The New Perspective on Grace: Paul and the Gospel after Paul and the Gift

By Edward Adams, Dorothea H. Bertschmann, Stephen J. Chester and 2 more

For those inspired by Barclay’s Paul and the Gift
  
Over the course of his academic career, John M. G. Barclay has transformed how we think about Paul. Barclay’s contributions to Pauline Studies reached a new height with the publication of his award-winning Paul and the Gift, in which he presents a sophisticated reading of Paul’s theology of grace within the context of gift-giving in the Greco-Roman world. But where does Pauline scholarship go from here?
 
Featuring a diverse group of internationally renowned scholars, The New Perspective on Grace collects essays inspired by Barclay’s magnum opus. These essays broadly explore the implications of grace and gift across a variety of fields: biblical studies, theology, reception history, and theology in practice. Topics include:

     • Paul’s soteriology 
     • The role of grace in Paul’s life and ministry 
     • Implications of the New Perspective on Paul 
     • Divine giving in the Gospels 
     • Gift-giving and Christian aesthetics 
     • Interpretations of Pauline grace from the patristic period to the present 
     • Self-giving and self-care 
     • Grace and ministry in marginalized communities
 
The New Perspective on Grace is essential reading for all students and scholars who want to understand the current state of Pauline scholarship.

Contributors: Edward Adams, Dorothea H. Bertschmann, Ben C. Blackwell, David Briones, Marion L. S. Carson, Stephen J. Chester, Susan Grove Eastman, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Simon Gathercole, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, John K. Goodrich, Judith M. Gundry, Jane Heath, David G. Horrell, Jonathan A. Linebaugh, Joel Marcus, Orrey McFarland, Dean Pinter, Todd D. Still, Paul Trebilco, Michael Wolter

Mockingbird Top Theology Books List (2023)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Aug 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781467466615

Book preview

PART 1

Pauline Theology

CHAPTER 1

Justice, Love, and the Gift

The Logic of Pauline Soteriology

TROELS ENGBERG-PEDERSEN

John Barclay’s recent book, Paul and the Gift, is a major contribution to Pauline studies.¹ It makes two basic claims, one that we should warmly applaud, and one that I will question in this essay written in Barclay’s honor. The splendid claim lies in Barclay’s careful analysis in the first half of the book of the concept of gift in modern anthropology and ancient social history and its many perfections both in Christian theology after Paul and also in Second Temple Judaism before and just after the apostle’s life. The questionable claim lies in Barclay’s application, in his interpretation of Galatians and Romans in the second half of the book, of what he (rightly) takes to be Paul’s special perfection of God’s gift in Christ to much more material in Paul than just that specific gift.

In Barclay’s reading, the Christ-gift has two sides to it in Paul. It was incongruous in the sense that it was given by God to unworthy recipients. Indeed, it was explicitly undeserved and unconditioned. However, precisely as a gift it was not unconditional. Within the gift-giving system that Barclay describes so well, a counter-gift was required from its recipients in the form of pistis (faithfulness).

This, to my mind, is all convincing. But then Barclay goes on to argue that the idea of incongruity is to be found not just in connection with the Christ-gift itself. Rather, it permeates everything Paul says from beginning to end and constitutes the clue to a proper understanding of Galatians and Romans. That, I think, is unwarranted. Here I believe that Barclay has allowed himself to be overwhelmed by the weight of theological tradition, which he is otherwise so careful to analyze in the earlier part of his book.

Against this, I will present a reading of the logic underlying Paul’s soteriology that places an equal amount of emphasis on all three elements in the triad of justice, love, and the gift. Thus, while accepting Barclay’s reading of the Christ-gift, I claim that it must be situated within a much broader framework of justice (dikaiosynē), love (agapē), the pneuma, and salvation. In this broader picture there is no idea of incongruity. That belongs only to the Christ-gift itself.

We may depict the logic of this in the following figure, where the upper half (stages 1–3) speaks of God and the lower half (stages 4–6) of human beings. The figure has three columns, but it should be read chronologically from left to right and back again.

What matters in this figure is that the incongruous gift and its corresponding counter-gift of pistis belong at the center of the figure (column C, stages 3 and 4), but only there. It is not part of the wider relationship between God and human beings that frames the centerpiece. That frame has two closely connected features in God and human beings: agapē (in God and human beings, column B, stages 2 and 5) and dikaiosynē (in God, column A, stage 1) and sōtēria (in human beings, column A, stage 6). Any talk of incongruity and an unconditioned gift is irrelevant to what Paul wants to say of these two features. The overall issue, then, concerns the scope of the central Christ-gift within Paul’s soteriological scheme.

An entirely different way of articulating the issue is this. What is the exact relationship in Galatians between 2:14–5:6 and 5:13–6:10? Traditionally, Galatians 2:14–5:6 is understood to be about theology (the relationship between God or Christ and human beings), whereas 5:13–6:10 is about ethics (the relationship of human beings between one another). Similarly, what is the exact relationship in Romans between chapters 1–4 and 5–8? Here too, Romans 6:1–8:13 appears to be about ethics. But chapter 5 and 8:14–39, which correspond to one another, are distinctly theological. Exactly what, then, is the logical connection between Romans 1–4, 5 + 8:14–39, and 6:1–8:13? In both letters, I will claim that the second, ‘ethical’ half (Gal 5:1–6:10; Rom 5:1–8:39) spells out the soteriological significance of the first, theological half by moving from stage 4 to stage 5 in the figure.² Furthermore, it is the presence of stage 5, which presupposes but is distinct from stage 4, that fulfills the condition for God to take the step from stage 5 to stage 6 and give salvation to believers.

