9. Persist in Faith (10:19-11:40)

III. The Application (10:19-12:29)
A. You Need Endurance (10:19-39)

• 10:19-25 is a hinge paragraph which corresponds to 4:14-16. They both have at their core the exhortation to "hold fast to the confession" and to approach God with confidence on the basis of Christ's priestly work.
• 10:20. This verse is a clear indication that much of the author's heavenly sanctuary imagery is metaphorical in nature. Grammatically, the veil here is most likely Christ's flesh. The author is not thinking of Christ's flesh as an obstacle but as the entrance to the heavenly Holy of Holies.
• 10:22. Our hearts have been sprinkled from an evil conscience. That is, our sins have been cleansed by the blood of Christ. We have no more consciousness of their existence. Our bodies have been baptized.
• 10:24. Believers should spur each other on "to love and good works."  
• 10:25. This is the central preaching text on the need to go to church. We meet together to encourage each other to keep going.
• 10:26-31. This is the second warning passage in Hebrews urging the audience not to turn away from Christ. 
• 10:26. Intentional sinning, in a sense, "uses up" the sacrifice of Christ. None is left for you because you have exhausted it. Coming to Christ is once again related to getting a certain knowledge ("enlightened," 6:4).
• 10:27. The prospect of those who turn from God face the same future as those who never turned to him--the prospect of fire. Those whom God judges are considered here his enemies (cf. 10:13).
• 10:28-29. These verses are again somewhat surprising to Christians. Unlike John who pits law against grace, Hebrews makes a lesser to greater argument--if the punishment under Moses was bad, how much worse will the punishment be for those who despise the Son of God?
• There is holiness and honor-shame language here: "despising," "insulting" the Spirit of grace, "considering common the blood by which sanctified."
• 10:30-31. The judgment of God is evoked, including the classic text from which Jonathan Edwards preached the famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
• 10:32-39. This is yet another passage that gives us insight into the past of the audience (cf. 6:10-11). 
• 10:32-34. In the past, they went through a time of suffering. They were publicly shamed or were associated with those who were. Given 13:7, it seems possible that some of their leaders were martyred during that crisis. If the audience is at Rome, certainly the persecution of 64 under Nero comes to mind. Peter and Paul were also martyred at Rome under Nero, although not necessarily in conjunction with that persecution.
• 10:34. They had association with prisoners. Peter and Paul come to mind. Prisoners needed external support to survive in jail. The plundering of their property has sometimes been connected with the Claudian expulsion of 49, although it seems like we should pick between Nero and Claudius.
• The better and remaining possession is of course the heavenly homeland of Hebrews 11:16.
• 10:35-39. "Therefore" suggests these verses are what the audience should now do. Here is the application. They have done admirably in the past, so they should resolve to endure now. They should not throw away their confidence.
• The exhortation to endure, to have faith, to have confidence is the primary exhortation of Hebrews. Hebrews never tells the audience, "Don't go to the temple," "Don't offer sacrifices." Perhaps the temple is not even standing. The exhortation is rather positive--keep going!
• 10:36. Another reminder of God's promises (cf. Heb 6).
• 10:37-38. The author quotes/paraphrases Habakkuk 2:3-4. This is of course a key Pauline text (Rom. 1:17). Hebrews uses it a little differently than Paul does. He was building a case for justification by faith. Hebrews is talking about continuance in faithfulness.
• 10:39. The author has confidence that the audience will not shrink back. They are people of faith, people who keep going to preserve their souls.

