Participation in Christ: An Analysis of Pauline Soteriology

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-68
Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Aernie
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
New Creation ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Pauline Theology ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Participation In Christ ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Way

Paul’s conception and description of God’s soteriological enterprise continues to be a prominent focal point in constructions of the apostle’s theology. The present essay attempts to provide an outline of this aspect of Pauline theology from inception to corporate participation. The essay is comprised of three parts: (1) an extended examination of the definition of Paul’s gospel; (2) a brief analysis of the way in which the gospel relates to Paul’s own self-presentation; and (3) a few concluding thoughts concerning the way Paul extends his conception of the gospel to the ecclesial community. The primary argument of the essay develops a construction of the participatory nature of Pauline soteriology, building on the notion that the prophetic scope of Paul’s gospel compels the apostle to understand both his own ministry and Christian theology in terms of a participation in the new creation inaugurated within the Christ event.

The Word Refreshed

2021 ◽  
pp. 358-374
Author(s):  
Jeremy Begbie
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
New Creation ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Theological Language ◽  
The Way

This chapter takes its cue from the vision of music adumbrated by the previous three essayists: in which music is seen as depending on a ‘faith in an order of things that exceeds the logic of statement and counterstatement’, arising from an embodied dwelling in the world which is pre-conceptual, pre-theoretical. As such, music has the capacity to free us from the kind of alienating relation to our physical environment that an over-dependence on instrumental language brings, and free us for a more fruitful indwelling of it that has been largely lost to modernity. This resonates with broadly biblical-theological view of humanity’s intended relation to the cosmos, as exemplified in the concept of New Creation in Christ. This essay returns to language, considered in this light: how can music, and thinking about music, enrich language? Specifically, how might music facilitate a deeper understanding of the way ‘God-talk’ operates? It is argued that music can offer a powerful witness to the impossibility (and danger) of imagining we can grasp or circumscribe the divine (the antithesis of human freedom). More positively, it can greatly enrich our use (and understanding) of existing theological language, and generate fresh language that enables a more faithful perception of, and participation in the realities it engages.

Creation

2019 ◽  
pp. 178-195
Author(s):  
Matthew Puffer
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
New Creation ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Access To Knowledge ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
The Church

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology of creation is rooted in the confession that Jesus Christ is the mediator. Apart from Christ’s mediation human beings cannot perceive God’s creation, because our postlapsarian world manifests only a fallen creation in which good and evil are confused and intermixed. Whereas Bonhoeffer in his student years affirmed a limited role for the orders of creation, his subsequent writings on the theology of creation can be read as a response to and reaction against the orders of creation. Although human beings have no unmediated access to knowledge of God’s creation, and know the world as fallen creation only through Christ’s redemption, in Christ they are empowered by the Spirit, incorporated into Christ’s body the church, and made a new creation. Only in light of the hoped-for eschatological fulfilment of the new creation may Christian theology speak of the beginning of God’s ways as Creator.

It is No Longer I Who Live: Justification by Faith and Participation in Christ in Martin Luther's Exegesis of Galatians

2009 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Chester
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
Legal Fiction ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Participation In Christ ◽  
The Way

Traditional Protestant accounts of Paul's theology are often criticized for their inability to relate justification by faith and the participatory categories of Paul's thought. The two are driven apart by sharp distinctions between declaring and making righteous, between justification as a once for all external act and regeneration as an internal lifelong process. The way is left open for justification to be treated as a legal fiction. Contrary to popular misconceptions, these difficulties do not stem from Martin Luther. In his exegesis of Paul, Luther intimately connects justification by faith and participation in Christ, integrating the two effectively. This article explores the manner in which Luther does so, evaluating his exegetical conclusions and assessing their relevance for contemporary attempts to interpret Paul's theology.