A third, and again different, way of articulating the issue concerns the understanding of agapē in Paul. In an earlier essay, I have argued that in Philippians 2:3–4 agapē is an attitude that issues in acts that are nothing but other-directed. I proposed to translate Philippians 2:4 as follows: "Let each of you look not to your own interests, but instead (or precisely, ἀλλὰ καὶ) to the interests of others. I also claimed that this rule (Paul’s maxim) should be understood as an expression of what I called radical altruism" in the sense that it explicitly prohibits the agent from paying any attention whatsoever to his or her own person, perspectives, or interests.³

In an essay that is later than Paul and the Gift, Barclay has himself addressed the issue of altruism in Seneca and Paul. In addition to Philippians 2:3–4, he discusses passages like Philippians 2:20–21, 1 Corinthians 10:24, 33, and 13:5. He accepts a weaker notion of altruism for Paul, where it is simply a concern for others’ interests: an act is altruistic if it is performed fully for the sake of others. But he rejects a stronger, and more radical, notion of altruism, which draws on a logic of mutual exclusion: on this version a wholly altruistic act, which is purely ‘dis-interested,’ must contain no element of ‘self-interest,’ since self and other are construed as rival beneficiaries of the same act. His reason for rejecting this is that this view relies on an understanding of gift that is common in the modern era but not to be found in Paul.⁴

Against this, I will insist on two points. The first is that in the relevant passages Paul is not using gift-language at all. Instead, he is talking of agapē, which belongs at stage 5 in the soteriological figure, not stage 4. The second point is that Paul in fact is thinking of action for the sake of others alone. But that is precisely because he is talking of agapē, to be understood as a mental attitude that issues in acts that are exclusively directed at the good of others. That is the point of the explicit contrast in Paul’s maxim (Phil 2:4, quoted above). Pauline agapē does not seek its own good (1 Cor 13:5). It precisely turns its back on one’s own good and seeks the good of the others. It thus articulates altruism in its strong, radical form.

This understanding of Paul’s maxim in Philippians 2:3–4 fits closely with its surroundings: the model of Christ himself as depicted in 2:6–11 and Paul’s introductory appeal in 2:1–2 to a "fellowship in the pneuma. Christ’s self-emptying" (kenōsis) should presumably be understood to mean that he just died for the sake of human beings, that is, for the others.⁵ Correspondingly, we should take a fellowship in the pneuma as the social group of complete unanimity (repeatedly stressed in 2:1–2) that constitutes the Sitz im Leben for the altruistic behavior described in 2:3–4. Thus, the surroundings of Paul’s maxim in Philippians 2:4 strongly support the radically altruistic interpretation of the maxim itself.

In fact, we will find a precise connection between the various stages invoked here by Paul. First, (a) the radically altruistic behavior of Christ himself (Phil 2:6–8) in the (full) Christ-event (namely, Christ’s death and resurrection, 2:6–11, stage 3) generates (b) pistis in human beings (stage 4); this results in them also (c) receiving the pneuma (stage 5), which then generates (d) the fellowship in the pneuma (2:1–2, still stage 5) that issues in (e) their own radically altruistic behavior (2:3–4, again stage 5). Of these five stages, only three (a, d, and e) are actually mentioned here. But the remaining two—pistis and pneuma—are of course strongly present elsewhere. However, it is the difference between pistis (stage 4) and pneuma (stage 5) that explains why behavior in the pneuma (Phil 2:1–2 and vv. 3–4) will be an expression of genuine agapē in the sense of radical altruism. Pistis belongs within the gift-circulation system of the Christ-gift. It is a necessary condition for and gives rise to possession of the pneuma and the corresponding behavior. But the last two things are not part of any gift-circulation system.

I will now present some Pauline texts to support the soteriological figure given above. I will focus on the main texts in Galatians and Romans that are relevant for the various themes in the figure and will attempt to indicate how each theme goes into the overall argument of each letter.

Why is this whole project worth pursuing, apart from revealing a major issue in Paul and the Gift? There are two main reasons. The first is that getting Pauline soteriology wholly right will help us question the way this has been read in the long history of Christian theology. The second is that the same project will also illuminate the form in which Paul belongs squarely within Judaism—at the same time as he also, unwittingly, laid the ground for Christianity.⁶ Thus, there is much to be gained in the long run from sharpening our understanding of the precise connections between the various, distinct themes that enter into Paul’s soteriological scheme.