B. Witnesses of Faith (11:1-40)

• This is the faith chapter of the Bible! It is not just a chapter out of the blue. It fits entirely into the flow of Hebrews. You need endurance, 10:36 says. Seeing these witnesses, keep running, Hebrews 12:1-2 say. They need faith.
• So the examples of faith are examples meant to encourage the audience to have faith. All of the different examples speak to the audience's need to have faith or continue in faith. They fall into a number of categories: 1) faith in what you can't see, 2) faith in God's promises, 3) faith in the right kind of sacrifice, 4) faith despite evil rulers, and 5) faith in rescue and resurrection.
• 11:1-3. 11:1 is not so much a definition of faith as a description of it with a special view to the situation of Hebrews. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for." This statement relates to the temporal, horizontal dimension of believing now something that has not yet happened. "Faith is the evidence of things not seen." This could also relate to the future, but might also relate to the vertical dimension of faith--seeing the heavenly beyond the earthly.
• 11:2 forms an inclusio with 11:39. Both have the statement, "were witnessed." This chapter thus forms a unit of thought. Witnessing is a minor theme in Hebrews, the verb appearing 8 times.
• 11:3 falls in the category of faith in what you cannot see. The worlds were "knit" out of things that do not appear. The visible was created out of what was invisible. It is not clear whether the author had creation out of nothing in view, although this is how we Christians read the verse today.
• 11:4-7. Abel, Enoch, and Noah are mentioned in this paragraph. Abel is an example of offering the right kind of sacrifice with faith. So the audience should trust in Christ's sacrifice.
• 11:5. Enoch did not experience death because of his faith. So it is possible the audience will be rescued from death, perhaps by being taken to heaven.
• 11:6 is a general statement that is a major take-away for the audience from the chapter: "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." The audience therefore needs to continue in faith. They need to believe that God will keep his promises, no matter what things may look like at present.
• 11:7. Noah believed in the promises of God even though they were unseen in the future. 
• The mention of "righteousness by faith" again confirms that the author of Hebrews stands in some relation to the Pauline circle.
• 11:8-22. These paragraphs relate to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
• 11:8-12. Abraham was called toward a land of promise, which his heirs were to inherit. He went in faith. The theme of alienation is present in this paragraph and the next. The audience is in a homeland that proves not to be their own. 
• Abraham was looking forward to a city built by God. We find out soon that this is a heavenly city (11:16). It seems that Hebrews is alluding to some earthly city here that the audience must leave metaphorically, must come to realize is not truly their city. More on this in a moment. He was in the land but not of the land.
• 11:11-12 talks about how Sarah conceived even though she was beyond the age of procreation. This falls in the category of God bringing back from the dead.
• 11:13-16. The author pauses in the middle of his examples to reflect on the heroes of faith thus far. They died without receiving the promises. Such might be the case for the audience. They were foreigners on the earth--as the audience truly is. Their homeland is not on earth but in heaven. So the audience must not think that Jerusalem or Rome on earth is their true homeland. If Jerusalem is destroyed, it was never truly their home. God himself has prepared a city in heaven.
• 11:17-22. Now the author resumes the examples of the patriarchs. Most of the illustrations in this paragraph have to do with coming back from the dead.
• 11:17-19. Abraham had faith when he offered up Isaac, believing that God could bring him back from the dead. Abraham believed God's promises, as the audience should.
• 11:20-22. All of these patriarchs believed that God would fulfill his promises even after their deaths. Isaac believed in the future of Jacob and Esau. Jacob believed that God would bless Joseph. Joseph believed Israel would enter the land again after his death. So the audience need not fear death. God would raise them.
• 11:23-28. This paragraph moves on to Moses.
• 11:23. In the category of not fearing the king (=Roman emperor), Moses' parents hid him.
• 11:24-26. Moses chose to suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time. So the audience should not hide while God's people are being persecuted.
• There are advantages to going along with evil powers when they are persecuting others and you are not yet the target. I think of the famous quote from Martin Niemöller: "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
• 11:27. Again, Moses left Egypt not fearing the king's anger. He was looking toward the invisible. So the audience should not fear the Roman emperor's anger. They should have faith in the invisible.
• The timing of 11:27 is contested. The Passover is mentioned next, but it was after Moses fled the first time, out of fear. 11:27 sounds more like the exodus.
• 11:28 may be another allusion to the better blood of Christ. And those who participate in Christ's blood need not fear the judgment either.
• 11:29-31. The author takes the audience to the entrance into Canaan with crossing the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho, and Rahab. 
• 11:29. If the Egyptians are a cipher for the Romans, the audience is being told not to worry in the face of persecution. 
• 11:30. God sometimes chooses to destroy enemies like the Romans, as happened with Jericho. 
• 11:31. Rahab could represent Roman Christians in Rome who hide Jews or those who were in danger because of the destruction of Jerusalem.
• 11:32-38. The author now stops individual examples and lists by name individuals and types of faithfulness.
• 11:32. The masculine singular participle here suggests that the author is male.
• 11:32-34. Most of these examples come from Judges and the books of Samuel, although Daniel is the one whose faith shut the mouths of lions. 
• Sometimes God delivers now. Sometimes he delivers from death. That is a key message in these verses.
• 11:35. The first example is probably the son of the Shunammite woman in 1 Kings 4. The second mother trusting in the resurrection of her sons may be an allusion to 2 Maccabees 7.
• 11:37. There is a tradition that Isaiah was sawed in half (a work called Martyrdom of Isaiah). Is being stoned to death an allusion to Stephen? The apostle James was killed by the sword. 
• 11:38. Is this an allusion to Elijah?
• 11:39-40. None of these received the promise because it was not possible until Jesus died and rose from the dead. Only then was perfection of the conscience possible. So they were commended for their faith (remember the inclusio with 11:2) but did not receive the promise.
• 11:40. Now that Christ has done his high priestly work, both the examples of the past and the audience in the present can be made perfect. All the rainchecks of the sacrifices of the past are now cashed in.

I. Sermon Introduction (1:1-2:18)
     A. Exordium (1:1-4)
     B. Celebration of the Enthroned Son (1:5-14)
     C. Background of Salvation (2:1-18)

II. The Argument (3:1-10:18)
     A. Enter into God's Rest (3:1-4:13)

     B. The High Priestly Argument (4:14-10:18)
          1. A Superior Priest (4:14-7:28)
               a. Hold Fast (4:14-16)
               b. Appointed High Priest (5:1-10)
               c. Central Exhortation (5:11-6:20)
               d. The Order of Melchizedek (7:1-28)
               e. Superior Sanctuary and Sacrifice (8:1-10:18)

S5. God justifies us in response to our repentance and faith.

This is the fifth post in a unit on salvation in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first section had to do with God and Creation, and I have also finished units on Christology and Atonement.
________________________
God justifies us in response to our repentance and faith.

1. You may have heard the saying, "When I am justified, it is just-as-if-I'd never sinned." This childhood saying relates to the traditional sense that justification is about God declaring us legally right with him after he has forgiven our sins. In this way of defining the words, God's forgiveness precedes God's verdict that we are "not guilty" of all charges in his divine court. [1] Then after we are forgiven, God declares us to be in right standing before him. Justification is the act of God considering us in right standing before him. He declares us righteous, innocent, "not guilty" in the divine court.

In some respects, then, justification looks to our past, since "all have sinned" (Rom. 3:23). In our "natural state," as Wesley put it, we stand condemned before God, for "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). [2] But despite our sins, God declares us righteous in his eyes. He gives us a clean slate legally.

Martin Luther emphasized that this righteous state was a legal fiction. That is to say, God's verdict is not based on what we really are. Like adoption, where someone who is not literally the child of another by blood is declared a child by law, so a person who is justified by God is not truly innocent but is declared so by God. However, this righteousness is as real as actually righteousness, even though it is "imputed," because God is the one who decides. God is the judge.

2. The normal process of coming to this righteous status before God begins with his prevenient grace. God reaches out to us. In our moral powerlessness, he gives us just enough power to respond to his call. If we continue to respond, he will give us the power to repent of our past sins and exercise faith in him.

Repentance is a regret for past sins and a turn away from them. It is not a regret of future punishment. It is a true desire that we had not done wrong and a sincere desire to change our actions in the future. In Acts 2:38, when the the crowds of Jerusalem realize that they have put their Messiah to death, Peter tells them to "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

So also John the Baptist, in preparation for the Christ, preached a "baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4). To the Gentiles, Paul in Acts 17:30 tells them that while God in the past has overlooked the ignorance of the nations, he was now commanding people everywhere to repent. Baptism, from this perspective symbolizes and sacramentally acts out the washing away of past sins.

If repentance is a negative action toward the past, faith is a positive action toward God in the present which continues into the future. Faith is more than mere belief or mental assent. Faith is a trust and conviction. It is a commitment that looks to the future. "if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Rom. 10:9).

Paul here is talking here about a righteousness that comes by faith. Our English hinders us from seeing the full nuances of this passage. In Greek, the noun faith (pisteuo) and the verb believe (pisteuo) are clearly related. To believe can thus mean "to have faith," and faith can mean "belief." Here it is important to realize that words have more than one meaning and context determines which one is used in which individual instance.

