Justification

"If we may be freed by self-critical scholarly objectivity no longer to have to assume that the authority of the Bible resides in its saying things that we agree with, we may be free as well to hear more clearly what it really says instead of giving it credit for saying what we already think."

John Howard Yoder wrote this in The Politics of Jesus in a chapter called Justification by Grace through Faith. The chapter title was not very appealing to me, but I pushed on and was astounded by what I read! Yoder begins with the hypothesis "that for Paul righteousness, either in God or in human beings, might more appropriately be conceived of as having cosmic or social dimensions. Such larger dimensions would not negate the personal character of the righteousness God imputes to those who believe; but by englobing the personal salvation in a fuller reality they would negate the individualism with which we understand such reconciliation." In other words, it's not this big issue about whether or not we are now right in the eyes of God, but what to do in community knowing that we are in the grip of a gracious God.

Yoder positions Paul's argument about justification in the context of the early church's issues between Jewish and Gentile Christians. "In sum: the fundamental issue was that of the social form of the church." It seems that we have often over-spiritualized some passages of scripture that were meant to govern how we live in community.

In Ephesians 3 Paul writes about a "mystery" made known to him. Mystery here implies a strategic purpose of God which is now made known to everybody. This is prefaced with Ephesians 2:11-26, which speaks of Gentiles being "seperated from Christ" at one time, but also says they were seperated from "the commonwealth of Israel," but Jesus "is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility." So Christ eliminates the once existing hostility between different groups of people, becoming their peace and creating a new kind of community that would not have existed otherwise.

We can see how this works regarding justification in Galatians 2. Verse 14 says we are "justified by faith in Christ," but what does it mean to be justified? Verse 14 cannot be divorced from the earlier verses of Galatians 2, which pushes for Jews and Gentiles to "live together acceptingly in one fellowship. To be justified is to be set right in and for that relationship." This is the same, then, as the making peace of Ephesians.

One more thought before wrapping up with my own thoughts on all of this. Yoder points out that in the book of Romans, Paul never addresses the total Roman community as a "church," only the group that met in the house of Aquila. Could it be that they cannot be a true church until their differences have been set aside and they embrace the other as equal and worthy? As Yoder wrote, "it is the Good News that my enemy and I are united, through no merit or work of our own, in a new humanity that forbids henceforth my ever taking his or her life in my hands."

In a word, what Yoder is claiming, and I thinkI agree, is that to be justified isn't all pie-in-the-sky, I look good to God now, types of thinking about our faith. It is ethical and sociological, involving neighbor love, calling us to embrace the other. It isn't accepting Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior and then remaining the same person you were before. This is radical life change that involves being a part of a new community that signals a new creation, the Kingdom of God being glimpsed in the way people who should not even like each other are living in unity. In the middle of this chapter, Yoder disects 2 Corinthians 5:17, which typically says something along the lines of "If anyone be in Christ he is a new creature." The truth, though, is that "he is" is not in the original text. The literal translation of this would be more like "if anyone is in Christ, new is creation," or "there is a whole new world." For us to be justified means we begin finding new patterns and ways of life which demonstrate and provide a foretaste of the Kingdom. Wow.

Peace,
Matt

Currently Reading: A Social Reading of the Old Testament by Walter Brueggemann. It is mind-blowing. I also just read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, which was quite entertaining.