THE SOTERIOLOGICAL SCHEME IN GALATIANS

Paul’s overall aim in Galatians is to persuade his non-Jewish, Christ-believing addressees not to let themselves be circumcised as an entry into living under the Mosaic law. For their salvation, the Christ-faith (and pneuma) that they already possess is sufficient. Indeed, it is also necessary both for them and for everybody else, including Jews. For this reason, the relationship between the Christ-faith and the law plays a central role throughout the letter. Here, however, we will focus on the soteriological scheme itself and primarily bring in the law when it becomes positively relevant, as opposed to the negative role it plays in chapters 1–4 as a foil to Paul’s own view of salvation.

In Galatians 1:4, Paul invokes the Christ-event, which he will explicitly characterize later (2:21) as a gift (stage 3). He focuses, however, on the agapic character of Christ’s act: that Christ gave himself up [δόντος ἑαυτὸν] for [ὑπὲρ] our sins. Later he will make that character explicit: Christ felt love [ἀγαπήσαντος] for me and gave himself over [παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν] for (ὑπὲρ) me (2:20). In this way, the Christ-event itself (Christ’s dying at stage 3) is referred back to Christ’s agapē at stage 2: his death was an act of love. In 1:4, Paul also states that the aim of the Christ-event was to take us out of the present evil age. This clearly refers to the final salvation (stage 6), as Paul had already described it in 1 Thessalonians (1:10; 4:13–17). Finally, he states that all of this happened in accordance with the will [θέλημα] of God, our Father. Thus, God stood behind it all. But the idea may also be the more specific one that behind everything stood the agapē of God, again at stage 2: in his agapē for human beings, God himself willed to set up the Christ-event as a gift in order to bring salvation to them. However, the agapic character of this is not clearly spelled out in Galatians, but will become so in Romans.

Galatians 2:15–21 brings in a number of further themes in the soteriological scheme. The basic issue is how a human being may be justified by God (2:16, 21). As Paul will make clear in Galatians 5:5 (but not in Romans, see later), this dikaiosynē belongs at stage 6. The first answer, then, is: through or from pistis (2:16, stage 4) in response to the gift of the Christ-event (stage 3). But a second answer is implied in 2:19–20 and will be further developed in chapters 3–5. When Paul says that I have been crucified with Christ, I no longer live, and Christ lives in me, he must refer to something more than just pistis in the Christ-event, namely, the presence in him of the pneuma.⁷ That alone will explain the transformation he has undergone from one kind of life (in the flesh, 2:20) to an altogether different kind.

That Paul in Galatians 2:19–20 moves from Christ’s love (stage 2: τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντός με) via the Christ-event itself (stage 3: [τοῦ] παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν) and the corresponding pistis (stage 4: ἐν πίστει ζῶ) to his possessing the pneuma (stage 5: in me lives Christ) is shown by the whole of the following section of 3:1–4:7. Here the first point is that through Paul’s preaching (ἐξ ἀκοῆς πίστεως, 3:2, stage 4), his non-Jewish addressees have "received [ἐλάβετε] the pneuma" (3:2, stage 5). This remains the main idea articulated throughout this section. Galatians 3:14, 25–27, and 4:6 all make explicit the move from pistis to reception of the pneuma. Clearly, the effect of the Christ-event is not just its intended response in the form of pistis (stage 4) but also, as a causal consequence of that, believers’ reception of the pneuma (stage 5).⁸

We should also note in passing that Paul makes various attempts in Galatians 3–4 at explaining why the law of Moses was unable to bring dikaiosynē (3:10–14, 19–24; 4:1–5). Although this hardly amounts to a fully worked out theory, the overall point is clear: pistis and through that reception of the pneuma together constitute a necessary condition for dikaiosynē; the law cannot generate life (3:21).

The emphasis on the pneuma is continued in 5:4–6. Galatians 5:4 repeats that the Christ-gift concerns being justified (δικαιοῦσθαι), but the crucial verse 5 shows, first, that this dikaiosynē belongs to the future ("we eagerly wait for the hope of dikaiosynē, stage 6), and second, that it will come about with pneuma from pistis. This latter point is explained by the equally crucial verse 6, which states that what matters in Christ Jesus" is πίστις δι’ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη, that is, pistis that is actually operating through agapē. The meaning of this is spelled out in 5:13–26, which speaks of agapē and the corresponding acts as generated by the pneuma (cf. 5:16–17 and 18–25). In this way, Galatians 5:4–6 along with verses 13–26 together show that pistis differs crucially from the pneuma. Between pistis (stage 4) and final dikaiosynē (stage 6), there is a state of agapē (stage 5) that is generated by the pneuma and issues in actual, agapic behavior.

Two conclusions follow. First, the reason why believers may expect justification at stage 6 is that at stage 5 they actually engage in agapic behavior. This was what God intended to achieve by means of the Christ-gift, but this behavior is not itself part of the circulation system of gift and counter-gift. It comes after it and is genuinely agapic and altruistic as Paul shows in 5:13 when he exhorts his addressees to "be slaves to one another through agapē." This belongs in column B, stage 5, not in column C, stage 4.

