“The One Who Calls in Grace”: Paul’s Rhetorical and Theological Identification with the Galatians

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orrey McFarland
Keyword(s):  
Important Link ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The One ◽  
God's Grace

Abstract This article explores an important link Paul makes between himself and the Galatians in Galatians 1: the connection between God’s calling the Galatians “in grace” (1:6) and the calling of Paul “through grace” (1:15). By describing his calling in the same language as the Galatians’, Paul presents himself, together with the Galatians, as one who has received grace in Christ: calling here designates foremost an act of divine creation in the Christ-event and only secondly a commissioning to a particular vocation. Paul’s and the Galatians’ stories thus become intertwined and mutually explicable as instantiations of the gospel Paul received. Accordingly, this rhetorical and theological identification with the Galatians more fully establishes how chapters 1-2 relate to 3-6: Paul’s autobiographical testimony of an unworthy Apostle who now preaches the gospel of God’s grace in Christ to his unworthy churches cannot be disentangled from his exposition and exegetical defense of that gospel.

The Justified Body: Hauerwas, Luther and the Christian Life

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
Justin Nickel
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Stanley Hauerwas ◽  
The One ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
Ethical Significance ◽  
The Way

Stanley Hauerwas and others argue that Luther’s understanding of justification denies the theological and ethical significance of the body. Indeed, the inner, spiritual person is the one who experiences God’s grace in the gospel, while the outer, physical (read: bodily) person continues to live under law and therefore coercion and condemnation. While not denying that Luther can be so read, I argue that there is another side of Luther, one that recognizes the body’s importance for Christian life. I make this argument through a close reading of Luther’s reflections on Adam and Eve’s Fall in his Lectures on Genesis (1545) and the sacramental theology in ‘Against the Heavenly Prophets’. For this Luther, disconnection from our bodies is not a sign of justification but rather the sin from which justification saves us. Accordingly, justification results in a return to embodied creatureliness as the way we receive and live our justification.

scholarly journals Naming and nurturing reality from a heart renewed by grace

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz W. De Wet
Keyword(s):  
Theological Reflection ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The One ◽  
Creative Forces

This contribution investigates the unbearable tension between the homiletical act of naming reality (with the promise of exposing, challenging and/or triggering creative forces in it) on the one hand, and neglecting this same reality on the other hand, thereby causing it to return to an ignored, unchallenged and degenerated state. The author focuses on tension fields that are generated when preachers embark on the activity of naming realities in their proximate contexts and how they position, withdraw or distance themselves in a certain way when problematic elements (for instance the glaring and seemingly unbridgeable inequality in the situation of Dalits) are opened up by the act of naming. By means of a theological reflection on the renewal of the heart by God’s act of grace in Christ, the author attempts to identify key markers for a homiletic theory that will be able to link the act of naming reality with the act of nurturing (rather than neglecting) this named reality.

scholarly journals Christ has Broken the Barrier Between Nations (Eph. 2:11-22): Challenge to Nigerian Christians As Peace Initiators

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Ikechukwu Ezeogamba ◽  
Francis Chuks Madukasi
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Library Research ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Church

The fundamental difference between the Jews and Gentiles is circumcision. This fact introduced a serious barrier between them. This is to the extent that they could not mingle or relate cordially. Thus, their relationship was like the one that exists between lepers and the healthy. Hence, Gentiles were excluded from membership of Israel, aliens with no part in the covenants of the fatherhood. Christ is the unifying force between the circumcised and the uncircumcised. With his blood, he absolved the Gentiles of all that used to distance them and made the circumcised to know that he is the end of the Law (Rom 10:4). Thus, through his blood he destroyed the hostility that used to be between them. Vv 19-22 expresses the value of this newly founded unity in Christ. Despite the above, there is still divisions in the Church today, hence, absence of peace in Christendom. This article therefore answers why it is so. It aims at showing that rivalry that exists among believers, exposes their insincerity and hypocrisy. It argues that if all Christians understand the mind of Christ in destroying the barrier that existed between nations (Gentiles and Jews), then the whole Christendom would have remained peaceful and truly under one head. Unless this happens, there will be no end to sectarianism, tribalism, and nepotism among Christian believers in Nigeria. The outcome of this article will be significant to all Christians. The method will be exegetical analysis of Ephesians 2:11-22 and Library research.

