Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Pistis Christou debate at Bible Gateway

Over at BibleGateway are some entries about the "pistis christou" debate with thoughts so far from Tom Schreiner and Craig Blomberg (my own entry is now up).

1 comment:

Steven Coxhead said...

The phrase the faith of Christ cannot be understood unless the terminology of the works of the law has first been understood.

The phrase the works of the law is Jewish code for obedience to the Mosaic covenant. They viewed the Mosaic covenant as a gracious covenant which required works, i.e., a commitment to keeping their covenantal obligations in the context of grace.

Perhaps we need to translate the works of the law as obedience to the law of Moses or faithfulness to the Mosaic covenant to resolve the ambiguity for present day readers and theologians, and then this might help us to understand how the phrase the faith of Christ should be understood.

I still reckon the issue was: What must we do in order to be saved? Pointing out that Christ was faithful is one (important) thing, but how do I respond to that? That was the issue of the day, and it is that broader context which makes me favor an objective genitive for the phrase the faith of Christ in Galatians and Romans.