The other conclusion is that once believers have come to behave like that, they will eo ipso also fulfill the Mosaic law, as summarized in the single commandment, "You shall love [ἀγαπήσεις] your neighbor as yourself (Gal 5:14). After all the negative things Paul has said about the law in earlier chapters, this comes as a shock. But we must take it literally. It has huge implications for understanding Paul’s relationship with Judaism (he definitely belonged within" Judaism). For us, however, the main point is that the whole of God’s soteriological scheme was meant to bring it about—through Christ-faith, the pneuma, and agapic behavior—that the law was at long last actually fulfilled, that is, done. Then God would be fully justified in justifying believers (at stage 6). Thus, fulfillment of the law was God’s whole aim with the Christ-gift. Through pistis (stage 4) as a necessary condition for and cause of reception of the pneuma, which would itself issue in agapic behavior (stage 5), the law would at long last be fulfilled.

THE SOTERIOLOGICAL SCHEME IN ROMANS

In Romans, Paul’s soteriological scheme is spelled out in greater detail. I will try to identify the main themes of the soteriological figure and hint at their position within the flow of Paul’s argument.

Very basically, Paul begins in Romans 1 and 2 (1:17–18 and 2:4–11) lining up God’s dikaiosynē together with his wrath (ὀργή) in column A (stages 1 and 6). In 1:18–3:20, he shows the need in the behavior of both non-Jews and Jews for a divine initiative if they are to be brought away from God’s potential wrath and over to his dikaiosynē.⁹ This initiative, of course, is the Christ-gift, which would bring dikaiosynē to human beings once they respond to it by pistis. The gift itself is the basic theme of 3:21–26, which therefore addresses stages 3 and 4 in the soteriological figure. As part of his constant theme of how all this relates to non-Jews and Jews, respectively, Paul in chapter 4 brings out the special character of pistis as part of the gift-circulation system. This whole development then reaches a first conclusion in 5:1 with the following summary: "So, having been justified from pistis, we have peace with God."

One might think that this was meant to bring the reader the whole way from stage 1 via stages 3–4 to stage 6 of the soteriological scheme. However, 5:1–11 shows that this is only half the story. For one thing, different from what Paul said in Galatians 5:5, there is a clear distinction in Romans between dikaiosynē and sōtēria. God’s dikaiosynē is already present to believers here and now: they are already now "justified from pistis, at peace with God (Rom 5:1) and reconciled" to him (5:11). But they are not yet saved (stage 6). That belongs to the future (5:9–10) and is now only an object of hope (5:4).

Also, Paul begins in 5:5 to speak of God’s love (agapē) which is "poured into our hearts through the holy pneuma which has been given to us." This clearly belongs in column B, stages 2 and 5. Moreover, this single verse in fact announces the whole of Romans 6–8, as we will see. Thus, 5:1–11 constitutes a solid bridge between chapters 1–4 and 6–8 that shows the intrinsic connectedness of the two sections.

Before considering that, we should notice that the central verses in 5:1–11 (vv. 6–8) are the place where Paul brings out most explicitly the incongruity of the Christ-event. He first describes the Christ-event from the perspective of Christ himself: While we were still weak, Christ died for the sake of [ὑπὲρ] people who were still at the time ungodly (5:6). Next, he describes it explicitly from the perspective of God: "God shows his own agapē toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for our sake [ὑπὲρ]" (5:8). In both cases, what is emphasized is, first, the incongruity of the Christ-event—but then also, second, that it occurred from the love (agapē) of Christ and God, respectively. That is of the utmost importance. The Christ-event itself is an incongruous gift, which belongs in the gift-circulation system of column C. But this gift springs from something entirely different, which belongs in column B, namely, the agapē (of both Christ and God) that acts simply for the others (here Jews and Greeks).

So, salvation lies in the future (stage 6) and the Christ-gift (stages 3 and 4) springs from the agapē of both Christ and God (stage 2). Seen in that light, the aim of Romans 6–8 is, first, to spell out what was just implied in 5:5 with the talk of the pneuma being poured into our hearts (6:1–8:13), and second, to spell out the role of Christ’s and God’s agapē behind it all (8:31–39). It matters enormously to see that both topics belong in column B (stages 5 and 2, respectively) and not in column C. In this way, the full soteriological story has been given only at the end of chapter 8 and it relies crucially on what belongs under column B.

In fact, the full soteriological story has not even been given at the end of Romans 8. What Paul shows in 6:1–8:13 is the transforming role of the pneuma in human beings (stage 5). He also asserts (just as in Gal 5:6, 13–26) that this transformation results in actually acting appropriately and, indeed, in fulfilling the Mosaic law. The first of these two topics is the theme of 7:7–25 leading into 8:1–10, while the second is explicitly stated in 8:4. Both topics are of crucial importance. The first shows that when one lives under the law of Moses alone, one constantly risks acting against it (in weakness of will, ἀκρασία; 7:7–25). By contrast, when one has received the pneuma, one constantly acts the way one should (8:1–10). The second topic shows that in so doing one will precisely fulfill the law. Paul is obviously keen on showing that these two topics are intrinsically connected.¹⁰

However, what he does not spell out in 6:1–8:13 (in contrast to Gal 5:13–26) is the specifically agapic character of the behavior generated by the pneuma. Why? Because that is the theme of the paraenetic passage proper in Romans 12–15, in particular the whole of chapter 12 and 13:8–10. In the latter section, he even repeats his point from 8:4 that the agapic behavior generated by the pneuma fulfills the Mosaic law. Moreover, he does it in a manner that once again relies on the idea that people who possess the pneuma will already have done what the law enjoins (13:10): the pneuma makes them actually do what they should.

