By Faith, Not by Sight

Paul and the Order of Salvation

Richard B. Gaffin Jr.

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781596389939
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

How does an individual receive salvation? Does Paul distinguish between salvation accomplished (historia salutis) and salvation applied (ordo salutis)? Gaffin argues that under both exists a deeper, more fundamental issue—our union with Christ.

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The Order of Salvation
and Eschatology—1

In the previous chapter, the personal appropriation of salvation in Paul was explored by tethering much of our discussion to the “center” of his gospel theology. As we saw, that center, focused as it is on Christ’s death and resurrection, on messianic suffering and consequent glory, is eschatological to its core. Accordingly, being united to the crucified and resurrected Christ by faith—the essence of Paul’s ordo salutis—is itself a thoroughly eschatological reality. In this and the following chapter, that eschatological factor is our controlling concern. Building on what we have already seen, how does Paul elaborate the eschatological salvation in Christ that is received by faith? What are the primary eschatological dimensions and soteriological implications of being united to Christ by faith? In addressing these questions, my interest in these chapters, as in the rest of the book, is in sketching the overall picture Paul provides and in making clear its basic dimensions. Many aspects of that picture, I recognize, are capable of being explored in much greater depth than I will be doing here.

Eschatology and Anthropology

We begin with, and will relate much of the discussion in this chapter to, 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we do not despair. Though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” We take this verse as our further entrée into Paul because here, expressed in a nutshell, uniquely and more pointedly than anywhere else, is his anthropology of the Christian—how he views the constitution of the Christian’s person as a Christian, how in that respect Christians are to look at themselves as Christians. Here we have Paul’s basic outlook on the person of the Christian living between the resurrection and the return of Christ—on how, in fundamental categories, believers are to view themselves during this interim. In other words, this is a key text for issues related to salvation in its actual appropriation, for Paul’s ordo salutis.

Several clarifying comments are in order as to its sense. First, Paul makes a categorical distinction. He sees the person of the Christian existing as both “inner man” and “outer man,” a distinction present by implication in references to “the inner man” in Romans 7:22 and Ephesians 3:16. Despite the present trend in English usage to avoid the gender-neutral, generic masculine singular, for the sake of clarity in the discussion that follows, I will retain the traditional rendering (or “self”) for the Greek word used here (anthrōpos) and reserve the alternative “person” to refer to the single subject of verse 16 who exists as both “outer” and “inner man.”49

This distinction is not partitive, in terms of two distinct personal entities or natures. Paul is not saying that the Christian is a dual personality, a sort of schizophrenic or hybrid consisting of two persons, though, as we will presently note, there are partitive implications. The distinction, rather, is best taken as aspectival. It describes two ways of viewing the person of the Christian as a whole. In this regard, it is extremely important to keep in mind throughout the course of our discussion that it is the one “I,” existing as both inner man and outer man, who is the single, total subject that does not “grow tired,” become “discouraged” (nab), or “give up” (nlt).50 That is not said of the inner as distinct from the outer.

Elsewhere in Paul, on the one hand, “the outer man” is virtually equivalent to, or interchangeable with, “body” and “members,” while “the inner man” is in view frequently in his use of “heart” or sometimes “spirit,” understood as the human spirit.51 As more careful examination beyond what I undertake here would show, the outer man or body is more than the narrowly physical or biotic. It is, as we might put it, the psycho-physical “package” that I am. It is I as a functioning person—as thinking, willing, speaking, and acting. All told, we may say, the outer self is the functioning I.

In distinction, “the inner self” or “heart” has in view who I am at the core of my being, in my pre-functional disposition. It is that disposition, more basic than my functioning, giving rise to my functioning and decisively controlling and finding expression in that functioning. As Paul views human beings in general and believers particularly, we are more than what we think or say or do.

It is fair to say that in verse 16, Paul expresses a certain definite, in fact quite fundamental, “split” in the person of the Christian. But he is not bifurcating or dichotomizing the Christian’s personal makeup between an essential inner core and a disposable outer shell or covering. Rather, what is now true of the Christian as inner self is not (yet) true for the outer self. However, for the present, that is, until Christ returns, that is true only within the outer self. It is true only in the outer self for which the inner self is inner. Again, on balance, what is true for believers is not yet true for their bodies, but for now, until death (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23) and looking toward the future resurrection of the body, it is true only in the body.

Within the immediately preceding context, what correlates most closely with verse 16, without being precisely identical, is verse 7, “We have this treasure in clay jars.” This statement, which is, strictly speaking, autobiographical, surely includes a representative dimension that points to what is true for all believers. “This treasure” may be construed variously from the immediately preceding verses (vv. 4–6). It is either the gospel or its content: the eschatological glory of God in Christ or the person of Christ himself, the exalted Christ indwelling the believer. “Clay jars,” in distinction, has in view the outer man of believers, believers in their bodily existence.

Second, to clear away a persisting misunderstanding, the distinction in 2 Corinthians 4:16 is not the same as the old man–new man distinction found elsewhere in Paul. He is clear that “our old man was crucified with Christ” (Rom. 6:6). In “putting on Christ” (Gal. 3:28), that is, in being united with Christ by faith, the Christian has “put off the old man and put on the new man” (Col. 3:9–10). The single subject in 2 Corinthians 4:16, the person as a whole who “does not despair,” is the new man in Christ, the Christian existing, as noted, in the modes of both the inner and the outer man.