In Romans 10:9, Paul is saying that, "if you have faith in your heart" in relation to what God has accomplished through the resurrection of Jesus, you will be saved. This act of faith is more than simply believing with your head that it happened. After all, it involves a confession that Jesus is Lord, that he is Master, that he is the king. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Rom. 10:13), but this is a call that gives him allegiance, not a mere cry for help.

Similarly, the verb "to justify" (dikaioo) and the nouns "righteousness" (dikaiosyne) and "justification" (dikaiosis) are clearly related as well. To speak of the "righteousness that comes by faith" (Rom. 10:6) is thus to speak of justification by faith.

3. The basis of our justification is the atoning death of Jesus, "whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood" (Rom. 3:25). Empowered by the Holy Spirit, the mechanism of our justification is faith: "a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law" (Rom. 3:28). Then once God has declared us righteous before him on the basis of faith (cf. Rom. 4:3), we are at peace with God (Rom. 5:1). We are reconciled to him (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:19).

4. You will notice that most of the biblical references above come from Paul's writings in the New Testament, Romans in particular. Accordingly, it is significant to remember that the language and imagery we have been discussing is not the only language of salvation in Scripture. It is only one way of looking at salvation, and it was forged in Paul's debates with certain opponents in the earliest church.

Indeed, language of justification is not even the primary language of Paul's letters. It is chiefly confined to Romans and Galatians, where Paul was dealing with opposition to the way he viewed the salvation of non-Jews. "Justification by faith" thus was not the center of Paul's theology but one set of language he used with Jews who opposed the way he conducted his mission to Gentiles. Romans is not a systematic theology but a letter written in part to defend Paul's way of including Gentiles within the people of God without requiring them to keep the Jewish Law.

There are thus a number of nuances to Paul's language that we are prone to miss because we are no longer facing the situations he was facing. This fact does not undermine the truth of the theology of justification above. What it does is suggest that this language is only one way of expressing the process of our reconciliation to God.

For example, when Paul spoke of Gentiles not being justified by "works of Law" (Rom. 3:28), he clearly had the Jewish Law in view. And what works of the Jewish Law does he primarily have in view? Surely it is primarily matters that separated Jew from Gentile. In Galatians, circumcision is primarily in view. Romans speaks in more general terms, but the point is that Paul does not have mere "good works" in mind. That is not what he is talking about. He is talking about any sense that a Gentile has to keep the Jewish Law in order to obtain a right standing before God. [3]

It thus would go well beyond anything Paul had in mind if we were deny that faith involves an act of the human will. Yes, justification is a matter of God's grace (Rom. 4:16), but as we have seen in previous articles, grace in Paul's world was a gift disproportionate to anything the recipient might do. Grace did not imply, however, that the recipient did absolutely nothing to solicit or maintain the grace. The faith of Abraham by which God considered him righteous was an act on Abraham's part. It reflected an investment in God that went beyond mere assent.

5. Another debate about Paul's original meaning focuses on the phrase, "the faith of Jesus Christ" (Rom. 3:22; Gal. 2:16). Many Pauline scholars believe that this expression had to do with the faithfulness of Jesus in death rather than our exercise of faith in him. [4] This is not a denial that faith in Christ was part of Paul's equation, for these two verses also use the verb "believe" with Jesus as the object. However, it might shift the emphasis in justification even further away from our faith toward the action of Jesus and his faithfulness to death (cf. Phil. 2:8).

In our view, the bulk of Paul's references to faith in Romans 4 and Galatians 3 are surely to human faith. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that Paul's focal statements in Romans 3:22 and Galatians 2:16 did refer to the faithfulness of Jesus as the basis of our justification. Paul would be affirming again that it is the atoning death of Jesus that is the ground of our right standing before God.

Nevertheless, this discussion does free us up to see that Paul primarily saw Gentiles and Jews as putting their faith in God the Father (e.g., 1 Thess. 1:8). We also put our faith in Jesus' death. But for Paul, almost all the mentions of human faith have God as their object (e.g., Rom. 4:3, 24).

6. A final nuance to mention about Paul's language is that the phrase, "the righteousness of God," in Romans 1:17 almost certainly referred primarily to God's righteousness rather than human righteousness or justification. Again, this nuance does not contradict the theology above but it reminds us that Paul's argument is placed against a long backdrop in history that goes back to Psalms and Isaiah. If you look at Psalm 143:1, for example, God's righteousness and his faithfulness are put in parallel to each other. In Isaiah 45:8, God's righteousness and his salvation are parallel.

In short, while Paul does speak of human justification in Romans, the idea of "the righteousness of God" had a history that suggests Paul's audience would have heard it in relation to God, in the first place, rather than something relating to humans.

God justifies us, he declares us in right standing before him, on the basis of the atoning death of Jesus Christ. He does this in response to our faith in him and in the death of Christ, which presupposes our repentance for past sins.

Next week S6. God fills us with his Holy Spirit as a seal of ownership.

[1] John Wesley's understanding of justification by faith and conversion can be explored in numerous sermons, including "Justification by Faith" and "The Spirit of Bondage and the Spirit of Adoption," With regard to justification, Wesley largely followed the lead of Martin Luther.

[2] See especially "The Spirit of Bondage and the Spirit of Adoption" above.

[3] For a discussion of "works of Law," see especially the essays in J. D. G. Dunn, A New Perspective on Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), esp. 8-10, 121-40.

[4] The most notable proponent of this view is Richard Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).

Paul, Athens, Evidence, Presuppositions

... Paul doesn’t seem to make much headway at Athens. Some have used this fact to try to argue against education. The gospel, so the scenario goes, doesn’t play very well around the “educated.” Some pit education against a deep faith. “Don’t go to seminary or you’ll lose your faith.” “Don’t go to a secular university or a Christian liberal arts college—you’ll lose your faith.”

There is something deeply troubling about this kind of argument. Is true Christian faith really this vulnerable to thinking? Wouldn’t the most natural implication of that line of argument be that Christianity isn’t true, and that you have to be ignorant to have faith? Surely Christianity is in trouble if learning inevitably makes you lose faith!

There are probably educational institutions that are only interested in listening to new ideas, as Luke describes Athens (Acts 17:21). Perhaps they are more interested in unraveling your ideas than in building up an understanding of the world that works and is helpful. We can hope most Christian universities are places where the exploration of truth is done in the context of faith—faith seeking understanding. Hopefully, ideas are built up and not only subjected to scrutiny.

