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Salvation, Grace and Works in the Later Writings in the Pauline Corpus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

I. Howard Marshall
I. Howard Marshall
Affiliation:
(Dept of Divinity with Religious Studies, King's College, Aberdeen AB9 2UB, Scotland)
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Extract

Until 1977 it was commonly believed that when New Testament writers affirmed that justification or salvation was not by works but by faith, they were opposing a view that was assumed to be held by first-century Jews, namely that admission to the saved community could be achieved on the basis of conditions which included performing good deeds or fulfilling the duties required by the Jewish law; the effect of these was to acquire merit on account of which God would accept the person and not take their sins into account. Over against this view the early Christians, and especially Paul, taught that salvation was to be received solely as a result of the gracious action of God himself and consequently by faith alone; such faith was in no sense some kind of human achievement but rather a dependence upon God himself.

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Articles
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New Testament Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , July 1996 , pp. 339 - 358
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM, 1977).Google Scholar

2 Sanders, Paul, 550. This understanding of the situation presumed by Paul and of his response to it is often traced back to Martin Luther who, it is said, interpreted Paul in the light of mediaeval Roman Catholic theology with its doctrines of merit, good works, and so on. It should be noted that Sanders himself does not appear to have put the blame for misunderstanding Paul and Judaism onto Luther. There are some five references to Luther in Paul and Palestinian Judaism, and none of them are about Luther having a false understanding of Judaism. Nor is Luther mentioned in Paul, , the Law and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1993)Google Scholar. See rather Watson, F., Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: A Sociological Approach (Cambridge: CUP, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sect. 1. The general Lutheran understanding of Paul was called in question by Stendahl, K., ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’, HTR 56 (1963) 199–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Sanders, Paul, 474.

4 Sanders, Paul, 513.

5 Of particular importance here is the critique by M. D. Hooker, ‘Paul and “Covenantal Nomism”’, in Hooker, M. D. and Wilson, S. G., Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honour ofC. K. Barrett (London: SPCK, 1982) 47–56.Google Scholar

6 German scholars on the whole have been less enamoured of it (see especially the work of Hübner, H., especially Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments 2: Die Theologie des Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1993)Google Scholar. On the history of the debate see P. T. O'Brien, ‘Justification in Paul and Some Crucial issues of the Last Two Decades’, in Carson, D. A., ed., Right with God: Justification in the Bible and the world (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1992) 69–95.Google Scholar

7 J. D. G. Dunn in particular has brought out what he calls ‘the social context and ramifications of such a view of the law and its requirements’ (‘Yet Once More – “The Works of the Law”: A Response’, JSNT 46 (1992) 99–117Google Scholar, citation from 102). The works of the law are ‘the human activities required by the law of those within the covenant’. They are ‘what God expects of the people he has chosen as his own, the obligations which membership of God's covenant people placed upon them. But that included the obligation to maintain Israel's distinctiveness from other peoples not chosen by God’ (The Theology of Paul's Letter to the Galatians [New Testament Theology; Cambridge: CUP, 1993] 77)Google Scholar. See further Jesus, Paul and the Law (London: SPCK, 1990)Google Scholar. It was because this obligation involved the practice of Jewish customs such as circumcision, the observance of food laws and festivals, which were not practised by Gentiles, that Paul found it necessary to inveigh against a theology which in effect excluded Gentiles from membership of the saved people, and not because they were regarded as meritorious.

