The Deliverance of God: an Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul

Chapter Eighteen: Rereading Romans 3.27-4.25 - Our Forefather Reconsidered

S.1. Preamble (p715)

S.2. Romans 3.27-4.1 as a Follow-on

Constructing the dialogue (p716); questions asked by the Teacher and answered by Paul (p717). God delivers a person by means of fidelity (p718); the role of Torah (p719); syntactic problems (p720); pagans saved by the Christ event (p721); the strategic choice of Abraham (p722-23). Switch discourse in R 4.2b, introduced by the Teacher in 4.1-2a (p724); R 4.2b-22 corresponds with three issues in 3.27-31.

S.3. The Structure of Romans 3.27-4.16a

Correspondences (p725); Greek text (p726).

3.1 Romans 3.27-28 and 4.2-8 (p727).

3.2 Romans 3.29-30 and 4.9-12 (p728).

3.3 Romans 3.31 and 4.13-16a (p729).

S.4. Substantive Engagement in Romans 3.27-4.6a

Switch from attack on Teacher's assumption to Scripture ([729).

4.1 Romans 3.27-28 and 4.2-8: The use of "credit" which is a cheque or "letter of credit" (p730-31); Genesis 15.6: "Abraham trusted in God, and it (his trust) was credited to his advantage with 'righteousness'." In view of Abraham’s trust God promised to do something for him, a divine cheque was written which he had not earned; no salvation on merit (p732).

4.2 Romans 3.29-30 and 4.9-12: Abraham's circumcision after his trust is remarked by God; circumcision confirms not confers (p733); trust saves, not circumcision.

4.3 Romans 3.31 and 4.13-16a (p734): Obedience is only possible in Christ and with 'faith' which is a new reality not simply a personal choice.

S.5 Romans 4.6b-22

Overlooked because difficult for JT, most extensive Pauline discussion of faith (p735); Abraham's fatherhood (p736-37). Abraham the father of pagan nations (p738); Abraham's paternity before circumcision only happens after it (p739-40).

Excursus: The Syntax and Construal of Romans 4.17 (p471).

Abraham's continuous hope (p742-43); the problem of Genesis 15.6 (p744); 'sleepers' for later explanation.

S.6. Romans 4.23-25

"... Christ was handed over for the sake of our transgressions, and raised for the sake of our deliverance"; R 4.25 resumes 3.21-26 and 1.16-17, 1.2-4 (p746); Teacher defeated again (p747); in echoing  Isaiah 53 and continuing 3.21-26, R 4.24-25 is progressing a Messianic discourse (p748); Isaac as the act of Grace towards Abraham; so Isaac is Abraham's justification which points towards Resurrection (p749).

S.7. Problems Solved

7.1 Problems Solved in Romans 4.23-25 (p750): 'thin' reading of Abraham and Christianity (p751); 'thick reading' solves problems (p752); problems solved (p753-54).

7.4 Problems Solved in Romans 3.27-4.25: Abraham JT's trump card (p755) but the broader, apocalyptic and Christocentric reading makes more sense.

Summary: Faith is participatory and isomorphic with Christ's own faith, and is associated with 'martyrdom' where Christians, in Christ’s story, are caught up in Christ by the work of the Spirit, and being drawn into the new creation of the age to come. Apocalyptic: "... the dramatic, reconstitutive, and fundamentally unconditional nature of the acts of which these narratives (of divine transformation and eschatology) speak - and in a permanent protest against their reduction to a merely human level! ... Paul's language of 'faith' we actually glimpse potentially, if not necessarily, a dramatic underlying set of claims about the transformation of the Christian through the death and resurrection of Christ - the claims of Romans 5-8" (p756); R 1-4 is therefore a scripturally based, rhetorical argument with the Teacher (p457). Summary of problems solved (p458-60).

7.3 A Problem-free Reading (p761-62).