At the same time, the law of averages suggests that all of us inevitably grow up believing in a mixture of true and false things. At least some of what we start out centering our faith on must surely be in need of correction, just given the law of averages. Education, when it is done well, allows us to look at what we believe with a critical eye. It should allow us better to distinguish between what is solid and what is flimsy.

True faith is not afraid of questioning, because it has a confidence that what it believes will hold up against the evidence. And if we believe that God is a God of truth, then we must believe that God generally stands on the side of the most likely conclusion. There are potential pitfalls here. Sometimes the evidence is misleading. Sometimes we do not have enough evidence to draw a firm conclusion. It is completely appropriate to suspend judgment in some circumstances, especially on the issues of most importance or when we do not feel equipped to make a judgment.

There are those who would say that truth is not a matter of evidence at all, but that we must simply stand on certain assumptions—“presuppositions”—that we will not change no matter what amount of evidence may come against them. Again, this approach makes sense to a point, but what if our assumptions are wrong? Even our assumptions about the Bible are filled with traditions we have inherited from other people. I’ve never heard of any recent theologian to whom God appeared in person to tell them which presuppositions were unassailable. Rather, these theologians have inherited these presuppositions from other theologians, including presuppositions about the Bible.

There must surely be a point, then, when the evidence seems to mount to such an extent that we must re-examine even our presuppositions. Otherwise, we run the risk of mistaking human traditions for God’s truth. We should never examine our presuppositions carelessly or rebelliously, but cautiously and collectively alongside God’s people. We work out our understanding with faith, fear, and trembling (Phil. 2:12). We start with faith and seek additional understanding. God is a God of truth, so the truth cannot unravel our faith if our faith is legitimate...

At Conference End...

The conference has come and gone, and thankfully I'll be home for a while now.  Interestingly, Monday after next begins the "Pedagogy of Science and Faith in the Classroom" conference at IWU.  As I mentioned before, it is on pedagogy rather than positions or content.

I ended up really enjoying the Christian Scholars Conference.  I got here too late to hear Polkinghorne, but nabbed a copy of his presentation to read.  I heard Collins. The other plenary speakers spoke on the dangers of genetically-modified food and on the ethical landscape with regard to stem cell research.  I was well prepared for this last talk because of a presentation Burt Webb gave at IWU a few years back.

And of course I gave my paper on Hebrews.  Jerry Pattengale of IWU was hear talking about the Green Collection.  And IWU's Wim Van de Merwe was here.

Pepperdine and the conference turn out to be Church of Christ (non-instrumental).  It struck me as we finished singing three hymns at the end of a dinner/celebration of Thomas Olbricht that we were singing a cappella and that it had significance in context.  I was reminded of our little enclaves as Christian groups, each with our own idiosyncrasies.  Biblical scholarship is very important (on one level) to the children of the Stone-Campbell revivals like the Disciples and Churches of Christ.  They are part of the Restorationist Movement that puts such a high premium on getting back to the early church.

And they have their quibbles like whether you should have instruments in church.  I talked to a Christian minister working on his PhD in church history yesterday and he suggested that the reason Christian churches in the south went non-instrumental were because they were poorer and couldn't afford organs like the churches in the north, who won the Civil War.

The ideological debate was thus, as almost always, an epiphenomenon of social dynamics going on between people.  The pretense is thus that there are no organs in the Bible.  The reality is that we live in the South, are poor, and have slaves.  You are wealthy abolitionists in the north.

And of course the scholars who grow up in these enclaves usually recognize the idiosyncrasies, but there is enough that is true or that they agree with to stay with their movement.  I saw the same when I was at the Seventh Day Adventist Andrews University a few months back.  And I experienced the same growing up Wesleyan, one of the many Methodist splinter groups.

There is a current in America that says education makes you liberal.  I think it would be more accurate to say that education causes you to see the idiosyncrasies of your group, your starting point, which almost always broadens you in relation to your group.  That means that education should also broaden those who grow up in "liberal" circles. ;-)

So it's not so much that truth tends toward the liberal.  It's that education tends to unravel the simplistic assumptions of your starting point, whatever simplistic assumptions you may start out with.   As Socrates once allegedly said, the wise person is the one who realizes at some point how much he or she does not know.

Reflections on Faith (11)

Previously on Paul. I didn't finish the last section on directing faith toward Jesus but wanted to get on with finishing this chapter on "How Salvation Works." I'll fill in the gaps for publication.

Life Reflections
The standard Protestant application of Paul in Romans is such a well-worn path that it hardly seems necessary to mention it. The typical sermon goes something like the following. No one can earn God's favor. No matter how much good we do, it is not enough. Good deeds cannot make you right with God, cannot get you to heaven. We can only get right with God by faith, by believing in Jesus, by believing that Jesus rose from the dead, by confessing him as our Lord.

Most of this scenario fits with what Paul was actually saying. True, it has lost the context of Paul's original message, where the key point was whether non-Jews could also escape God's wrath and be a part of God's people. It has lost the original flavor of the debate over "works of Law," a debate that heavily centered on things like circumcision and purity rules, the things that most separated Jew and Gentile. Paul also never says that heaven is our eternal destination, and you can make a very strong argument from Paul's writings that he saw a transformed earth as our eternal home. Interestingly, Paul never mentions hell in any of his writings.

Many of us in the church feel quite comfortable with the basic line of thought here. Everyone of us as done wrong at some point, with the result that God's judgment stands over and against us. Jesus absorbed God's anger toward our sin. All we need to do is trust in what God has done for us through Jesus, and we will escape the coming judgment and be saved. God's provision of a way out for us is an indication of just how loving and "righteous" he is.

However, I suspect that this line of thinking no longer makes sense to many Westerners, including many Christians. Certainly any difficulties we might have in making sense of these ideas does not in any way disprove them. Every culture has its blind spots, and we cannot assume that our "common sense" is always going to be a true sense. Nevertheless, God revealed the biblical messages to their original audiences in categories they could understand as well. The result is that we have to consider the culture of the biblical authors not only when looking at their "ethics," what they said about how to live, but also when looking at the categories of their ideas.

For example, what exactly does the picture of an angry God mean to say? Anger is a human emotion that usually has an edge of being out of control and, as we now know, physiologically impairs our ability to think clearly. [1] We can wonder whether a God who is omniscient--and thus for whom there is no difference between "experiential" knowledge and cognitive knowledge--could literally experience anger, which implies changes and movement in thinking and reflection. [2] God knows everything in every detail in every moment. His thoughts cannot move or change differently from moment to moment.

