pursuing faithfulness to the Word of God and fullness of the Spirit of God
Posts tagged salvation
Saturday Morning Theology – Salvation
Jul 9th
I’ve had a few complaints recently that my blog isn’t being updated regularly enough. Part of the reason has been that my focus has been on preparing material for theology & Bible teaching sessions. Earlier this year, thanks to plenty of help from by good friend Mark Mould, I ran a “Saturday Morning Theology” course, consisting of 10 talks on the doctrine of salvation. It was the second course we had run, the first being on the doctrine of the church.
We didn’t take up the typical headings found in a systematic theology, but rather attempted to go chronologically, starting with God’s electing purpose before time, then to the fall, to the cross and resurrection, then onto the new birth, the Christian life, and finally persevering to the end and our future hope. We didn’t cover anywhere near everything that should be covered in a course on salvation, but it was really good to wrestle with these doctrines from slightly different angles to normal, and also to have some lively debate on controversial topics that can be too easily avoided or skirted around (like predestination and perseverance of the saints).
Anyway, thanks to the efforts of Matt Riley, all the talks are available to watch on video. The sound quality is sadly not that good, but most of the talks have handouts and presentations available to download. A few of them are available as MP3. The videos and additional downloads are available here.
I’m afraid new blog posts are likely to be sparse in the future too, as I’m currently working on a summer series of seminars on the book of Esther. I’ll try to turn my notes into posts if possible.
Schreiner on Judgment According to Works
Jan 10th
6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; …
10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.
(Rom 2:6-7,10 ESV)
At first glance, what Paul says in Romans 2:7 (and 2:10) seems to be that you can earn your salvation by good works. The big problem with that, is that he categorically contradicts that idea elsewhere (for example, Rom 3:20 which states that no one can be righteous before God by the works of the law). So what exactly does he mean?
Naturally, some are willing to suggest that Paul has indeed contradicted himself, but this seems like a colossal blunder to attribute to someone who is such a coherent thinker.
An alternative approach, is to assume that Paul is speaking hypothetically here. That is, “Eternal life would be given if one did good works and kept the law perfectly, but no one does the requisite good works, and thus all deserve judgment”. In many ways, this is a good solution, since it harmonizes well with what Paul says later in chapter 3, while still fitting in with the overall argument of 2:6-11.
However, Schreiner has come up with an alternative and intriguing suggestion:
Paul elsewhere teaches that works are necessary to enter the kingdom of God (cf,. 1 Cor 6:9-11; 2 Cor 5:10; Gal 5:21). Since Paul asserts that works are necessary for salvation and also that one cannot be justified by works of the law, it is probably that he did not see these two themes as contradictory.
He thus concludes:
in verses 7 and 10 Paul is speaking of Christians who keep the law by the power of the Holy Spirit
Apparently he defends this view further in his commentary on 2:25-29, which I haven’t got to yet. In many ways, this idea is connected with his take on “the righteousness of God”, being both “forensic” (it is a declaration) and “transformative” (it actually changes us). Here again we see a synthesis between the two potentially competing concerns of salvation entirely based on grace not works, and a strong expectation that those who receive that salvation will indeed experience a transformation of behaviour.
