Paul's Necessary Sin

The Experience of Liberation

Timothy Ashworth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754654995
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351912495
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient History

How can we know today what was happening in the minds and hearts of Paul and the first Christians so long ago? By getting below the surface of Paul's theology, the consistent key elements of early Christian experience are revealed in a way that throws light on the meaning of powerful religious experiences and movements both in the past and today. Illuminating for those who have never read a word on Paul yet disturbing and provocative for biblical scholars, this book tackles the topic of the religious experience of Paul and the first Christians. Lacking authentic knowledge of Paul's liberating experience, generations of translators and interpreters have inevitably and sometimes clumsily obscured Paul's meaning. In this book the scholarly accusation that Paul is incoherent is turned upside down to show how uncritically accepted ways of translating Paul mislead today's reader and introduce a mystifying complexity into scholarship on Paul. Taking the reader step-by-step through a painstaking restoration of the meaning of Paul's text, the colour and form of Paul's original vision are revealed.

PART ONE
Liberation

Chapter 1
A New Revelation

A key moment in the 16th century Reformation took place when Martin Luther was studying Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He was seeking to understand what Paul meant when he used the Greek word, dikaioō, usually translated into English as ‘to be justified’. Luther felt the same difficulty as many other interpreters down the years. Paul appears to be speaking of something momentous – a real change which in other contexts he can describe as a liberation. And yet this was not Martin Luther’s own experience. Luther was acutely aware of the intense and continuing struggle in his own life – he did not feel this sense of ‘liberation’. He continued to struggle with the reality of sin. To make sense of his own experience – and what he felt was the general experience of the Christian believer – he came to consider that Paul, when he used the word dikaioō, was indeed meaning a real change, but a change in the status of the individual in the eyes of God, not a felt change in the lived experience of the believer.

The interpretation of these sections of Paul continues to be problematical. There are questions about, what did Paul mean? And there are further questions about, how does what he says relate to the life of the Christian today? The difficult thing is that Paul seems to be speaking of a real change in the life of the believer in his time, which he describes as ‘receiving the Spirit’, a change so dramatic that there is no question for the person who has gone through it that they have experienced it; and yet this does not appear to be the widespread experience of Christians today or for most of Christian history.

So as we turn to interpret the thought of Paul today his meaning remains obscure when it comes to what is arguably the central experience of the Christian life as he understands it. As we seek to make sense of Paul this question is a central one: if Paul is speaking of a real change in the life of the believer, what was the nature of that change?

The source of action

Akey word in interpreting Paul is dikaiosunē, traditionally translated as ‘righteousness’ but sometimes rendered as ‘integrity’ or ‘justice’. By looking afresh at the way Paul uses the word in different contexts, seeking to discover a consistent translation, a meaning emerges which while difficult to work with, is precise but subtle.

There turn out to be three elements crucial to the definition. In the first place, dikaiosunē is concerned with a fixed condition, most accurately described as ‘a state or manner of existing’. In the second place this ‘fixed’ state is a way of acting: ‘this established state subsists in a particular way of acting’. ‘Subsists’ is used here to indicate that the ‘condition’ and ‘way of acting’ are absolutely tied together. It is not, for example, that Paul is thinking of a fixed established state which from time to time issues in a certain kind of action; this separates the two elements and leads to inaccuracy. The established ‘state’ is a way of ‘doing’ or ‘acting’. The third element in the meaning of the word can be easily added: the ‘way of acting’ is qualified by ‘rightly’. It is describing a way of doing what is essentially ‘right action’.

So, by dikaiosunē, usually translated into English as ‘righteousness’, Paul can be understood to mean a state or manner of existing, which subsists in a way of doing what is right. Although ‘manner of existence’ is the definition of ‘state’ that is being used here, and the two can be used interchangeably, it will be found helpful to keep in mind both renderings in all passages where Paul uses this word. The word ‘state’ in English tends to evoke something static for which ‘manner of existence’ provides a counter; ‘manner of existence’ does not comfortably express the unchanging condition intended by the word ‘state’. Although this suggestion of a consistent meaning for dikaiosunē is clumsy when relayed into English, it does not mean that the concept itself is cumbersome. It is simply that there is not in English one word which can unambiguously evoke this sense in the English-thinking mind. The different contexts in which Paul uses this word will be examined as will the relationship between the noun, dikaiosunē, and the verb, dikaioō.

The definition proposed indicates that what Paul is speaking about is a universal human concern, not something peculiar to Jewish thought or peculiar to the world of the first century; he is dealing with the issue of how any person acts with integrity. The particular form that this right action takes is not usually Paul’s primary concern when he uses this word; it is rather the original motivation in the individual out of which actions arise. Paul’s concern is with an issue that every person has to consider: how am I to know and do what is right?

Paul uses the word in relation to both the life of faith and life under the law:

What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for dikaiosunē/righteousness, have attained it, that is, dikaiosunē/righteousness through faith; but Israel, who did strive for the dikaiosunē/righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. (Rom 9:30f)

It is possible to replace the word ‘righteousness’ with ‘a state/manner of existing which subsists in a way of doing what is right’ on the three occasions when the word is used in this passage. It is no part of our purpose here to produce a smooth translation but rather to see clearly the meaning that this word carries for Paul:

What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for a state/manner of existing which subsists in a way of doing what is right, have attained it, that is, the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right through faith; but Israel, who did strive for the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right that is based on law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. (Rom 9:30f, adapted NRSV)

Both law and faith are here being spoken of by Paul as ways of knowing and doing what is right consistently. It is clearly possible, as Paul says that Israel has done, to pursue the way of doing what is right based on law – to look to law as the way of consistently knowing and doing what is right. Using the clumsy but precise English phrase to follow Paul’s argument here is vital. Paul is saying that it is possible to know and do what is right through faith in a way comparable to the following of law. He is saying further that the Jewish people have been consciously pursuing the way of knowing and doing what is right through law but have not succeeded in fulfilling it whereas Gentiles who have not been consciously pursuing a particular way of knowing and doing what is right have, through faith, attained it.

