Today I want to follow up yesterday's post by asking how Paul understood faith and belief. The photo, by Niall McAuley, is from SS Peter and Paul's church, Athlone, completed in 1937. This window is in the porch. It shows Paul's letter to the Romans. (His other letters are under his cloak.)
My argument is based upon a passage in John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L Reed's In Search of Paul, page 381 onwards. In this passage they discuss Romans 3:26:
... it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. (NRSV)
There are three words or concepts in this passage: righteous, justifies and faith (in Jesus). Each of these has, over the centuries built up a legacy of meanings and so it has proved easy for modern Christians to lose sight of their root meaning in Paul's letters.
Righteousness is very close in meaning to justice. If God is right, God is also just. The problem is that we tend to take an adversarial view of justice; justice is about retribution. about ensuring the perpetrator is punished and the victim is vindicated. In the Old Testament, and so in the new, justice is not understood in this way. Justice is about the distribution of resources. It is the divisions between rich and poor that are offensive to God and all the tricks the wealthy and powerful play to maintain their wealth and power. For example, if the wealthy control the legislature in order to support their wealth at the expense of others, that would be unjust. Legislation to enforce fair weights and measures would be just. The recent scandal about MPs' expenses illustrates the tendency of the powerful to stack the odds in their own favour. So do the large bonuses bank managers seem able to award themselves. The point is that poorer, less powerful people pay for all this.
This is where theological terminology becomes somewhat confused. There is a tendency to assume justification simply means the decision to accept Jesus Christ as my personal saviour. Justification includes this but also the transformation that happens over the lifetime of Christians as they grow into knowing God. John Wesley seems to have used the word justification for the experience of conversion (or being born again) and placed greater emphasis on sanctification, the period following conversion. It is through the agency of sanctification that not only is the Christian transformed but also the whole world. I have written at some length about this; follow the link and explore the posts around it.
Finally, the faith (or in some translations sacrifice) of Jesus. In verse 25, Paul uses the word atonement. This word has carried a lot of weight down the years, and has developed into a theology of Jesus being sacrificed for our sins, to assuage the wrath of God. Paul actually says very little about atonement. The reason for this is that atonement addresses the crucifixion alone, it does not make sense when applied to the resurrection. We never speak of the resurrection atoning for sin. It seems that for Paul, the crucifixion and resurrection are a single act. For Paul, we share in Jesus' death and resurrection. This is symbolised in baptism and becomes actual through sanctification. Our participation in death and resurrection, brings about the necessary transformation of our relationship with God, other people and the world.
So, to summarise, the invitation is to participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in order to be transformed as the first fruits of God's justice transforming the whole earth.
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