There is unfortunately not enough space here to show in detail what I just claimed, namely, that Romans 6:1–8:13 spells out stage 5 and 8:31–39 does the same for stage 2. But the point should still stand: stages 2 and 5 (column B) are just as important elements of the overall soteriological scheme as stages 4 and 5 (column C). They ground the gift (stage 2 vis-à-vis stage 3) and they spell out the causal consequence of the counter-gift (stage 5 vis-à-vis stage 4). Neither is in itself part of any gift-circulation system. Instead, they are cases of radical altruism.

We cannot leave Romans without mentioning a few passages that are particularly revealing.

The whole of Romans 2:3–11 is startlingly clear. There is the idea of God’s judgment (2:3), evidently occurring on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment (δικαιοκρισία) will be revealed (2:5)—stage 6. There is also the notion of the riches of his [God’s] kindness and forbearance and generosity [μακροθυμία], his kindness that is meant to lead you to repentance [μετάνοια] (2:4)—stage 2 as leading into stages 3 and 4. Finally, there is the whole concluding description of the day of wrath, which emphatically insists on the necessity of doing the good—that is, stage 5:

⁶ [God] will repay according to each one’s deeds: ⁷ to those who by patiently doing good [ἔργον ἀγαθόν] seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; ⁸ while for those who are self-seeking [ἐριθεία] and who obey not the truth but injustice, there will be wrath and fury. ⁹ There will be anguish and distress upon the soul of every human being who does evil [τοῦ κατεργαζομένου τὸ κακόν], the Jew first and also the Greek, ¹⁰ but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good [τῷ ἐργαζομένῳ τὸ ἀγαθόν], the Jew first and also the Greek. ¹¹ For God shows no partiality. (Rom 2:6–11)¹¹

In 3:21–26, special attention should be paid to Paul’s claim in verses 25–26 that "in his divine forbearance he [God] has passed over [πάρεσις] the sins previously committed." Here he aims to bring out two things: first, that behind the Christ-event itself lie God’s forbearance and πάρεσις—as an expression of God’s agapē (stage 2); second, that the Christ-event was given once and for all for the sins previously committed—clearly, it was intended to lead into a state (stage 5) in which sins were no longer committed. Only then would God also be able to give salvation.

Finally, there is 8:31–39. This passage shows why one must place the Christ-gift (see 8:32) in column C—and agapē further back or before that in column B. To bring that out is the point of talking of God and Christ as being and acting for us (ὑπὲρ, 8:31, 32, 34) and in agapē (8:35–39). Note then that we should also say that behind the Christ-gift lies not only God’s agapē but also his justice (dikaiosynē) in column A, from which Paul began in chapters 1 and 2. When out of his love for human beings (stage 2) God gave them a gift (stage 3), the plan was that when it was appropriately responded to, the gift might actually transform them (stages 3 and 4) for their own good (cf. 8:28: εἰς ἀγαθόν) so that God might then save them (stage 6) while remaining strictly just. This is the essence of Paul’s soteriological scheme. It requires three distinct columns. In column A, God is seen as acting in accordance with his own justice. In column B, he is seen as acting out of sheer love for human beings. (Similarly, at the human level there will be action in column B out of sheer love for one another.) In column C, God is seen as giving a gift with strings attached. For he aimed to bring it about (through pistis—and then also the pneuma) that human beings on their side actually acted out of love (column B, stage 5). Then he might save them (stage 6) while maintaining his own justice.

Everything, it seems, is clear here once one sees the crucial distinction—and interaction—between God’s justice (stage 1), his love (stage 2), and his gift (stage 3), namely, the single gift of the Christ-event. Behind it all lies the idea of God’s justice in its altogether traditionally Jewish sense. The fact that Paul also develops the (also Jewish) idea of God’s love, which even issues in the Christ-event as a gift, does nothing to change the fundamental importance of God’s justice. For the gift that sprang from God’s love had the purpose of enabling God to maintain his own justice while also saving human beings: through reacting in the proper manner to the gift, they would finally qualify for salvation. It is for this reason that I have put emphasis on the fact that the final salvation depends on the proper human acts (as generated by the pneuma). This is what Paul spells out in 2:6–11—and then again (and now as already realized) in 6:1–8:13. I cannot get away from the feeling that this overall picture has both great clarity and tremendous force.

THE DIFFERENCE FROM JOHN BARCLAY’S PICTURE

I can give only a few examples of how the proposed understanding of Paul’s soteriological scheme differs from John Barclay’s overall reading. It all has to do with the precise location of the notion of incongruity.

Barclay has done wonders in showing that Paul’s talk of the divine charis-gift and the corresponding, human counter-gift of pistis belongs squarely within the ancient system of gift-circulation. He is also quite right in finding in Paul a specific perfection of the Christ-gift as given incongruously. Where he fails, to my mind, is that he does not emphasize sufficiently that God’s whole aim with the Christ-gift was actually to transform human beings into a state here and now (stage 5) in which they did qualify for future salvation (stage 6). Instead, Barclay explodes the idea of the incongruous gift into something that covers the whole of Paul’s theology. We have seen, however, that it belongs only in column C and not in columns B or A.

