Dying and Deliverance

Searching Paul's Law–Gospel Tension

Gilthvedt

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781498229197
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The purpose of this book is a search for understanding of Paul's witness about the distinction between the Word of God as Law, and the Word of God as Gospel. To some this may sound strange. But the Letter to the Galatians, direct from the Apostle to one of the churches he founded, manifests the tension between law and gospel, along with their respective functions and unique purposes in the life of the church. The tension comes to light in Galatians 2:19. Paul preaches the tension's result, cast in terms of dying in relation to one side of the tension (law), and living in relation to the other (gospel). The Apostle's instruction responded to the conflicted life of the Galatian church. Now his message about the supremacy of God's redemptive act in the crucified Christ comes to us in our own time and throughout our own conflicted journey. Paul's message is a word on target for people whose religious struggle is, at bottom, theological and spiritual. This is the focal point of the book, Dying and Deliverance. Grace and peace to you in your study, and most of all, deliverance!

1

The Cross and the Law in Paul

1.1. Paul and the Cross

Galatians 2:19 has two central aspects of Paul’s theology occurring in juxtaposition. These two aspects are the law and the cross.1 And yet when we describe these as central aspects we encounter a problem, for in some of Paul’s letters neither of them is mentioned and in other letters the mention of either is indeed scanty. We begin with Paul’s use of cross, and crucify. A survey of his epistles shows the relative infrequency with which he mentions the terms.2 First and Second Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon use neither the noun nor the verb in any form.

1. In 1 Corinthians the problem of schismata (dissensions, 1:10), and quarreling (1:11), manifest in the Ego slogans of various parties (1:12), is the issue that Paul immediately addresses.3 He reminds his hearers that it was Christ, and not Paul (and by implication no other party hero, either) who was crucified for them (1:13). Paul introduces the cross on the personal level, in connection with his own name, speaking of it for the first time before he begins his argument from scripture in 1:19. But having named the problem of dissensions (1:10) and quarreling (1:11) Paul moves forward immediately to his extended argument against wisdom. This suggests that the divisions (or threat of them) were an effect of a larger cause, namely the Corinthians’ involvement with worldly wisdom. The movement from the party problem to the wisdom argument is clear and concise in 1:13–17. Paul makes several assertions. He baptized only a few of them, so none ought to say that they were baptized in his name (1:13–15).4 He was not sent to baptize but to preach (1:17).5 His preaching of the gospel was not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ (1:17b) be emptied (of its power).6 This second reference to the cross shows Paul’s concern that the manner of his preaching should not be out of harmony with its content.7 His references to baptism do not devalue baptism. He indicates that his call is to preach the word of the cross, which will check the developments in Corinth and bring the Corinthians to common persuasion about Christ crucified.8

The third reference is Paul’s characterization of his own preaching as the word of the cross (1:18), in contrast to wisdom talk (1:17). The theme and contrast are continued into chapter 2, as Paul speaks of the rulers of this age with their wisdom of this age (2:6–8). In 2:2 he relates his deliberate decision to know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.9 This again is in contrast to wisdom (2:1). The deliberate decision refers to Paul’s first visit among the Corinthians, a visit that would have come after Athens, Luke’s recounting of which (Acts 17) shows no mention of the cross in the Areopagus sermon.10 Paul recalls the decision about the content of his preaching as having been made upon coming to Corinth. Although the deliberateness of his word of the cross may have seemed clearer for Paul while writing than it was for his hearers when he visited and preached among them, he speaks of it here so to suggest that the decision, then having been made, is one from which he has not departed. He is now not writing as though introducing new material, but reminding his hearers of what had been there from the start, as an established part, indeed the center, of Paul’s message. The references in 1:18 and 2:2 emphasize the decisive content of Paul’s preaching, and 1:12 conforms to this same concern for content.11 Paul is reacting against two aspects of wisdom, sophia: (1) wisdom as speech (1:17; 2:1–5; 4:20), and, (2) wisdom as a means of knowing God (1:21; 2:6—3:4).12 It is speech as sophia, and it is sophia as salvation. It is not simply special wisdom, but saving wisdom. To counter such claims the cross is upheld by Paul as the very ground of salvation, and the content of his proclamation.

The contrast in 1 Corinthians 1 is not between wisdom and no wisdom, but between wisdom and cross, or between worldly wisdom and God’s wisdom.13 Paul’s argument focuses on the wisdom of the wise (1:19) and the wisdom of the world (1:20).14 Essential to the argument is wisdom’s opposite, foolishness, folly (1:18, 21, 24, 25...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Cross and the Law in Paul
• Chapter 2: Galatians 2:19
• Chapter 3: Galatians 2–3
• Chapter 4: End of the Law
• Chapter 5: Sacrifice and Deliverance in Galatians 1:4
• Conclusion
• Bibliography