"The Reformers' understanding of faith had no effect on the formation of Christology - not, at least, in normal church dogmatics...Hence the difficulty...of maintaining the strict inner connexion between Christology and the doctrine of justification. The Christology mostly does not lead by any compelling necessity to the doctrine of justification, and the latter in turn usually leaves it an open question how far Christology is really needed as its ground."

Gerhard Ebeling

"Suppose one man to rely on his own faith and another to rely on his own works, then the faith of the one and the works of the other are equally the same worthless filthy rags."

William Law

Both of these quotes are cited in Richard Hays' outstanding book entitled The Faith of Jesus Christ. It's a fair length (300+) but the core thesis runs like this: We are not saved by faith in Jesus Christ, we are saved by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and enjoy salvation by coming into union with him via baptism and the Spirit. 'Faith' is not something instrumental that simply replaces 'works' as a means of access to God, because Christ is our access to God.

The ramifications for our understanding of Pauline soteriology are massive, and Hays' arguments are well thought out and deeply fascinating. You could do a lot worse than spend some of your Christmas money on his book.

Another gem from my theology lecturer, Dr David Rainey:

"Clark Pinnock was a staunch 5-point Calvinist and biblical inerrantist, based on biblical texts. Then he became a charismatic free-will baptist, based on biblical texts. Now's he's an open theist universalist, based on biblical texts.

So what do we learn from the work of Clark Pinnock? You can make any theology you want based on biblical texts."

Almost as funny was when Clark Pinnock himself was a guest lecturer at our college a few years ago, and after hearing his lecture on open theism, Dr Rainey marched straight up to Pinnock, handed him a copy of Does God Suffer? by Thomas Weinandy and said: "You really need to read this guy."

I've given my Blogroll a bit of a trim in the last few weeks, with some blogs getting the chop and a few new ones added in their place. The latest one to get the chop is infamous watchdog blog Emergentno. I've never agreed with their approach to the emerging church and I'm not 100% sure why I started reading it in the first place. The Emerging Church does need some critiquing of course, but Emergentno have gone about it in completely the wrong way.

Instead of sound exegesis, there are only proof-texts; instead of coherent attempts to articulate the challenges and problems of postmodernity there are only meaningless soundbites; and instead of helpful solutions to help steer the church through its contemporary cultural maze there is only nit-picking and extended laments about things aren't what they used to be.

It's the sort of 'theological' discussion you switch off from faster than you can say 'straw man', and so it's finally gotten the chop from the Blogroll. Adios.

Things have been a little quiet lately due to the usual Christmas busyness but also mostly because my thesis is due in at the end February and it's only half written. The title has changed about thirty times since I began it but essentially it is an exegesis of Galatians 3:10-14:

"All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."

Essentially my thesis looks at the OT narratives evoked by these verses and seeks to make sense them in the context of the Galatian problem. I'm arguing against traditional readings of the text that see these verses as some kind of excursus on how people get saved by grace instead of by works-righteousness or a Westminster Confession style "proof from scripture" for the doctrine of penal substitution (I can hear a Reformed lynch mob banging on my door already) and arguing instead that this passage is essentially about how the people of God are now defined by participation in the life and work of the Messiah and sharing in the Spirit, and also (attempting) to explain how this has come about through the process of Law, curse, and restoration.

Suffice to say that I have a strong leaning towards the New Perspective in my reading of Paul, and although there is still much to be done and re-thought (and always will be) in Pauline studies, E P Sanders' original thesis - that Jews of Paul and Jesus' day were not legalistically trying to 'earn' their salvation by good works, but operated within a framework of covenant and grace - still stands more or less uncontested, and is pretty much a given in contemporary Pauline studies.

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