Barclay’s book is full of splendid formulations with which one should wholeheartedly agree. For instance, the charis consists in "an event, not in the general benevolence of God, and its focal expression lies not in creation nor in any other divine gift, but in the gift of Christ (566). Further, God recognizes as ‘righteous’ a person who has been reconstituted in Christ, … a person who has already been transformed by participation in Christ (375–76 n. 66, emphasis mine). Or finally, the purpose of the unfitting gift is to create a fit, to turn lawless Gentiles into those who do the Law (2:12–15), and trespassing Jews into Spirit-circumcised servants who bear fruit for God (2:29; 7:5–6)" (473).

However, what is missing is any real emphasis on the pneuma. That whole dimension of Paul’s soteriology, which brings us from column C to column B (stage 5), is not in Barclay’s focus—for reasons we will consider in a moment. Thus, on the page just quoted he even states that the efficacy of grace (in the sense of the present, causative agency of God within the agency of believers) is not of central concern in either Galatians or Romans. But that is what all the talk of the pneuma in those letters is directly about! Why, then, does Barclay not accept this and give the role to the pneuma at stage 5 that is required for it?

The introduction to chapter 16 of Paul and the Gift on New Life in Dying Bodies shows why. Here Barclay begins from sketching what he calls a double and initially puzzling phenomenon in Paul. On the one hand, Paul emphasizes the incongruity of the divine gift in Christ. On the other hand, as we saw:

[i]n his eschatological scenario, Paul describes congruity rather than incongruity: he foresees a final judgment in which the righteous are rewarded and the unrighteous are condemned. (493)

Exactly, but why should that be a puzzle? It rather shows what the whole point of the initially unfitting gift actually is. This, however, is not Barclay’s solution to the puzzle. Instead, he claims that

the incongruous grace of life in Christ in an important sense remains incongruous with the condition of believers even while they bear fruit for God ([Rom] 7:4) and please God through the Spirit (8:1–13). (494)

That is the crux of the matter. In spite of the fact that he clearly sees congruity at the final judgment (column A), Barclay extends the idea of incongruity from column C into Paul’s description of the present life of believers here and now (column B). That is the overall argument of his chapter 16 on Romans 5:12–8:39 and 12:1–15:13. Here believers are said to live in a state of permanent incongruity (501, 503) or as walking miracles in a new and humanly impossible mode of existence (501), an impossible new life, whose origin lies in the resurrection of Jesus and whose goal is their own future resurrection (502). True, this life was humanly impossible in Paul’s thought in the sense that human beings could not by themselves have achieved it. But God has precisely made it humanly possible, namely, possible for human beings. By contrast, says Barclay:

Whereas Christ has finished with death ([Rom] 6:9), believers have not: they are dead to sin (6:11), but not to death. This puts their lives in a state of permanent incongruity: in one respect they are bound to death (on account of sin, that is, as a residue of their Adamic heritage, 8:10); in another they are alive, in an eternal life from the dead that in its source and character is the life of Christ. (501; emphasis mine)

What Barclay is trying to express here, I believe, reflects the life of Christ-believers around the year 2015 CE (when the book was published), and not the life of Christ-believers as Paul saw them. They were not bound to death in Barclay’s sense. On the contrary, no matter whether they were still alive or had just died, it was certain that they would be transformed into having eternal life. This was the case in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 and 1 Corinthians 15:51. Moreover, this transformation was going to happen very soon, as is clear from the same passages and from Romans 13:11–14 too. After all, Paul was an apocalypticist!

That gives us Paul’s view of the time zwischen den Zeiten (stage 5). Once believers had responded to the Christ-event (stage 3) with pistis (stage 4) and had therefore also received the pneuma (stage 5), they would in fact already live the life that would fulfill the law, the life of agapē. As Paul distinctly says in Romans 8:10, "if Christ is in you, the body is dead [νεκρόν] because of (its connection to) sin, but the pneuma is life [ζωή] because of (its connection to) righteousness [δικαιοσύνην]," namely, the dikaiosynē that they already received at stage 4. It is this fact that makes it certain that if God’s "pneuma … dwells in you, then God will also give life to your mortal bodies through his pneuma that dwells in you" (8:11). It is true that in the present, believers who have the pneuma "suffer with him [Christ] in order also to be glorified with him" (8:17). But they are children of God (τέκνα θεοῦ, 8:16), as are all and only "those who are (actually being) led by the pneuma of God (8:14). Thus, their sufferings have nothing to do with any supposed lingering ethical" misbehavior among them but with the fact—spelled out in 8:18–39—that they still live in this present world. With regard to all their sufferings in this world (listed in 8:37–39), they know (by the overall argument of 8:31–39) that nothing will be able to "separate us from the agapē of God, the one (shown) in Christ Jesus our Lord" (8:39). For they already have responded appropriately—with both pistis and agapic behavior—to the gift that was generated by that love.