scholarly journals Shattered Legs, Softened Hearts:

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Michael Infantine
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Flannery O'connor ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Her Family ◽  
The One ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
Working Out ◽  
Looking Back

What does it look like to cooperate with God’s grace, and what does it look like to hide from it? In 1521, Ignatius of Loyola, an ambitious and promising young soldier in the Spanish army, is shot in the leg and suffers a career-ending injury that sparks his eventual conversion to Christianity. It would appear, looking back on this event, that grace came for Ignatius in a form that could only be recognized at the time as tragedy and senseless suffering. Four hundred thirty four years later, Flannery O’Connor, a young novelist from Georgia, writes the short story of a woman named Hulga who, after losing a leg in a shooting accident as a young girl, recedes into isolation and naked contempt for all those closest to her until one day a mysterious visitor knocks at the door of her family home. For Hulga too, grace may be out to find her in the place she might least expect. This paper will hold up the figures of St. Ignatius and Hulga as a comparative case study in which to examine the working out of God’s grace in the economy of a human life. Ignatius, through his humility and loyalty to Christ in the wake of his injury, is an icon of God’s grace and the conversion to which it calls him. Hulga, in her obstinate scorn and self-proclaimed superiority over all those who seek relationship with her, is the epitome of the one who resists the love of the Other. Even still, there may be hope for Hulga yet by the story’s end.

scholarly journals Martin Luther and Justification

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli-Pekka Vainio
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Essential Question ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Media ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Well Function ◽  
The One

The doctrine of justification is an account of how God removes the guilt of the sinner and receives him or her back to communion with God. The essential question concerns how the tension between human sin and divine righteousness is resolved. Luther’s central claim is that faith alone justifies (that is, makes a person righteous in the eyes of God) the one who believes in Christ as a result of hearing the gospel. This faith affects the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that covers the sins of the believer. In contrast to medieval doctrines of justification, Luther argues that Christ himself, not love, is the form, or the essence, of faith. Love and good works are the necessary consequences of justification even if they are not necessary for justification. However, the inclination to love and perform good works is present in the believer through Christ, who is present in faith, but these characteristics do not as such, as renewed human qualities, have justifying power. Luther’s doctrine of justification cannot be classified with simplistic categories like “forensic” and “effective” (see the section “Review of the literature” below). Often these terms are used to refer to differing interpretations of justification. However, several recent traditions of scholarship perceive this categorical differentiation as simplistic and misleading. Instead, these terms may well function to designate different aspects of God’s salvific action. In the narrow sense, justification may refer to the forensic and judicial action of declaring the sinner free from his or her guilt. A broader sense would include themes and issues from other theological doctrines offering a holistic and effective account of the event of justification, in which the sinner believes in Christ, is united with Christ’s righteousness, and receives the Holy Spirit. Depending on the context, Luther may use both narrow and broad definitions of justification. Here Luther’s doctrine of justification is approached from a broader perspective. On the one hand, justification means imputation of Christ’s alien righteousness to the believer without merits. On the other hand, faith involves effective change in the believer that enables one to believe in the first place. This change is not meritorious because it is effected by Christ indwelling in the believer through faith. Thus, Christ gives two things to the sinner: gratia, that is, the forgiveness of sins, and donum, that is, Christ himself. The media through which Christ offers his mercy are the word and sacraments. Thus, Luther’s sacramental theology, Christology, and soteriology form a coherent whole. Because justification involves union with Christ, which means participation in Christ’s divine nature, Luther’s doctrine of justification has common elements with the idea of deification.