The notion of God's anger must thus a picture that says much more about us than it does about him...

further reflections to come:
1. penal substitution
2. alienation as a picture we strongly identify with
3. God's amazing acts of reconciliation

[1] How God Changes Your Brain ***

[2] The idea that God might learn something on any level by becoming human or dying on the cross implies that he was not truly omniscient beforehand. A God who creates everything out of nothing knows everything, including what it feels like to sin.

Righteous by Faith (10)

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Romans 3:28 captures Paul's bottom line well: "a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law" (NRSV). As a reminder, to be "justified" is to be considered righteous by God, to be found "not guilty" or "innocent" in his divine court. It is to be reckoned as "right" with him. The "works of law" here could in theory be any part of the Jewish Law, but we have followed those who primarily see Paul thinking of those aspects of the Jewish Law that Jews might boast the most about--the ones that distinguished them in their minds from non-Jews. [1]

But what does Paul mean by "faith." The word faith itself has a number of possible meanings, which we have already seen. It can mean "faithfulness," as in Romans 3:3. It can mean an almost purly mental belief, as when James talks about how the demons "believe" (pisteuo) in one God (Jas. 2:19). Maybe the majority of times in the New Testament it has a sense of confidence or trust, such as when Jesus says we might move mountains if we had enough faith (e.g., Matt. 17:20).

So what sense does Paul have in mind when he says that it is a person's "faith" that justifies them, not their "works of Law"? We are so used to thinking Paul has been talking primarily about faith in Jesus Christ that our knee-jerk reaction is usually to say that it is a trust in Jesus that Paul has in mind here. And faith directed toward Jesus is clearly part of Paul's equation to be sure (e.g., Gal. 2:16). But as Paul unpacks his argument in Romans 4, it is not faith directed toward Jesus that is Paul's focus. It is faith in God the Father. [2]

So Paul gives Abraham as a model of faith in Romans 4. But it obviously is not Abraham's faith in Christ that is the model but rather Abraham's faith in God. No one earns a right status with God but this status is for the one who "trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness" (4:5). Abraham was considered to be righteous "in the sight of God, in whom he believed [=had faith]--the God who gives life to the dead and calls thigns that are not as though they were" (4:17). And God will justify us too, "who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (4:24).

As Paul unpacks how faith justifies a person in Romans 4, it is never Christ who is the object of such faith, but God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead. We see this pattern in Paul's thought also when we look at Romans 10:9, which gives us the path to salvation: "if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe [=have faith] in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Here again, it is our faith that God raised him from the dead that effects salvation...

[1] circumcision, purity laws, food laws, sabbath observance, and so forth.

[2] This is again one of the many observations that I think add up to Romans 3:22 being primarily about Jesus' faithfulness rather than human faith. Jesus is the secondary object of faith for Paul, after God the Father.

Sunday Explanatory Notes: Hebrews 11:1-7

11:1-2 Now faith is the substance of things that are being hoped, proof of things that are not being seen, for in this, the elders were witnessed.
This is a description of one kind of faith rather than a definition, and it comes in the context of the previous verses. The author has been urging that the audience not shrink back, but press on and attain, that the audience be faithful and endure on. The audience hopes for Christ's return. The audience hopes for the whole world to be set straight.

These are not things they have today, but faith that they will happen in the future gives substance to them today. They do not see these things today, but faith that they will happen gives evidence or proof of them today. The faith to which the author refers here thus relates to the future. Faith affords endurance today because of what is believed in relation to tomorrow.

The "elders" surely refers to all the "heroes of faith," the example list that follows. These "Old Testament saints" were all witnessed to have faith. The author thus wishes to encourage the audience to continue in faith, to endure, like the myriad individuals that follow. They will see that they are in good company.

11:3 By faith we understand the aeons to have been knit together by the [spoken] word of God, with the implication that what is being seen has not come to be out of things that are [currently] visible.
The first example of faith differs from those that follow in that it does not mention some Old Testament individual but rather invokes the creation in Genesis 1 itself. We have only translated aion as "aeon" to point out that the word is somewhat unusual. "Worlds" is the common translation. We have not used it here so that we do not think of planets, solar systems, or galaxies. Aeons in Hebrews might refer to the layers of sky that Jesus passed through on route to the highest heaven (e.g., 4:14; 7:26), the created skies as opposed to the eternal sky or heaven, in addition to the earth below.

The word of God here is not logos but hrema, so we should be cautious of bringing John 1 or Christ into view here. Given the author's proximity to some Alexandrian imagery, it is interesting to say the least that he avoids logos here. God rather than Jesus is the creator here.

It is not at all clear that this verse pictures ex nihilo creation. It simply says that the materials that God used to "knit" the world together, like mending a net, are not materials that are currently visible. He thus did not make the world out of earth, air, fire, and water.

The point is that God is quite adept at making things that are not currently apparent. Thus they can be confident that the things on which they have set their hopes will materialize, even though they do not currenly see them. If the audience believed that God created the visible world out of a pre-existing chaos, as was the common belief of the day, then the illustration would be all the more poignant. Although things do not look orderly or manageable today--things look formless and void--God is quite good at creating order out of chaos.

11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a greater sacrifice than Cain, through which he was witnessed to be righteous, God Himself witnessing by way of the gifts, and through it, he still is speaking, although he died.
If the invocation of creation implied that the audience should have faith and endure, mention of Abel's faith reinforces the audience's faith in Christ's atonement. The verse is too allusive for us to know the answers to the questions we have about the nature of each sacrifice. The author merely builds on the fact that Abel's sacrifice was better than Cain's and was accepted. Similarly, the audience should have faith in the greater, more perfect, and indeed effective sacrifice of Jesus over and against the Levitical sacrifices. This is the path to justification, to be deemed "righteous," faith in the faithful death of Jesus Christ.

As a part of Scripture, Abel continues to speak of faith through the biblical text. He is a witness to faith that the audience should listen to. And if any Christians had been martyred prior to the time of writing, they were also still speaking to the audience, even though they might have died. Literal faith in life after death may also be implied as well.

11:5-6 By faith Enoch was taken so that [he] did not see death, and "he was not found because God took him." For before his taking, it has been witnessed [that he] "pleased God." But without faith it is impossible to please [Him], for it is necessary for the one who is approaching God to believe that He is and [that He] becomes a rewarder to those who seek Him.
The nature of Enoch's faith is not set out. Perhaps the image invokes the possibility that the audience might not have to face death in persecution. If Abel died because of his faithfulness, Enoch did not because of his. The chapter both reinforces faith to the point of death, while also giving hope that a person might not see death if they continue in faith.

