that historical analysis is necessary. After two millennia of debate and development within the church and academy regarding phrases and ideas in Paul’s letters, listening to Paul has to involve clearing away some of the static that muffles his voice. Solid historical investigation, looking at the text on its own terms and in its contexts, can help us clear away that static. Critical historical analysis of what Paul said and thought can help us understand the apostle better on his own terms and, thus, reflect more accurately on how to share his faith today.²³ It can also, as has been proven certainly in the last century, aid Christian groups in ecumenical dialogue as we focus on Paul’s words instead of later theological declarations formulated against each other.²⁴

Accordingly, this book is first interested in returning to Paul, asking what Paul thought and taught in his contexts. Nonetheless, this attempt to understand the historical Paul’s thinking calls for two caveats. First, there simply is no theological reading of Paul without tradition mediating between ourselves and the text. Indeed, it is the tradition of Christian believers that has told us that we should read these letters in the first place. And Christian tradition has likewise shaped what we read the letters for. Listening to Paul and pursuing a description of his faith, we do want to clear away the static that obstructs hearing. But everyone is shaped by the contexts within which they approach Paul, and that includes how others before us and alongside us have phrased questions and which questions they have thought important.²⁵

Second, the theological reception of Paul’s justification texts is not in itself the static that needs clearing away. If we are dealing with texts that treat theological topics (as Paul’s letters do) and invite their readers to believe, live, and hand on the apostle’s theological views (as Paul’s letters do), then reading them for the sake of theology and in conversation with other theologians past and present is more than fitting. Reading Paul historically for the life of Christians today invites us not to cast off all prior theology and theologians, even if it does mean not letting their concerns control our reading. We should aim to listen to Paul, on his own terms, and we should mind the gap between the apostle and the traditions that have received his words.²⁶ But that does not mean that we cannot listen to Paul alongside voices whose concerns have proved influential or determinative in Christian interpretation. Indeed, attempting to block out the influence of our forebears may ultimately impoverish us if we are left only with our own mental resources—limited by research time, skill, our individual psychological or experiential biases, our cultural prejudices and assumptions, and simply our own finitude.

A Christian reading of Paul must, I think, try to clear away static as we listen to Paul’s epistolary transmissions, but we need to stay tuned to the same frequency of theological and pastoral interest as we do so. That means hearing and engaging the conversation of our forebears—good and bad—who have tried to listen to Paul before us. But first and throughout we will have to listen to Paul. What I hope to offer in this book is a Pauline theology of justification. It aims not merely to summarize or restate what Paul said, nor merely to mine his letters for prooftexts to engage in theological polemics, but to listen to what the apostle said and let his words speak to our questions and concerns. My reading of the letters seeks a Pauline way of thinking that can be brought to bear in the conversations that he has inspired among his readers. It is a reading that aims at understanding Paul, analyzing and explicating his words and attempting to connect points in his thought synthetically and theologically, with an ultimate interest in the religious value of Paul’s teaching and in conversation with some others who have shared that interest.

Perennial Pressure Points

If our aim is to listen to Paul, and to listen while tuned into the frequency of the past and present church, there are certain pressure points relating to terminology and content at which readers sharply divide. Three pressure points in particular boast longstanding pedigrees in debates about justification. I will name them distinctly, but they are all interrelated and have historically proved difficult to separate.

What is Justification—and How is it Forensic?

This pressure point is listed first because it has become a lynchpin for others. What is the meaning of justification? Or, put differently, what is the content of this metaphor for God’s work in Christ? Paul and other biblical writers convey aspects of God’s work through various metaphors; they draw from already-known concepts and realities in the world and depict God and God’s work in those terms. For instance, to say that God bought believers at the price of Christ’s blood (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23) borrows from the world of the market, specifically the slave market (since God is buying humans, not apples), and applies the image and actions of the buyer to God and applies those of the one bought to human beings. They are owned by God and owe obedience to God rather than to other lords. Paul’s language of God freeing humans from sin is similar, depicting sin as a slave master (Sin) and redemption as a liberating change of lordship: believers are now slaves of God called to use their bodies in service of righteousness (Rom 6:12–23). Not all points of the worldly side of the metaphor are necessarily in view—Whom did God pay