8 Recent discussions include Laato, T., Paulus und das Judentum: Anthropologische Erwägungen (Åbo Academy, 1991)Google Scholar; Winger, M., By What Law? The Meaning of Νόμος in the Letters of Paul (Atlanta: Scholars, 1992)Google Scholar; Thielman, F., Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach (Downers Grove: IVP, 1994)Google Scholar; Seifrid, M. A., ‘Blind Alleys in the Controversy over the Paul of History’, Tyndale Bulletin 45.1 (1994) 73–95.Google Scholar

9 The one reference to Ephesians in Sanders, Paul, 449 n. 9, is not germane to the issue; Acts 15.10–11 and the Pastoral Epistles are not cited; the reference to James 5.16 (191 n. 54) is not relevant. The same is true of Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, where there is no discussion of these texts. Similar comment can be made on J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law; cf. the criticism by Silva, M., ‘The Law and Christianity: Dunn's New Synthesis’, WTJ 53 (1991) 339–53Google Scholar, esp. 351–2. The importance of Eph 2.8–9 and Tit 3.4–7 is recognised but not developed by Westerholm, S., Israel's Law and the Church's Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) 166Google Scholar n. 64. There is no reference to these texts in D. A. Carson, ed., Right with God.

10 U. Luz, ‘Rechtfertigung bei den Paulusschülern’, in Friedrich, J.et al., Rechtfertigung (Tübingen: Mohr, 1976) 365–83Google Scholar. The article is important for the way in which it raises the question of the significance of Wirkungsgeschichte for biblical interpretation.

11 U. Luz, ‘Rechtfertigung’, 372. Cf. Barrett, C. K., Paul: An Introduction to His Thought (London: Chapman, 1994) 157.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Radl, W., EDNT 3 (1993) 319–21.Google Scholar

13 ‘Deliverance can thus mean the same thing as justification and reconciliation’ (Radl, W., EDNT 3 [1993] 321)Google Scholar. For a survey on this point, see Hafemann, S. J., ‘Paul and His Interpreters’, DPL (1993) 666–79.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Lincoln, A. T., ‘Ephesians 2:8–10: A Summary of Paul's Gospel?’, CBQ 45 (1983) 617–30, esp. 627–8.Google Scholar

15 Schnackenburg, R., The Epistle to the Ephesians (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991) 98Google Scholar; U. Luz, ‘Rechtfertigung’, 372–3; Bouttier, M., L'épître de saint Paul aux Éphésiens (Genéve: Labor et Fides, 1991) 105 n. 228.Google Scholar

16 Luz, ‘Rechtfertigung’, 373.

17 Luz, ‘Rechtfertigung’, 374.

18 Marshall, I. H., Jesus the Saviour (London: SPCK, 1990) 57–69.Google Scholar

19 So for Paul, Dunn, J. D. G., Romans (WBC; Waco: Word, 1988) 1.258Google Scholar. Similarly, Foerster, W., TDNT 7 (1971) 994Google Scholar, establishes no more than a terminological difference between Eph and the earlier letters.

20 On this phrase see especially Fitzmyer, J. A., According to Paul: Studies in the Theology of the Apostle (New York: Paulist, 1993) 19–24.Google Scholar

21 Nevertheless, one might ask whether there is not already a generalisation of works in the references to Abraham and Isaac's sons.

22 Mussner, F., Der Brief an die Epheser (ÖTKNT; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn/Würzburg: Echter, 1982) 67.Google Scholar

23 Lincoln, A. T., Ephesians (WBC; Waco: Word, 1990) 112.Google Scholar

22 ‘By grace and through faith are together meant to ensure that the readers will not be tempted to take any credit for their change of status. Faith, in this context, is of course a human activity, but the kind of activity which is a receptive response to the salvation that has been accomplished and which allows it to become operative in one's experience. … In this letter addressed to Gentile Christian readers “works” refers not to works of the law but to human effort in general. In regard to their salvation, no activity of theirs can be seen as the ground for boasting’ (Lincoln, A. T. and Wedderburn, A. J. M., The Theology of the Later Pauline Letters [New Testament Theology; Cambridge: CUP, 1993] 109–10)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, 111–13; idem, ‘Ephesians 2:8–10’.

25 Cf. Zmijewski, J., EDNT 2 (1991) 276–9.Google Scholar

26 Lincoln and Wedderburn, Theology, 135–6.

27 Lincoln may well have been prepared to go along this track; he writes: ‘Boasting accompanies works because they become the ground for self-congratulation and pride in the presence of God (Rom 3.27; 4.2) and drag in the notion of merit, or earning one's reward (Rom 4.4). It was vital to Paul's perspective on salvation that men and women should not be in a position to claim even the slightest degree of credit for their acceptance by God’ (Ephesians, 111–12).