Lucius or a New Io

Mnemosyne ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-114
Author(s):  
Olga L. Levinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Close Association ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Important Link ◽  
Solid Foundation ◽  
Prometheus Bound ◽  
The One

InMetamorphosesApuleius used a highly exquisite technique of literary casting. This technique implies exploitation of different literary models or molds, both Greek and Roman, which help to hold the novel together on various levels. The story of Io the cow in its dramatic, tragic version (Prometheus BoundandSuppliant Women)has been chosen as one of the basic molds. Io’s story was exploited by Apuleius for shapingboththe ‘inset’ plot about the adventures of Psyche and the main, principal plot—the one about the adventures of Lucius. More than that: the close association between Io and Isis in the Roman tradition provides an important link between the first ten books and the final one. We may consider Io’s story not only as the plot-forming matrix that links together ten books of the novel with its 11th, concluding book, but also as the solid foundation of the unity of the entire novel.

The Dimension of Depth: Thomas F. Torrance on the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper

2001 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Hunsinger
Keyword(s):  
Lord's Supper ◽  
The Other ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The One ◽  
Living Person ◽  
The Church

‘All the gifts of God set forth in baptism,’ wrote John Calvin, ‘are found in Christ alone’ (Inst. IV.15.6). The baptismal gifts, for Calvin, were essentially three: forgiveness of sins, dying and rising with Christ, and communion with Christ himself (FV.15.1, 5, 6). They were ordered, however, in a particular way. Communion with Christ, Calvin considered, was in effect the one inestimable gift that included within itself the other two benefits of forgiveness and rising with Christ from the dead. Forgiveness and eternal life were thus inseparable from Christ's person and so from participatio Christi through our communion with him. Only by participating in Christ through communion could the divine gifts set forth in baptism be truly received. Any severing of these gifts from Christ himself would result only in empty abstractions. No spiritual gift—neither forgiveness nor eternal life nor any other divine benefit—was ever to be found alongside Christ or apart from him. Christ's saving benefits were inherent in his living person. Only in and with his person were they set forth and available to the church. Communion with Christ was thus bound up with Christ's person in his saving uniqueness. He himself and he alone, for Calvin and for the whole Reformation, was our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).

scholarly journals Feminist and Ecofeminist Christology

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Ioanna Sahinidou
Keyword(s):  
Christian Church ◽  
The Will ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The One ◽  
Human And Nature ◽  
Will Of God

The Incarnation of Christ, known by the eastern fathers as Christological perichoresis as a theological idea becomes experienced ecological reality, if we realize its kenotic, Christological, relating cosmic dimensions. It shows how we can bring together different entities, such as God and nature, look at them in unity, as the one person of Christ, and acknowledge the perichoresis between divine and human and nature. Christ lived as one person: both God-Creator and creature. If ecofeminist theologies need a place in the Christian church, they must seek a Christological salvific foundation. Our encounter with God in Christ is a transformation and a renewal of ourselves so as to discern the will of God and follow it; a kenosis of our egocentric self so that Christ to be reborn in us. Paul sees the encounter with God as a rebirth, not as intellectually gained knowledge.

Martin Luther on Prayer in Life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Jane Haemig
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Human Response ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Martin Luther saw prayer as crucial to human life, a life created by the relationship to God. In this relationship God starts a conversation, communicating God’s words of law and promise. Prayer is a part of the human response to God’s speaking, a response itself shaped by the words of command and promise. Luther thought that God’s promise to hear prayer defines both the nature of God and the nature of the human relationship to God, as well as the human approach to life. Luther’s comments and instructions on prayer permeated his work. Luther sought to build an evangelical prayer practice that reflected the key insights of his theology: just as God redeems the unworthy human, so God promises to hear and respond to the one praying, despite his or her unworthiness. Humans respond to God’s actions in law and promise when they pray regularly, forthrightly, honestly, and frequently. Freedom in Christ sets humans free to use prayer practices that help them to do this.

Participation in Christ

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Eastman
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Participation In Christ ◽  
The One

For Paul, human participation in Christ is inaugurated and sustained by God’s apocalyptic incursion into the realm of sin and death through the incarnation and death of Christ in solidarity with sinful humanity. Human personhood is constructed in union with larger powers—on the one hand, sin, and on the other hand, the grace of God in Christ. Through Christ’s interchange with humanity under the power of sin, to the point of death on a cross, humanity is set free from sin’s power and joined with Christ.

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