In either case, faith is necessary for justification, for "pleasing God." In particular, Hebrews mentions the conviction that God exists, meaning the God of Israel, and faith in the things hoped for, namely, that God is going to come through on His promises. If the audience does not continue in faith in things currently not seen, they do not have faith that God "rewards those who seek Him." In that case they should not expect to receive the promise.

11:7 By faith Noah, when he was warned about things not yet being seen, he contructed a ship for the salvation of his household because he had a godly fear, through which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness according to faith.
Thus far we have seen overtones of faith to endure in the midst of persecution (creation from chaos, Enoch) and faith in Christ's sacrifice (Abel). Noah adds another example to the first category. Noah did not see the salvation God had promised for a long time before it materialized. He nevertheless endured in faith. He constructed an ark of salvation for his household. He demonstrated reverent fear, as Jesus did in 5:7 and was resurrected in consequence.

The audience can also be a witness to the condemnation of the world that disobeys and resists God. Their faith makes them an heir of justification. They will be declared righteous, like Abel, on the Day of Judgment if they continue in faith despite the torrent that looks to beat against them in the days ahead.

Explanatory Notes: James 2:14-26

2:14 What is the benefit, my brothers, if someone should say to have faith but should not have works? The faith is not able to save him, is it?
Works for James, as we have already seen, have to do with what we traditionally think of as "good works," helping those in need like the poor, widows, and orphans (1:27). We have seen thus far a significant concern on James' part that leaders not pander to wealthy patrons but that they instead love their neighbor who is in need, the poor in their community. In this well known section, James continues the theme of hearing and not doing that he began in chapter 1:22-27.

Those who say they have faith but no works to prove it are like those who are hearers of the word but not doers. James here makes it clear that such a person will not be saved, will not escape condemnation on the day of judgment. Faith alone, understood as a mere assent to certain beliefs, is inadequate to save.

2:15-17 If a brother or sister is naked and lacking daily food and someone of you should say to them, "Go in peace. Be warm and fed," and you do not give them the needs of the body, what is the benefit? So also faith, if it should not have works, is dead by itself.
Here we see by example what James understands by "works." Works are the kinds of things that Matthew mentions in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt. 25:31-46): welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty. The rich person James has mentioned in 1:9-11 and 2:2-7 has the resources to help those in need but does not do so. Leaders in the community might be able to help those in need, and James' exhortation is surely directed primarily at them.

Faith without works is dead, like a body without a spirit. It is of no use. It does not do anything.

2:18 But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
The original Greek of this verse presents some complications. Ancient Greek largely did not use punctuation, including quotation marks, so scholars debate exactly where the quote ends and what the precise nature of the question is. By far we believe the above punctuation is most likely.

James' imaginary conversation partner simply claims to be a different person, one that has faith but who does not do works. James is a different type of person, one who does works. James somewhat mockingly, without completely denying the other person's "faith," points out the ironic that his faith shows in his works. The other person's faith, on the other hand, is dead faith.

2:19 You have faith that God is one. You are doing well. The demons also have faith and they tremble.
One disadvantage of reading the Bible in English is that you cannot see the similarities between various words. In English, the word faith and the word believe look quite different, and we might strongly distinguish them. But in Greek, these are varying meanings of the same word, the pist- root. Since we believe James is talking here about an inadequate faith rather than something that is not faith at all, we have chosen to translate accordingly.

The person James is indicting says that they have faith without works. The demons, James points out, have this level of faith. This is a mere belief that does not impact one's life. It is a mere assent with one's head without any real investment with one's heart. You believe that God is one, the affirmation of the Jewish Shema. Any mainstream Jew might affirm such a thing. The rich Jewish patron visiting your small Christian Jewish gathering would.

But this level of faith is no different than the amount of faith that the demons have, and they are still facing the judgment. And so will those within the community whose faith goes no further than mere assent to certain beliefs.

2:20 Do you want to know, O foolish person, that faith without works is ineffective?
This verse repeats the idea that faith without works is dead from 2:17 in a slightly different way. James uses a word play difficult to translate into English--faith without works (erga) is useless (arga). Those who think they are okay simply because they believe with their heads are foolish.

2:21 Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works after he offered his son Isaac on the altar?
From this point on in the chapter, we increasingly begin to sense that James is interacting with Pauline tradition in some form. We do not believe that James' thinking here actually contradicts Paul's thought, even though on some levels it may sound as if it does. Indeed, Paul and James did likely disagree on some issues as we play out the principles of their comments. Even further, they probably thought they disagreed! But nothing that has made it into the biblical text itself seems irreconcilable between the two.

James is still arguing that the faith that counts before God is a faith that issues forth in obedience and action. Paul certainly agreed with this idea as well. Here James brings up the well known story of Genesis 22 in which God tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, and Abraham obeys until God releases him.

2:22 You see that faith was working together with his works and faith was completed through works.
Again, this statement does not seem to contradict Paul's theology. Paul knew nothing of a faith in Jesus as Lord that did not result in the fruit of the Spirit--love, joy, peace, and so forth (Gal. 5:22-23). Ephesians 2:8, the classic "justification by grace through faith" verse, is immediately followed in 2:9 with the observation that "we were created for good works in Christ." Paul's theology may be more precise in the mechanism of justification, but the "product," what real faith looks like, is the same for both. Both faith and works are necessary to have the full package. They go together.

2:23 And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "And Abraham had faith in God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called "a friend of God."
It is this verse more than any other that makes it very difficult to argue that James is not interacting with some type of Pauline tradition. This verse in Genesis 15:6 is a key passage in Paul's arguments for justification by faith (e.g., Gal. 3:6; Rom. 4:3). James is clearly responding to a "faith only" position of some kind, although not really to Paul's actual position on these issues.

Some have thus argued that James is writing very early, perhaps even earliest of any New Testament writing. In this scenario, James has only heard rumors of Paul's teaching and so does not quite have him right. One might note that James urges Paul to remember the poor in Galatians 2:10 when they finally did have a chance to talk at length.

Alternatively, one might argue that James is late, a generalized version of the historical James' own emphases in response to a perversion of Paul's teaching that arose after his death. While it is true that Paul did at points seem to point out that all justification is a matter of grace--that no one could truly earn God's favor--most of Paul's discussion of justification centers around works of Law rather than works in general. That is to say, when Paul argued against justification by works of Law, he was primarily arguing that matters like circumcision, food laws, and sabbath observance could not make a Jew right with God in themselves. Only the faithful death of Christ could bring about true justification.