28 See my forthcoming article on ‘Salvation in the Pastoral Epistles’, scheduled to appear in another publication. The centrality of salvation in the PE is increasingly recognised by scholars (Donelson, L. R., Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles [Tübingen: Mohr, 1986] 133–54Google Scholar; Young, F., The Theology of the Pastoral Letters [Cambridge: CUP, 1994])CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the two passages under discussion see especially Towner, P. H., The Goal of Our Instruction (Sheffield: JSOT, 1989) 94–100,112–19.Google Scholar

29 'Έργον occurs 20 times in the PE, 14 times with reference to good works. It is used once of the task of an evangelist (2 Tim 4.5), and once of evil actions directed against Paul by opponents (2 Tim 4.18). The evil deeds of people who falsely profess to know God are mentioned (Tit 1.16). God will judge one of Paul's opponents according to his works (2 Tim 4.14); this maintains the universal NT teaching that the final judgment on evil people will be according to their works.

30 U. Luz, ‘Rechtfertigung’, 370–1; cf. Lincoln, Ephesians, 86–8. Baptismal language is to be found in these passages and in 2 Clem 6.1–8; 1 Pet 1.3–4; Rom 3.24–6; 1 Cor 6.9–11. It is less likely that a pre-Pauline tradition is attested in Exegesis on the Soul (NHC 11:6,134–5); here dependence on the NT is more probable.

31 Cf. Luz, ‘Rechtfertigung’, 370.

32 E. E. Ellis, ‘Traditions in the Pastoral Epistles’, in Evans, C. A., ed., Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis: Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987) 237–53.Google Scholar

33 Cook, D., ‘The Pastoral Fragments Reconsidered’, JTS ns 35 (1984) 120–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 ‘Gerettet hat uns nicht eintnal unsere Rechtschaffenheit’ (Käsemann, E., ‘Titus 3,4–7’, in Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1970] 1.298–302Google Scholar, here 300). This latter view is certainly possible syntactically, because the use of an anarthrous noun followed by a defining phrase is common in the PE (1 Tim 1.14; 3.13; 6.3; 2 Tim 1.1; 2.9; Tit 1.1), and in such cases the noun is made definite: ‘not because of the righteous deeds which we had done’. Nevertheless, the immediate context with its stress on the sinful way of life preceding conversion (Tit 3.3) makes it very unlikely that the writer understood the phrase in this way, and in the statement itself the references to washing and renewal strongly suggest that the persons were saved from unrighteousness.

35 ‘It is necessary that the soul should not ascribe to itself its toil for virtue, but that it should take it away from itself and refer it to God, confessing that not its own strength or power acquired nobility, but He who freely bestowed also the love of it’ (Loeb translation).

36 Cf. Berger, K., Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums (Tübingen/Basel: Francke, 1994) 431–2Google Scholar; Quinn, J. D., The Letter to Titus (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1990) 216.Google Scholar

37 EDNT 2(1991)50.

38 The same confusion is evident in the parallel passage Deus 104–8.

39 Kretschmar, G., ‘Der paulinische Glaube in den Pastoralbriefen’, in Hahn, F. and Klein, H., ed., Glaube im Neuen Testament (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1982) 115–40, here 118.Google Scholar

40 Hofius, O., ‘“Gott hat unter uns aufgerichtet das Wort von der Versöhnung” (2 Kor 5,19)’, ZNW 71 (1980) 3–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Easton, B. S., The Pastoral Epistles (London: SCM, 1948) 204.Google Scholar

