Chapter Eight.

The Paschal Community and Redemption.

The righteousness that is through faith.

We have seen that Paul’s use of the OT is not arbitrary as many have thought. He had a profound respect for the original historical context of the passages that he quoted. In the original setting they almost invariably referred to the exile of Israel in Babylon and her subsequent salvation by Yahweh who brought her back to her inheritance. These texts are skillfully transposed by Paul from the historical experience of Israel and used to describe what the condition of man is and how Yahweh has acted in salvation.

Controlling paradigms.

The precise language Paul used was equally the result of devoted respect. Generally he did not force new meanings onto vocabulary but kept to their original LXX meanings. In this there undoubtedly was a problem for the Gentiles. They had to learn this imbedded theological content as against their own secular/religious meanings. Nevertheless, we have seen in chapter 4 how scholars have assumed that the secular usage was uppermost in Paul’s mind and how this has masked the theological richness of his own meaning. Instead of appreciating that Paul used doulos as had the LXX, they had assumed that Paul used the term to speak of believers being slaves of Christ. I have shown earlier that instead of Paul viewing himself as a slave, he saw himself as a servant, with all of the dignity that the prophets received as they were called by Yahweh into his service.

The same Hellenistic/Semitic confusion has dominated how other key salvation expressions have been understood. Until relatively recently the term ‘righteousness of God’ was understood to refer to God’s moral perfection and excellence. This was naturally seen to be expressed in his law and those who lived according to its precepts were deemed to be righteous. Without denying that these ideas exist in the expression, it has been appreciated that the term bears a much richer significance, one that is a key for understanding salvation history. Indeed, it is the same meaning that the OT prophets had as they used the term and we will shortly see how this expression is a key to Paul’s understanding of salvation.

Two sources, two meanings.

We can possibly understand the differences between the legal meaning, which is essentially Hellenisitc, and the covenantal salvation history meaning, which is essentially Semitic, by considering the following example. A judge might be regarded as just or righteous in that he always upholds the law and applies it to those who come before his bench. He can rightly be honoured as the upholder of righteousness. He does not take bribes and he works to ensure that he makes sound and fair judgments. He is a righteous judge. However, what he is in his home might be totally different from what he is in his court. He might be cruel, unloving, sarcastic, jealous and many other things. He might do nothing outside of