As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Occasionally, some well-meaning Baptists have asserted that belief in both the active and passive obedience of Christ as the ground of our justification is something foreign to Baptist life… is this understanding of the active obedience of Christ something new to Baptist life or is it rather something that many Baptists have affirmed from the early decades of Baptist history?” - DBTS Bl
“Phil Cecil talks with Dr Mark Snoeberger and Dr Ryan Meyer about the Active Obedience of Christ. Some today hold that such a doctrine is unbiblical. They might even say that true Dispensationalists cannot be for the Active Obedience of Christ as imputed righteousness to the redeemed.” - DBTS Podcast
2 Cor. 3:18 “is describing our experience now. We are being transformed. Not just in the sweet by-and-by but in the sour here and now. Progression, by degrees, from glory to glory. That sure sounds like ‘glorification.’” - Theology in 3D
“I would argue the passage is a warning, and as a warning it alerts us to lurking dangers that entice us to forsake Jesus. It does not announce faith’s possible failure.” - Christ Over All
“I personally believe that God brings infants and the mentally disabled immediately into presence after death. I briefly explain my understanding of Scripture on this matter in what follows.” - P&D
“In most people’s understanding, ransoms are paid by good people, but demanded by horrible people…. ‘the kidnappers demanded a ransom.’” - Randy Alcorn
Read the first article in this series.
Dunn explains that “justification by faith” means trusting in Jesus alone for salvation, and not relying on obsolete Jewish boundary markers as covenant preconditions for God’s acceptance (i.e., “works of the law”). Jesus is enough. According to Dunn, Paul’s target is not grace v. legalism, but grace v. outmoded nationalism.
The “New Perspective on Paul” (NPP) is a re-calibration of the traditional Protestant understanding of “justification.” NPP has now been a force in New Testament and Pauline scholarship for about three generations. This article aims to present a positive statement of NPP. It is a summary, not a critique—so there will be no critical interaction.
First, we briefly sum up the traditional Protestant understanding of “justification.” Next, we survey five aspects of the NPP that differ from the traditional framework.
“there are no evangelistic sermons in Acts where this precise language is used. If Peter and Paul could evangelize without saying ‘Jesus died for you,’ then you shouldn’t make it a litmus test for gospel orthodoxy.” - TGC
Three times, Mark records Jesus’ predictions of His coming passion (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34). In His explanation of the third of those prophecies, Jesus tells His followers that He is going to give His life as a ransom (λύτρον): “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
The concept of a ransom doesn’t connect with western culture in the 21st century. The only common use of that word today is in reference to kidnapping—usually by terrorists. But this was a very common word in the first century Greco-Roman world. Although it is used only twice in the New Testament, this word aroused immediate associations in the minds of those who read Mark’s gospel. It comes from the culture of slavery: sacral manumission, the ceremony by which a slave is set free.1 In the case of a polytheistic Greco-Roman,2 the slave owner takes the slave being freed to the temple of his god and sells the slave to the god. He is reimbursed for the slave from the pagan temple treasury.
The ceremony takes place in the presence of witnesses, and the manumission record is often recorded in stone—typically on the temple wall or pillar. This transaction is somewhat of a legal fiction, because it is not really temple money that is involved. Rather the slave himself (or his family or friends) have previously paid the specified amount into the temple treasury. Once the slave owner received the money, the slave became the property of the god. Ownership has been transferred. He does not become a slave of the temple, however, but a protégé of the god. In respect to his former owner, he is now a free man.
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