42 Towner, Goal, 292 n. 211, lists Rom 6.1–11; 1 Cor 6.11; 12.13; 2 Cor 1.21–2.

43 For details see Marshall, I. H., ‘Faith and Works in the Pastoral Epistles’, SNTU 9 (1984) 203–18.Google Scholar

44 Nevertheless, we need to ask whether the understanding of faith has changed in the PE. In my previous work on the topic I was not able to take account of the work of G. Kretschmar (‘Paulinische Glaube’). He argues that in the PE the preaching is meant to lead not to faith but to knowledge of the truth. Teaching in effect replaces the preaching of the gospel, and the scope of the teaching is wider than that of the Pauline gospel. The PE speak of education that leads to faith, and faith can be learned. Hence the important place of the household/family. One does not grow in faith but only remains in faith. Finally, the relativising of the law is not tied to the concept of faith. The concept of righteousness by faith is simply not known. Christians are characterised not by faith but by hope. It follows that the concept of faith is of diminished importance in the PE and that it has undergone significant changes from Paul.

Kretschmar's case appears to rest largely on an over-emphasis on the place of the language of justification and righteousness in Paul. He does not take sufficient account of the fact that the stress on knowledge and learning in the PE is occasioned by the presence of false teaching and also by the development of Christian households in which teaching about the faith is necessary and appropriate. This results in a one-sided presentation of the gospel. There is an overwhelming sense of grace which renders human action irrelevant (cf. 1 Tim 1.15–16).

45 The question arises whether the emphasis on this point is related to the activity and teaching of those whom we may regard as the writer's opponents.

We have a combination of two elements that we also find elsewhere. On the one hand, we have statements about the pre-conversion life of people which is characterised by sin (Tit 3.3), warnings about the danger of falling back into that way of life, and the suggestion that acceptance of heretical teaching can have the same effect. There are people who long to be rich or richer, and people who are insensible to the dictates of conscience. One does not need to invoke a particular heresy to account for such behaviour, even if heresy and immorality were found in the same people.

On the other hand, we have the heretical teaching itself. That it had strong Jewish elements is clear (pace Roloff, J., Der erste Brief an Timotheus, [Zürich: Benziger/Neukirchen: Neu-kirchener, 1988] 228–39)Google Scholar. It is probable that the alternative teaching which was being offered was concerned with the keeping of the law understood as promoting an ascetical way of life. Full salvation lay in understanding it and obeying it. Nevertheless, there is little emphasis on what might be called the legal aspect of this. The writer is more concerned with the bizarre elaborations of the law that have made it impossible to enter into rational, coherent discussion with his opponents.

He is more concerned with the salvation of sinners, and therefore he presents himself as a great sinner before his conversion (1 Tim 1). He is quite clear that the Scriptures (including the Torah) lead to salvation – but through faith in Christ! He stresses that it is a good thing that God acts out of grace because we have no good works behind us to induce him to save us. While ‘works of the law’ may be included (Tit 1.10), there is a broadening out of works here to include anything that people might do ‘in righteousness’. But the author appears to deny that even if sinners had done any good works, these would be irrelevant to salvation.

46 V. Hasler claims that in the PE the acquittal pronounced by the judge in Paul's doctrine of justification has been replaced by the condescending merciful act of the divine benefactor (Die Briefe an Timotheus and Titus [Zürcher Bibelkommentar; Zürich: Theologischer, 1978] 58, 97)Google Scholar. But this is hardly a genuine antithesis.

47 Towner, Goal, 96–7.

48 Dunn, Romans, 2.543–4, 548–9, holds that Paul is using the patriarchs as proof that election was carried out without reference to subsequent conduct, whether good or bad. But, if God had made reference to it, what effect would it have had? Dunn does not deal with this objection to his view.

49 Dunn, Romans, 2.647.

50 M. Silva, ‘The Law’, especially 351–3.

51 I am grateful to Dr B. S. Rosner for drawing my attention to this point.

52 M. Elliott, ‘The Survivors of Israel’, unpublished thesis, Aberdeen, 1994.

53 M. A. Seifrid, ‘Blind Alleys’, 80–2.

54 My earlier article on ‘Faith and Works in the Pastoral Epistles’ attempts to deal with the relationship.