It is curious to me why scholars are loath to accept this understanding of Paul’s view of the present life of his pneumatically endowed believers. One can of course understand it if one takes it that Paul was speaking about us, who have learned to wait much longer for the eschaton than Paul himself did. But here we are trying to understand Paul himself. One can also understand why scholars are hesitant to believe this form of Pauline perfectionism, according to which believers were doing God’s will already in the present.¹² Did they in fact do so? Does it fit with what Paul says elsewhere? (I believe it does.) For Barclay himself, however, who has done so much to clarify Paul’s perfection of the Christ-gift, it should be plain sailing to accept also this further bit of perfectionism in Paul.

What matters most in the present context is the fact that the idea of perfectionism at stage 5 is precisely the one that makes Paul’s soteriological scheme wholly logical. We began from God’s dikaiosynē, which did not allow him to save human beings who did not do his will (stage 1). Out of God’s agapē (stage 2), he then staged an event that was given incongruously as a gift (stage 3), calling for human beings to respond with pistis as their counter-gift (stage 4). When they did this, they also received the pneuma (stage 5), and then the initial problem was solved. They were justified (δικαιωθέντες) already at stage 4 because their pistis led to reception of the pneuma and because through the pneuma, they also actually acted in accordance with God’s will. Then everything would be ready for their final salvation (stage 6).

There are many other things that should be said about the two letters, about Paul’s soteriological scheme,¹³ and, indeed, about John Barclay’s magnum opus.¹⁴ I believe, however, that wrestling with the latter has finally enabled us to get Paul’s soteriology right.

1. John Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015). Future citations of Paul and the Gift in this chapter will appear in the body text of the essay. In order to present my argument as fully as possible within the allotted limits of this essay, I have decided to keep annotation at a minimum. Any reader of this volume will know the amount of careful exegesis that is required to back up the readings presented in my main text. For that whole exercise, John Barclay’s book itself provides a model.

2. More than twenty-five years ago, I argued in another Festschrift essay that Gal 5:1–6:10 constitutes the template for Rom 5:1–8:39. See my Galatians in Romans 5–8 and Paul’s Construction of the Identity of Christ Believers, in Texts and Contexts: Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman, ed. T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 477–505. I cannot see that this claim, which I consider quite important, has made much impression on scholarship.

3. For all this see, in yet another Festschrift essay, my Radical Altruism in Philippians 2:4, in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White, NovTSup 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 197–214. My proposed translation of Phil 2:4 was later supported by S. M. Ehorn and M. Lee, The Syntactical Function of ἀλλὰ καί in Phil. 2.4, Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 12 (2016): 9–16.

4. John M. G. Barclay, Benefiting Others and Benefit to Oneself: Seneca and Paul on ‘Altruism’, in Paul and Seneca in Dialogue, ed. J. R. Dodson and D. E. Briones, Ancient Philosophy & Religion 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 109–26.

5. To substantiate this claim, some further discussion would be required. Here, let it just stand.

6. As will become clear, the present reading does not lie within the current trend of (what I call) the radical Paul. But I do see Paul as belonging squarely within Judaism. For the same reason, I consider Paul within Judaism to be something of a misnomer for that trend. For my interaction (with responses) with Paula Fredriksen’s important book, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), see Syndicate.network online under Biblical Studies.

7. This understanding cannot just be read off the two verses themselves. It depends on the context and on Paul’s wider understanding of having Christ live in someone.

8. I cannot emphasize sufficiently the importance of this move in 3:14, 25–27, and 4:6. It is summarized in 5:5 (see below): πνεύματι ἐκ πίστεως.

9. Paul, I believe, is not talking of humankind here (as in the traditional picture), but very explicitly about non-Jews and Jews (in that order), that is, Jews and gentiles (as in the new Paul). To deny that he is at all speaking of Jews (as is done in the radical Paul) seems to me impossible in view of such passages as Rom 1:17; 2:9–11; 3:1–8 and 3:9.

10. It goes without saying that this reading of Rom 7:7–8:10 rests on a large number of exegetical decisions.

11. My own translation, based on the NRSV.

12. By contrast, see none other than E. P. Sanders, Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 101: [M]any scholars overlook Paul’s perfectionism…. The moral perfection which he required of his converts, he first required of himself. This came all the easier because he expected the end to come soon.

13. One issue I will just mention here, namely, the precise logical relationship between agapē in God and Christ and agapē in human beings, either toward God or among themselves: in other words, the features that go into column B.

14. I had originally planned to consider also Barclay’s claim, which is crucial in his book, to find incongruity not just in Romans 1–5, but also, and centrally, in Galatians 1 and Romans 9–11. My line: God’s sovereign right to choose whom he wishes, which is what Paul emphasizes in those passages, is not yet, or not necessarily, identical with his wish to give a gift to the unworthy. The former may—or, indeed, may not—find expression in the latter. Basically, God "has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses" (Rom 9:18).

CHAPTER 2

Tuesday’s Child

Paul as Full of Grace

TODD D. STILL

The anonymous nursery rhyme, widely known as Monday’s Child, is often printed as follows:

Monday’s child is fair of face,

Tuesday’s child is full of grace.

Wednesday’s child is full of woe,

Thursday’s child has far to go.