Participation and the Person in Pauline Theology: A Response to Susan Eastman’s Paul and the Person

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-523
Author(s):  
Jonathan A. Linebaugh
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Boundary Crossing ◽  
Pauline Theology ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Participation In Christ

Paul and the Person by Susan Eastman both models a form of boundary-crossing Pauline scholarship and proposes a ‘contemporary expression’ of Paul’s language of participation in Christ. In conversation with ancient and contemporary theories of the self, Eastman argues that, for Paul, the person is constituted in relationship, whether to sin or to Christ. This thesis is both significant and suggestive, but it does raise questions about the continuity of the person in Pauline theology.

scholarly journals The Elements of a Christological Anthropology

Perichoresis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Rowan Williams
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material World ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

Abstract Human beings exist in one of two sorts of solidarity, according to St. Paul—the solidarity of sin or alienation ‘in Adam’ or the solidarity of life-giving mutuality in Christ. There can be no Christian theology of the human that is not a theology of communion—which converges with the conviction that our creation in the divine image is creation in relationality. The image of God is not a portion or aspect of human existence but a fundamental orientation towards relation. This understanding of the divine image in turn points to the way in which—as the Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky stresses—a proper understanding of the nature of personal being depends upon a proper grasp of the divine image, including the fact that it is always an image of the divine ‘filiation’—the eternal relation of Word to the Father in the Trinity. Our personal flourishing is a filial dependence that liberates and empowers. And what is ‘empowered’ is the human vocation to make reconciled sense of the material world of which we are part, articulating and serving its Godward meaning, so that we may see our humanity as essentially a priestly calling within the reconciling priesthood of Christ, in whom all things cohere.

Christ-Centered Peregrinatio: The Mediated Journey

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
Dual Roles ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Union With God ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Way

This chapter discusses how Christ bridges the human–divine, temporal–eternal, earthly–heavenly realms by healing and purifying the believer for union with God. This union with God consists of knowing and loving God—imperfectly in this life, but perfectly in the life to come. This union happens through the conformation of the believer to Christ in love, which forms the believer for rightly ordered relationships with God, self, and neighbor. Augustine pictures the process of conformation as the journey to the homeland, a pilgrimage the believer makes to God in Christ. Christ is the way to the homeland and he is the way because he is the homeland. Christ’s mediating and healing work is inextricably tied to his dual roles as the way and the end.

scholarly journals What is a firm? A reply to Jean-Philippe Robé

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
David Gindis ◽  
Geoffrey M. Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of The Firm ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Everyday Language ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Legal Foundations ◽  
Common Parlance ◽  
The Law ◽  
Business Entities ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Way

Abstract In his recent book on Property, Power and Politics, Jean-Philippe Robé makes a strong case for the need to understand the legal foundations of modern capitalism. He also insists that it is important to distinguish between firms and corporations. We agree. But Robé criticizes our definition of firms in terms of legally recognized capacities on the grounds that it does not take the distinction seriously enough. He argues that firms are not legally recognized as such, as the law only knows corporations. This argument, which is capable of different interpretations, leads to the bizarre result that corporations are not firms. Using etymological and other evidence, we show that firms are treated as legally constituted business entities in both common parlance and legal discourse. The way the law defines firms and corporations, while the product of a discourse which is in many ways distinct from everyday language, has such profound implications for the way firms operate in practice that no institutional theory of the firm worthy of the name can afford to ignore it.

Israel and the Mercy of God: A Re-reading of Galatians 6.16 and Romans 9–11

2010 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Grove Eastman
Keyword(s):  
New Creation ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Law

Noting the conjunction of ‘mercy’ and ‘Israel’ in Galatians 6.16 and Romans 9–11, this article argues that in both letters ‘Israel’ denotes the Jews. In Galatians 6.16, with an on-going mission to the Jews in view, Paul invokes peace on those who live according to the new creation, and mercy on unbelieving Israel. In Romans 9–11, he draws on both Scripture and his own experience of mercy to revisit the question of Israel's destiny, discerning therein a providential pattern of a divine call that is interrupted by obduracy under the law, and ultimately fulfilled in Christ.

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