Paul makes a similar contrast in the letter to the Philippians:

For [Christ’s] sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. (Phil 3:8f)

Adapting the second half of this verse reads as follows:

… not having the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right from God based on faith. (Phil 3:8f, adapted NRSV)

Note that in this verse there is another important element not included in the Romans passage above: the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right through faith is stated, by Paul, to be ‘from God’. Paul has to deal in other parts of his letters with the inference that can be drawn from this that ‘the law’ is not ‘from God’. This he denies but, in doing so, clearly emphasizes the way of faith as the new and better way.

Part One of the book is concerned with exploring in depth this key issue of the relationship between living by law and living by faith. Our concern here is to see that they are both concerned with knowing and doing what is right and the passages above indicate that, while Paul considers that there is the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right that comes from the law, it is inferior to the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right that comes from faith. Specifically, it is possible to succeed in knowing and doing what is right by faith in a way that is not attainable in a life based on law.

A real change

For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus… (Rom 3:22–24, RSV)

This English translation, in common with most translations of this passage, does not indicate that the verb ‘to be justified’ (passive of dikaioō) comes from the same root as ‘righteousness’ (dikaiosunē). A connection can be made with the meaning of the noun already proposed: ‘to be justified’ can be understood to have the sense of to be given a state/manner of existing which subsists in a way of doing what is right:

… since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are given a state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right by his grace as a gift…

As with the noun, dikaiosunē, this proposal is cumbersome in order that the suggested meaning of the verb can be seen to show the three facets of the suggested definition of the noun. It is being used by Paul to describe a change that, while it is concerned with behaviour, is more precisely indicating a change in the state of the person, his or her manner of existing, from which what he or she does arises. Paul is not making a fundamental distinction between different aspects of behaviour but between different original motivations for action – whether a person’s ‘way of doing what is right’ subsists in law or faith. What is the significance of this?

In order to answer this it is necessary to focus on the weakness of the proposed interpretation. While it indicates that Paul is concerned with a change in the root of behaviour, the interpretation places the emphasis on the new situation that comes about as a result of change – a person who ‘has the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of doing what is right by faith’ – rather than the event of change itself (there is the same weakness in the translation ‘to be made righteous’). This is the strength of the translation, ‘to be justified’; it is clearly indicating an event: the event of ‘justification’. But ‘to be justified’ and ‘justification’ as translations are unhelpful in other respects. In the first place the legal background of this word group – its connection with ‘just’ and ‘justice’ – makes for confusion when Paul is speaking of something that is explicitly ‘apart from law’. But its main limitation is that it is not as accurate as might be in relaying in English the nature of the change that Paul is describing. We are moving towards a new suggestion for translating this word into English but before this can be done an essential step must be taken in order to discern Paul’s meaning.

A real change: summary sentence and discussion

Paul uses the passive of dikaioō to indicate a real change for the individual in which right action becomes possible.

Ziesler’s view of ‘justification’ in Paul stops short of the radical change as defined above (88):

Justification is strictly acceptance, restoration to fellowship, and not transformation of character (though that will follow).

Central to the argument of this chapter and this book as a whole is that when Paul uses the language of justification he is indeed speaking of a real ‘transformation of character’. Later theological interpretation and the lived experience of later Christians have the power to distort the obvious meaning of Paul’s words. ‘Acceptance’ and ‘restoration to fellowship’ are ways of presenting Paul which, on the one hand, allow the interpreter to give weight to the plain and obvious meaning of Paul’s words, that he is speaking of a ‘real change’ in the believer, but, on the other, reduce that change to a change in the ‘status’ of the believer in the eyes of God. In this change of status, the believer does not feel for themselves a power that leads to a dramatically transformed life. This is the condition of most people who come to the life of faith and the interpretation of Paul is made to fit that fact.

Dunn speaks of the ‘essentially relational character of Paul’s understanding of justification’. He speaks of how God sustains the covenant partner in the covenant relationship ‘despite the latter’s continued failure’ (344).

It is Sanders who clearly and consistently maintains that Paul is speaking of a real change enabling the person to do what is right. Commenting on Romans, he says (67/79):

[Paul does not think] of righteousness as being fictitiously imputed to those who have faith, while they remain sinners in fact. In sharing Christ’s death Christians have died to the old order. They no longer live in sin (6:2), but are “slaves” of righteousness, who have become obedient to God (6:15–18).

A new awareness of sin

The points already made are these:

(a) ‘righteousness’ (dikaiosunē), as Paul uses it, can be understood as ‘a state/manner of existing which subsists in a way of doing what is right’;

(b) it is possible to pursue ‘the state/manner of existing which subsists in the way of do...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Bibliographical information
• Introduction
• Part One: Liberation
• Part Two: The Exposure of Sin
• Part Three: From Childhood to Adulthood
• Part Four: The Source of Freedom
• Conclusion
• Index of Greek words discussed
• Index of key passages discussed
• Index of subject