It is striking that when Paul begins to discuss the specifics of life under grace and in Christ, he emphasizes the bodily character of this life. We are “co-crucified” with Jesus, so that the “body of sin” might be done away (Rom 6:6). And the key exhortation that grows out of our baptismal death to sin is “do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as weapons of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those... Read more
Brendan Byrne has this to say about Paul’s description of baptism as baptism into the death of Jesus: “behind the expression here lies the characteristically Pauline idea of the risen Lord as personally constituting a sphere of influence or milieu of salvation’into’ which believers are drawn through faith and baptism, henceforth to live ‘in Christ’ . . . Christ does not lose his individual personal identity, but, nonetheless, as risen Lord and ‘life-giving Spirit’ (1 Cor. 15:45), he somehow ‘contains’... Read more
Brendan Byrne has this to say about Paul’s description of baptism as baptism into the death of Jesus: “behind the expression here lies the characteristically Pauline idea of the risen Lord as personally constituting a sphere of influence or milieu of salvation’into’ which believers are drawn through faith and baptism, henceforth to live ‘in Christ’ . . . Christ does not lose his individual personal identity, but, nonetheless, as risen Lord and ‘life-giving Spirit’ (1 Cor. 15:45), he somehow ‘contains’... Read more
What does it mean to be “under grace”? Does this reality somehow cancel out the necessity of obedience? Is an insistence on obedience inconsistent with Paul’s insistence that we are justified by faith alone? Rom 6:14-15 provides the answer. This is the only place in Romans (unless I’ve missed something) where the exact phrases “under law” and “under grace” occur (but cf. Rom 4:16; 5:20). Several things are clear here. First, being under the mastery of sin is somehow connected... Read more
The word Paul uses for “impute” in Rom 5:13 is used in only one other passage in the NT, Philemon 18. (The Greek is ELLOGEO; elsewhere, the word translated as “impute” is LOGIZOMAI.) Perhaps an examination of Philemon 18 will shed some light on Paul’s usage in Rom 5:13. Paul’s offer to pay Onesimus’ debts and obligations in Philemon 18 is at one level a gesture of kindness to both Philemon and his slave. But the language Paul uses makes... Read more
This is a brief overview of a project on the atonement, first delivered as my inaugural lecture as Senior Fellow of Theology at NSA a few years ago. (I don’t think this has been posted already; if it has, my deep apologies.) My title is ?Cross and Culture,?Ebut that needs to be made more specific. The cross is described in the New Testament in a variety of ways: It is a military operation, the Divine Warrior?s victory over Satan, sin,... Read more
Covenant by Sacrifice, Leviticus 1:1-17 INTRODUCTION According to Psalm 50:5, Yahweh?s ?godly ones,?EIsrael, ?make a covenant with My by sacrifice.?E Through sacrificial rites, Yahweh both entered into covenant and renewed covenant with Israel. The New Testament also uses sacrificial language to describe the making and renewal of covenant: Jesus made a new covenant in His blood (Matthew 26:28; Exodus 24:8), and we renew covenant through sacrificial worship (Hebrews 13:15; 1 Peter 2:5). THE TEXT ?Now Yahweh called to Moses, and... Read more
Israel’s exodus involved a move from Goshen to the promised land. But the move into Goshen is curiously similar to the later exodus. Here are some of the similarities: 1) Israel sought to escape Egypt because of the oppression of Pharaoh; they left because of threats to their well-being. Israel entered Egypt in order to escape the famine in the land of Canaan. 2) Israel plundered Egypt in the exodus. When Joseph invited Jacob to come to Goshen, he sent... Read more
Here are a few observations on Jacob’s blessings in Gen 49. I don’t know what the implications are; these are simply observations on the imagery and rhetoric of the different blessings. 1) The contrast between the rhetoric of curse and the rhetoric of blessing is striking. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi all receive curses because of their sins, and the curses are phrased in sharp, straightforward, non-imagistic and unpoetic language. There are a few metaphors (Reuben is “unstable as water”), but... Read more
Here are a few observations on Jacob’s blessings in Gen 49. I don’t know what the implications are; these are simply observations on the imagery and rhetoric of the different blessings. 1) The contrast between the rhetoric of curse and the rhetoric of blessing is striking. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi all receive curses because of their sins, and the curses are phrased in sharp, straightforward, non-imagistic and unpoetic language. There are a few metaphors (Reuben is “unstable as water”), but... Read more
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