[Index] [Previous] [Next]
3.14 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Christianity of Paul
Faith vs. Works
What has been said of Paul's conception of the Christian life and the nature of faith, makes his meaning quite clear when he speaks, as he often does, of the righteousness of faith and contrasts it with the righteousness of works.
The righteousness of faith is the divine righteousness that a man receives when he receives Christ. It is not a mere declaration by God that the sinner is justified or forgiven for his past sins and accounted righteous without regard to his actual character; it is not a mere status into which he is introduced by such declaration, but is at bottom the real righteousness of the righteous nature which is bestowed upon the believer by God. But Paul places this righteousness in sharpest contrast with the righteousness of man, for the latter in God's sight is no righteousness.
Man, being flesh, cannot be righteous. He may think himself righteous, he may observe the law, as he fancies, perfectly, but the law is spiritual, and he is carnal, and his observance of it consequently is by a delusion. [Rom. 7:14; Gal. 2:16, 3:11, 21] For a man to be justified by his own works, or make himself righteous, is an absolute impossibility. Only by escaping from the flesh and becoming, by the reception of the Divine Spirit, a spiritual man, does he become righteous; and only as a righteous man does he escape death and enjoy eternal life. He is saved therefore by grace and not by works. God saves him; he cannot save himself.
But God saves him, not merely by accounting him righteous and declaring him released from the penalty of death, but by giving him the Divine Spirit, and thus replacing his old fleshly nature with a new spiritual nature. The righteousness of God, or the righteousness of faith, of which Paul has so much to say, is not primarily, as he uses it, a forensic of legal term, but stands for a real thing, the actual divine righteousness or righteous nature which man receives from God when he receives God's Spirit. [Cf. Rom. 1:17, 3:21 sq., 4:11,13, 5:17, 9:30, 10:3,6; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil.3:9; Eph. 4:24]
It is righteousness not imputed, but imparted to man; and imparted just because the divine nature or Spirit, which is itself righteous, is imparted to him. [See the references given in the previous note; also Rom. 5:5 sq., 6:4 sq., 8:5,9,11,14sq.]
In thus emphasizing the real as distinguished from the forensic element in Paul's thinking, I do not mean to deny that he frequently makes us of forensic terms, and clothes his thoughts in legal forms. The distinct and explicit phrases "reckoning righteousness" unto a man, and "reckoning faith for righteousness," occur in his epistles, [Notably in Rom.4 and Gal. 3:6. The word used is logixomai -- logixetai h pistis antou eis dicaiosunhn Cf. also 2 Cor. 5.19; Rom. 2:26 and 9:8.] and the word dicaioun, which he uses so frequently, has the forensic meaning of accounting or treating as righteous, at least a part of the time.
And yet, in spite of this fact, to regard such expressions as formative in Paul's thinking, and to read his conception of salvation in their light, is to misinterpret him. The truth is that his tendency was predominantly ethical, and the forensic terms were secondary, not primary, with him.
This appears very clearly in the matter of forgiveness. The Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians bear witness to his belief that God forgives sins, but the divine forgiveness is not once explicitly referred to in his other epistles, except in a quotation from the Old Testament in Rom. 4:7. [The verb afihmi, which in the Synoptic Gospels is the common word meaning "to forgive," is found in Paul's epistles in the sense of forgive or remit only in Rom. 4:7, in a quotation from the Old Testament. The noun afesiz, which also occurs frequently in other parts of the New Testament, is found in his epistles only in Esp. 1:7, and Col.1:14; while the verb carixomai is used by him with reference to the divine forgiveness only in Eph. 4:32, and Col.2:13, 3:13.]
Laying such emphasis as he does upon the idea of God's grace, and contrasting it so constantly and so strongly as he does with man's merit, it is a remarkable fact that the conception which is so common in the Synoptic Gospels should find which infrequent utterance in his writings. It simply shows that his thought ran chiefly along other lines, and though his gracious acceptance with God of course meant much to him, it was less with forgiveness, in the ordinary sense, that he was concerned, than with the possession of the Divine Spirit which transformed him from a sinner to a saint.
It is in the light, not simply of his general conception of the Gospel already outlined, but also of the fact just referred to, that his use of such terms as dicaiou, dicaiosunh, and dicaiwsiz should be interpreted. When interpreted thus, the forensic element, which so many have emphasized to the exclusion of every other, is seen to be subordinate, not supreme. [What has been said of Paul's conception of forgiveness and of his use of forensic terms is true also of his utterances regarding Christ's redemptive work. That work, though he commonly represents it as a dying unto the flesh and a rising again in the Spirit in order to redeem men from the power of the flesh and give them the mew life in the Spirit, he also represents as the offering of a sacrifice, and the result which is accomplished by it, as the reconciliation of man and God. Thus in Eph. 5:2 he calls Christ a sacrifice (qusia), and in 1 Cor. 5:7 he says, "Our passover, Christ, hath been sacrificed" (etuqh). The noun "reconciliation" (catallagh) occurs in Rom. 11:15 and in 2 Cor. 5:18, 19, and in the latter passage it is connected directly with the work of Christ, though not explicitly with his death. The verb "to reconcile" (darallassv or apocarallassv) is found in Rom. 5:10, 2 Cor. 5:18,19; Eph. 2:16, and Col.1: 20,21, and in each case is connected directly with Christ's death except in 2 Cor. 5:18,19. But all such references are to be understood in the light of that general conception of salvation and of the work of Christ which has been briefly outlined, and though they ought to be given their due place, they should not be allowed to control our interpretation of all Paul's thought.]
Used by permission of the publisher.
[Index] [Previous] [Next]