Friday’s child is loving and giving,

Saturday’s child works hard for a living.

And the child born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.¹

Whatever the purpose of this poem, which is oft debated, its generalized depiction of Tuesday’s child is an apt, if abbreviated, depiction of Paul, at least as he perceives and presents himself as a Christ-follower and apostle in his letters.

In this essay, offered in gratitude for and in honor of my esteemed and beloved Doktorvater and friend, who has written extensively and compellingly on gift and grace in Paul, I will probe various Pauline passages in the Hauptbriefe where Paul speaks of his life in Christ and his apostolic work in terms of grace.² Having treated pertinent texts in Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, and Galatians respectively, I will offer six summative observations by way of conclusion.³

ROMANS: THE GRACE GOD GAVE TO ME

Grace laces Paul’s magisterial letter to the Romans. Indeed, the term Paul most frequently employs to speak of grace (χάρις) occurs more frequently in Romans than in any other Pauline letter.⁴ While Paul appeals to grace numerous times and in various ways over the course of this expansive letter, our focus here will fall upon those occasions in Romans where he refers to himself as a recipient of charis.

Paul begins his communication with Roman believers by describing himself as a slave of Christ Jesus called by God to be an apostle set apart for the gospel (1:1). The focal point of the letter’s initial lines, and arguably throughout, is the promised-beforehand gospel. This gospel regards the Son of God, descended from David and raised from the dead, namely, Jesus Christ, who is lauded by Paul and other believers as Lord (1:2–4).⁵

Furthermore, it is through Christ, Paul contends, that he and (an) unnamed other(s) have received grace and apostleship. As we will see in the course of this essay, Paul can and does speak of grace more broadly and generally both in Romans and elsewhere. Here, however, he links grace and apostleship and then ties this pairing to his gentile mission, which extends all the way to Rome and beyond (1:5–6; cf. 1:13; 15:22–24).

The next place in Romans where Paul places himself within the circle of grace is in chapter 3. Given that there is to be no distinction between Jew and Greek and that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Paul falls within the pale (3:22–23). Paul is also a part of the all who are justified as a gift of God’s grace through redemption in Jesus Christ (3:24). Similarly, in Romans 4, Paul numbers himself among those who are children of Abraham and heirs of the promise that comes through the righteousness of faith and is grounded in grace (4:16).

Even as Paul includes himself in Romans 3–4 among the we and the all who have received God’s grace in and through Christ, in Romans 5–6 he sees himself among the we and the many. No more or less than other Christ-followers, Paul considers himself as having been justified through faith. Thus, he, no less or more than they, has peace with and access to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. This enables him, along with them, to stand in grace and to boast in hope (5:1–2).

Eschewing perpetual sinning to abound in plentiful grace, he, along with other Christ-followers, lives under the reign of grace (6:1, 14–15). Having died to sin and having been baptized into the death of Christ Jesus, Paul and his recipients have been united with and crucified with Christ (6:2–6). No longer ruled by or enslaved to sin, but instead set free from sin, they are to live with Christ as dead to sin and as slaves to God and righteousness, even as they will be raised with Christ (6:7–22). As those who have been brought from death to life, they are to recognize that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord (6:23).

As one who, along with a growing number of others, stood in and lived under grace, Paul counted himself among the many for whom God’s grace and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ had abounded all the more (5:15). Indeed, he, along with those who had received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, were to reign in life through Christ and his grace (5:17). For Paul, grace had super-abounded over sin and death so that it might reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (5:21).⁶

Despite having been part of a Jewish remnant chosen by grace, in contrast to works lest grace cease to be grace (11:5–6), Paul readily and joyfully recognized the distinct gifts that God gives by grace to each and to all in Christ’s unified body, which is comprised of many members (12:5–8). That being said, as noted at the outset of this section, Paul saw himself as distinctly, if not uniquely, graced by God (see 12:3: the grace given to me [by God]).

As Paul moves toward the close of his massive missive known to us as Romans, he indicates to his auditors that he had written to them rather boldly at various points throughout the letter because of the grace given to [him] by God to be a minister of Jesus Christ to the gentiles (15:15–16a). Not only was he a partaker of grace with them more generally (see Phil 1:7), Paul was privy to a special call, a particular grace, namely, to be an apostle to the gentiles, dispensing the priestly service of proclaiming the gospel of God to the nations so that they might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit (15:16b; cf. 12:1). It was this call that had led him from Jerusalem to Illyricum and would lead him from Jerusalem to Rome en route to Spain (note 15:17–29).

1 CORINTHIANS: BY THE GRACE OF GOD, I AM WHAT I AM

Even as Paul affirms God’s grace toward and gifting of the Corinthians in what is seemingly his first preserved letter to the assembly (see, e.g., 1:4, 7; 2:12; 7:7; 12:4), he also speaks of the grace of God given to him. If he does so in passing earlier in the letter (note 3:10), he does so more expansively later in the letter, specifically in the memorable lines comprising 1 Corinthians 15:9–11, to which we will turn our attention in this section.

Paul commences 1 Corinthians 15 by reminding the church of the gospel that he proclaimed to them and that they received from him. This