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

Chapter Fifteen: Faith and Syntax in Romans 1.16-17 and 3.21-31

S.1. Preamble (p601)

S.2. First Things First - Basic Import and Argumentative Implications

"... the agency of God focused on the atoning function of Christ and his resulting catalysis of justification, together with the repeated sense of disclosure that is part of this process." 1.17 and 3.21-26 part of negative argument against Teacher (p602). R 3.21-22: God is revealed (somehow) through the faithful Christ for those who are faithful (whatever that means); God's intention in Christ is to atone for and 'justify' (faithful) humanity (p603); atonement (p604). R 3.23-26: "God's intention is to act through Christ to atone for the sins of humanity in order to save them. "Christ is the definitive  disclosure of God ... functioning to save humanity through a costly act of atonement during which he suffers and dies ... an act that is essentially free ... (revealing) God's character" (p605); God's utter benevolence and eschatological assurance; Dahl on R 5-8; life in the Spirit; consistency of 3.21-22 with 3.23-26 and R 5-8 (p606-08). Diagram (p609).

S.3. Initial Syntactical Decisions and Paul's (Greek: PIST) terms in Romans 1.17 and 3.21.22

3.1 The Meaning of (Greek: Pistis) in Romans 1.17 and 3.22: With Habakkuk 2.4 leads to over determination; the righteousness of God is revealed through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ (p610); faithfulness and martyrdom (p611); 1.17 and 3.22 Christological (p612).

6.3 The Interpretation of Habakkuk 2.4 in Romans 1.17: Habakkuk foretells the passion (p613); cf Hebrews 10.37-39 "the righteous" and "the coming one" interpreted as Christ, cf Wisdom 2.12-20 (p614-15).

3.3 The meaning of (Greek: Eis Pantas Tous pisteouontas) in Romans 3.22 (p616): Contra the Teacher the "appropriately marked" Christians are saved already; all have sinned but all can be saved; (Greek: pistis) a marker of salvation, but not yet defined (p618): the faith of the Christian echoes the fidelity of Christ; or Christians possess faith because they participate in the faithfulness of Christ (p619). This is a turning point in Campbell and paul's arguments. Father as central object in key passages (p620).

S.4 Further Syntactical Decisions in Romans 3.23-26

Summary (p621-23).

4.1 Syntactical Coordination (p624): 3.27-31 belongs to R 4; when  Paul states in 3.21-22 that:  the righteousness of God has not been disclosed  through works of law but through the fidelity of Christ, extending to all who are faithful, as witnessed by the Scriptures: he is initiating Round Two with the Teacher (p625). 3.21-22 a pastiche of scripture (cited in Greek) (p326); further explanation (p327). 3.23-26 is an elaboration of 3.21-22 (p628-31).

4.2 Syntactical Distinctiveness (p632): Written as "ritual" for performance (p633-37).