In either case, James is not addressing the real point of debate between Paul and James during the central time of their disagreement. Their real point of disagreement centered on whether Jewish Christians were justified both by the faithful and necessary death of Christ and by their faithfulness to God's covenant with Israel, which of course included keeping the Jewish particulars we mentioned above. They also disagreed apparently on what Jewish and Gentile believers needed to do to eat with each other.

But none of these issues are at all in view in this section of James, probably implying that James as it stands is either very early or that it embodies the carrying forth of James' voice to address a post-Pauline situation. In either case, there is no substantial disagreement between the theology of the two as it is found in the New Testament.

2:24 See that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
It was no doubt this verse more than any other that got Luther's goat, seeing that for him Paul was the champion of justification by faith alone. We now recognize that this was a slight misunderstanding of Paul's own teaching. Paul nowhere say that justification is by faith alone. Romans 3:28 comes closest with its very close statement that "a person is justified by faith and not by works of Law." But even though the wording is so close as to make one wonder if James 2:24 is a direct response to Romans 3:28, the two statements are quite different in sense and do not contradict.

First, as we have mentioned above, works in this section of Romans primarily has in view those aspects of the Jewish Law that distinguished Jew from Gentile--circumcision, food laws, etc. James, on the other hand, has works like helping the poor and needy. Paul believes that authentic faith results in these sorts of concerns as well. Indeed, in some ways, the empty faith James is targeting is much like the "teacher of the Law" Paul also targets in Romans 2:21-23. This person is also a hearer of the Law who is not a doer.

A second observation is that justification by faith for Paul may very well focus firstly on the faith of Jesus himself, his faithfulness to the point of death. In that sense, justification by faith for Paul is in the first instance justification by the faith that Jesus showed to the point of dying on the cross to atone for sins.

Finally, works do play a role for Paul as well in final justification before God on the Day of Judgment (e.g., Rom. 2:6-10; 2 Cor. 5:10). One cannot earn a righteous status before God (Gal. 2:16; Rom. 3:20), but once one has been justified from past sins, works are required of a believer in order for a person to be justified finally (e.g., Rom. 3:31). These works are brought forth in Paul's thought by the power of the Holy Spirit (e.g., Rom. 8:1-11).

Biblical theologians have worked hard to work out a consistency in Paul's thought here. The nicest option is of course to say that for Paul, works result after justification by faith so that one is not strictly justified finally by works at all but that authentic faith will have works. Nevertheless, the basic points in Paul's thinking remain. There will be some evaluation of believers' works on the Day of Judgment, with the possibility of judgment. It is apparently even possible not to get the prize of eternal life after having been earlier justified through the blood of Christ (e.g., 1 Cor. 9:27; Phil. 3:10-14). Yet despite these necessities, one cannot be good enough to earn acceptance before God. Christ's faithful death is the essential prerequisite.

Paul never says that we are justified by faith alone. This is a slight modification of Paul's own view. James therefore does not in any way contradict Paul himself, although it might contradict Luther and Calvin's understanding of Paul.

2:25 And similarly was not Rahab the prostitute also justified because she welcomed the messengers and sent them out a different way?
It is not clear why James would use Rahab as an example of justification by works. Perhaps it is because Rahab was a person whose "faith" in itself might be questioned. Rahab, in that sense, might very well serve as an example of the justification of a non-Jew. She perhaps did not start out with the faith that "God is one," but she treated Israel properly. Is this a thinly veiled exhortation to Gentile believers to show kindness toward lesser fortunate Jewish believers?

2:26 For just as the body is dead without spirit, so also faith without works is dead.
And thus James ends this section with a generalization of what he has been discussing. Faith without works is not living faith. It is dead faith, like a corpse. Faith that is worth anything is faith that issues in material help for those in need.

My Faith Development Model

For both the Missional Church and spiritual formation course this week, we looked and are looking at various faith development models, thinking about how people go about changing (in the Missional course toward changing attitudes toward mission, in the spiritual formation course about changing individually).

In the spiritual formation course, Change and Transformation, the whole class basically by partial coincidence, ended up looking at either James Fowler or M. Scott Peck. Peck's looked to me like a modification of Kierkegaard: 1) chaotic, 2) fundamentalist, 3) agnostic, and 4) mystic. Fowler's has 7 stages, the first four of which he finds fairly normal and the last 3 of which he suggested only some people reach.

Part of the assignment was to come up with one's own sense of faith development stages and I found myself coming up with more of a Venn diagram, which I will only talk through here:

1. Default: unreflective faith or non-faith
One begins with an inherited default set of beliefs and practices or non-beliefs, etc.

2. Path 1: never becoming reflective
A person might never reflect on the beliefs or non-beliefs and practices they inherited from their parents or environment their entire life.

3. Moments of reflection
For most people their default faith comes to various moments of reflection to various degrees. In these moments, they will make faith choices.

4. Path 2: from faith toward non-faith
Some people whose default is faith will move to varying degrees away from faith and faith practices.

5. Path 3: from non-faith to faith
Some people whose default is non-faith will move to varying degrees toward faith and faith practices.

6. Identity commitment
A few people, not many really in the vast scheme of things, find themselves investing their core identity to a particular set of faith or non-faith beliefs and practices.

7. Path 4: commitment to fundamentalist faith or non-faith
Some commit themselves to a rather rigid and narrow approach to faith or non-faith, usually with a very cognitive orientation. Yes, there are fundamentalist atheists.

8. Path 5: commitment to mystical faith or agnosticism
Another set of individuals commit to a more personal and existential approach to faith or non-faith. The person of faith cannot fully explicate the basis for their beliefs and practices but they are at peace with them. Similarly, the agnostic cannot deny the possibility of faith but is at peace with a doubtful uncertainty.

Today in Hebrews: Hebrews 11

Here is the link for the vodcast on Hebrews 11 from today:

http://indwes.acrobat.com/p59539264/

Names taken in vain: Pam Eisenbaum, Erich Grässer, and Ron Paul.

By Faith Alone

All we need do to show that Luther's "by faith alone" is not the whole biblical picture is cite James 2:24: "so we see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." Paul himself never uses the adverb "alone" when speaking of justification by faith. The closest he comes is in Romans 3:28 when he says, "a person is justified by faith and not by works of law."