Third, “inner” and “outer” refer to opposite, in fact antithetical, principles operative in the Christian, realities as antithetical in their outcomes as death and life. “The outer self” is the subject, the I that I am, undergoing decay resulting in death. “The inner self” is the subject, the I that I am, marked by life—in fact, as we will see, eschatological life—and ongoing (“day by day”) renewal.

With these clarifying comments on the sense of the passage, we may go on to relate the inner-outer distinction to what we have seen to be the heart of Paul’s ordo salutis: union with the exalted Christ by faith. This union, given its obvious centrality, provides an important perspective on that distinction. At the same time, as we will see, the distinction qualifies how that union is presently realized.

In explicit anthropological terms or basic anthropological profile, 2 Corinthians 4:16 brings into view the impact or outworking of union with Christ in the life of the Christian. It shows that union as it is realized throughout the period between Christ’s resurrection and his return. It spells out the basic situation, anthropologically, of that union during this period, in terms of both its present eschatological reality and the present limits on that reality.

Specifically, 2 Corinthians 4:16 reflects the basic “now and not yet” structure that qualifies our union with Christ and our sharing in its attendant benefits. In view here is our participation in the eschatological salvation revealed in Christ, as both realized and unrealized, as already present and still future. In view is the situation of the believer at any point between Christ’s first and second comings. Expressed in terms of Paul’s formal, overarching eschatological structure, this age (the pre- or non-eschatological order) and the age to come (the consummate, eschatological order) overlap throughout this period. Here we have captured, more clearly and categorically than elsewhere in Paul, as far as I can see, present participation in that eschatological salvation in a way that differentiates that participation specifically in terms of fundamental anthropological distinctions.

An important facet of verse 16, though often overlooked, is that its basic anthropological differentiation is drawn in a way that keeps the proverbial “already and not yet” from being distorted into an undifferentiated, yes-and-no dialectic, a matter we will address further below. Here we may note that it points to a clear yes for the inner self and a clear no for the outer self. The benefits of union with Christ are such, it appears, that insofar as I am outer self, that is, in terms of my bodily existence, those benefits are not yet possessed. My sharing in them is still future. On the other hand, as I am inner self or heart, considered for who I am at the core of my being, in my most basic bent or disposition, those benefits are already received and possessed; they are a present reality.

This fundamental state of affairs is given some clarification in the immediately following section (5:1–10). There Paul addresses the believer’s hope of bodily resurrection, in other words, hope for the outer man. In this context, verse 7 affirms, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” This statement, proverbial in its ring, is an assertion like 4:16. It opens a fundamental perspective on the Christian life. Particularly instructive here is the way it serves to interpret 4:16 (as well as 4:7). “By faith” correlates with “the inner self” (“this treasure”) and what is presently true for believers; “by sight” correlates with “the outer self” (“clay jars”) and what is still future. For the present, until Jesus comes, our union with him and our sharing in the benefits of that union are “by faith,” but not (yet) “by sight.” We have our salvation for the present, all told, in the mode of believing, but as that believing falls short of seeing. Such “sight” participation in the benefits of union with Christ is reserved for what will be openly manifest in the resurrection of the body at his return (the predominating concern of the immediate context).

How, according to Paul, should we elaborate what we could dub his “soteriological anthropology,” captured in its basic dimensions in 2 Corinthians 4:16? What for him are its primary ramifications? Here we will explore the answer to that question by bringing together distinctions already noted in the previous, as well as this, chapter and by focusing on their interplay or “mix”: the distinctions between forensic and transforming, inner and outer, faith and sight, present and future. We will do that by taking as our basic reference point the distinction between the forensic and the renovative. We do so because that distinction specifies the fundamental, twofold benefits of union with Christ that redress the basic, twofold consequences of sin, its guilt and alienation as well as its corruption and enslavement. I begin, within the matrix defined by the distinctions just above, with a closer look at the renovative or transformative—in other words, at Paul’s teaching on sanctification.

Eschatology and Sanctification

Union with Christ and the Resurrection

What bears highlighting about Paul’s doctrine of sanctification and renewal can be seen in the way he views Christ’s resurrection—in particular, how he relates it to the resurrection of Christians. Consistently, without exception, he stresses the unity that there is between Christ’s resurrection and theirs, the solidarity that exists between him and them in being raised. The description of Christ in his resurrection as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20) provides a point of departure into this strand of his teaching. Nowhere else in Paul is the unity or solidarity in resurrection presented so clearly and graphically.

The Future Bodily Resurrection of Christians. Specifically noteworthy in this verse is the use of “firstfruits” (aparchē). Johannes Weiss, in an early twentieth-century commentary on this passage, observed, “This little word contains a thesis.” While we might well want to take exception to the linguistics reflected in this statement, in fact implicit in the use of the word here, in context, is the thought that not only underlies the entire argument in this epochal chapter 15 but much of Paul’s teaching on the resurrection as a whole.

“Firstfruits” is an agricultural term, and its use here can be seen against the background of its Old Testament usage, where it has cultic significanc...