As we might expect, the meaning of faith and its relationship to deeds in Paul is somewhat complex. We might summarize the landscape as follows:

1. We should not understand faith and works to be mutually exclusive concepts. In 1 Thess. 1:3, Paul commends the Thessalonians for their "work of faith." Also, faith by its very nature "works," as in Gal. 5:6, where Paul says that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters--only faith working through love. Eph. 2:8-10 can say from one verse to the next that we are saved by grace through faith, not of works, and then say in the next verse that we were created for good works--clearly the two concepts do not contradict each other.

2. Paul does teach that a person cannot merit justification by his or her works--no amount of deeds merits a "not-guilty" verdict. However, since Augustine we are prone to see this as an abstract faith versus works proposition. Paul surely processed the expression "works of law" by way of the Jewish law. And since Paul's primary topic of discussion is the differences between Jew and Gentile, arguing that Jews do not have a different path to justification than Gentiles do, we should primarily think of the phrase "works of law" as a reference to law observances that distinguished Jew from Gentile (circumcision, sabbath observance, food laws, etc...). Paul's point is thus that a Jew did not stand a better chance at justification simply because they were Jews. All have sinned--both Jew and Gentile. All need the faithful death of Jesus Christ in order that their sins might be atoned for and they might be redeemed.

3. The expression "through the faith of Jesus Christ" in Romans 3:22a and Galatians 2:16a is likely a reference to the faithfulness (to death) of Jesus, his obedience unto death. In that sense, the most important faith by which we are justified is not even our own. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And what I now live in the flesh, I live by trust/in the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). The word order suggests to me that Paul wants the audience to hear both connotations. First they hear, "in faith I live" and think of their own faith. Then Paul tacks on "the of the Son of God [faith]" and they think of his faithfulness unto death.

4. But Paul does move the train of thought in both Romans 3 and Galatians 3 to human faith as the principle for our justification. Romans 4 uses the example of Abraham's faith in the God who justifies the ungodly (4:5) and who raises the dead (4:17, 24) as a model for our justification.

The point of justification by faith in Christ versus works of law is thus not that works of law are bad. In fact, we would argue that for a Jew they remain important as part of their ongoing relationship with God. Paul never encourages Jews to stop observing the Jewish law in its ethnic particulars. Only when purity regulations came into conflict with more essential principles like the unity of the body of Christ did Paul "fudge" on aspects of the Jewish law (Gal. 2:11-14)

They simply are inadequate to justify. In fact, Paul explicitly denies that we make void law because of faith (3:31). Faith thus does not even remove the principle of law!

5. While works are not adequate to justify a person, faith expresses itself through appropriate works. On the Day of Judgment, God "will repay to each according to his works" (Rom. 2:6). On that day, "to those who from strife and who disobey the truth and to those persuaded by unrighteousness, wrath and anger..." (2:8). "It is necessary for us all to appear before the judgment seat of the Messiah so that each might receive the things [appropriate] to the things which s/he practiced in the body, whether good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10).

Indeed, far from faith removing works as a basis for judgment and "final" justification, faith brings the Spirit which enables the works necessary for justification. "Do we cancel law therefore through faith? God forbid! But we establish law" (Rom. 3:31). "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How will we who have died to sin still live in it?" (6:1-2). And of course Paul speaks of Gentiles who "demonstrate the work of the law written on their hearts" in Rom. 2:15. These individuals "by nature do the things of the law" (2:14). This language is reminiscent of Jer. 31 cited in Hebrews 8, 10 and alluded to in 2 Corinthians 3. It is new covenant language that pushes us to see these Gentiles as individuals who have the Spirit and are thus able to fulfill the righteous expectation of the law (Rom. 2:26; 8:4).

The confusing part of Paul's rhetoric is that he almost functions with two different conceptions of law here. Works of law have overtones of Jewish particularism and ethnic boundary issues. But in Romans 2 and 8, law seems to refer to a certain kind of core law that a Gentile might keep by nature even though uncircumcised. For our discussion, the important thing to notice is that Paul claims that the person who is unable to keep the law in Romans 7 is able to do so in Romans 6 and 8. And while works cannot justify in themselves, they are necessary for final justification in his thought.

Clearly Paul's thinking here is problematic for Lutheran theology in particular. On this point especially, Wesleyan-Arminian theology is beautifully situated between Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism in relation to Paul's thought. If medieval Catholicism did not have an appropriate sense in which grace asks for faith as its initiator, Lutheranism did not have an appropriate sense of how grace asks for particular works--here understood as the avoidance of sin rather than good deeds--as essential for final justification. Wesleyan-Arminian theology correctly holds to both: faith as the only effective solicitation of God's grace and works as a natural (and essential) by product of faith brought through the Spirit, where works are here understood more as the avoidance of sin rather than positive good deeds.

Faith and Rationality

I posted this on Scot McKnight's blog the other day.
_________________

... I do sympathize with Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) at least to the extent that so much religious thinking does seem to involve dysfunctional thinking. This is a way of thinking that, if we used the same logic in real life, would lead us constantly to misunderstand conversation, to berate others for no reason, to argue vehemently that the sidewalk is actually the road--or someone else's driveway.

To a great extent, such mis-thinking is harmless, indeed beneficial because it fosters meaningful existence. Where it gets us into trouble is when it leads us to hurt others or stops peace processes or flies planes into tall buildings.

To keep my own faith (I can't stomach a disconnect between my religion and the thinking I do in the rest of my life, sorry Kierkegaard), I have had to adopt a particular hermeneutic that disagrees with Dawkins when he says that faith is not convinced by evidence. In order for me to truly affirm God as a God of Truth who actually exists ontologically, then my faith in him cannot be more irrational than rational. That doesn't mean I have to be able to prove he exists--frankly, I don't think I can prove that I exist as a person (I could be a really sophisticated computer program).

So when it comes to science or biblical studies or any field of knowledge, if the overwhelming majority of those competent to judge an issue have reached a particular conclusion, if I cannot identify a clear fatal presupposition leading them to that conclusion, then I have to take that as the most likely conclusion given the evidence we have at the moment. I always have a footnote for the new discovery, for the unexpected paradigm shift. I won't call it fact. But I admit that if I am to affirm something different, I am doing it in the name of "blind faith" on this issue. [note, refusing an overall irrational worldview does not mean that I cannot accommodate points of irrationality within that overall view].