Grace as Event

Today I gave my final lecture at HTC. It was on 1 Corinthians 15. I've read over this passage many times, but in my preparation I was struck by Paul's usage of "grace" in 15.10, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them-- though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me" (1 Co 15:10 NRSV). Paul says that because he was so unworthy and so unexpected a candidate to become an apostle, he responded to "grace" with a more concerted ministerial effort than his contemporaries. And yet that response Paul again attributes to God's grace. In effect, Paul says that he encountered God's grace, a grace that demanded his response, and now he attributes that very response to God's grace working through him as well! Thus, God's grace works in an initial call and produces the neccesary effects in its subject. This signifies that Bultmann was right when had a section in his NT Theology entitled: "Grace as Event".

Colossians and Gospel

In his NIB commentary, Andrew Lincoln write:

"Colossians is polemical, because, like the Paul of Galatians in a different set of circumstances, it will not allow God's gracious activity in Christ to be undermined. To add new practices and regulations to the gospel is to suggest not only that believers are disqualified unless they adhere to them but also, more fundamentally, that what God has already done in Christ is deficient. Colossians is essentially Pauline in having none of this. In its defense of the apostolic gospel, Colossians does not make grace a separate theme so much as an underlying presupposition that it reinforces through both the content and the mode of its theologizing. This presupposition is made explicit in the very first mention of the gospel, where to hear the gospel and to comprehend the grace of God are equated (1:5-6). From then on, the insistence on what God has already achieved in Christ for the cosmos and for the church and the 'realized eschatology,' with its stress on the present experience of the benefits of end-time salvation, are in the service of this gospel of grace ... For Colossians the gospel is grace, and no response to it can depart from the foundation by adding human achievements as a requirement. Instead, authentic Christian living is motivated by a response to and empowered by an appropriation of the undeserved favor of God in Christ".

Paul and Sola Gratia

Can Paul's theology be summarized as an expression of sola gratia? If faith and obedience are the necessary means or necessary evidences of salvation, is this really by grace alone? Recently Francis Watson has written: ‘The Reformational assumption that Pauline theology is summed up in the phrase sola gratia should be treated with considerable caution’ (Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, p. 346). In my mind, Paul’s remarks in Gal. 1.15-16 and 1 Cor. 15.8-10 seem to correspond remarkably well with a sola gratia principle indeed. What Watson has undermined is perhaps more akin to a monergism that leaves no room for conversion and obedience as the necessary pre-condition of salvation. The only genuinely form of monergism in this regard is probably some type of universalism. Incidentally, I hope to have a seven page review of Watson's book out soon, it's been a cracking read, easily one of the top five books in Pauline studies in the last ten years.

The Gospel According to Les Miserable

Once upon a time I fancied a career as a lyricist, and I wanted to write the lyrics for Broadway and West End shows and be like Tim Rice, Oscar Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, and David Zippel. I abandoned that for a military career and I abandoned that for a biblical studies career. But I've always maintained my love for musical theatre. My favourite is Les Miz.

In many ways the figures of Valjean and Javert represent two different responses to grace. Both of them experience unprecedent, unwarranted, and undeserved mercy. Valjean assaults the local bishop and steals the bishop's expensive cutlery, and yet bishop lies to the police in order to protect Valjean. He saves Valjean from prison. Valjean is amazed, astounded, and broken in the face of this grace. Valjean receives it, embraces it, and is tranformed by it.

Inspector Javert, on the other hand, is a man with a mission. He hunts Valjean relentlessly, he never asks for mercy nor ever gives any. When Valjean saves Javert's life (when Valjean has every reason to kill him), Javert is stunned and insulted by this act of grace. He mocks it, derides it, and ultimately destroys himself because of it.

Javert and Valjean represent two different responses to the gospel of God's grace. Either we can be like Valjean and weep for our sins, crumble in amazement at the depths and power of God's love, and allow grace to consume and transform us with the result that we show grace to others. Our else we can be like Javert, and say in effect, 'I would rather die than live in your debt'. That is the story and scandal of grace.

Here is the lyrics to Valjean's soliloquy:

What have I done? Sweet Jesus, what have I done?
Became a thief in the night, become a dog on the run
And have I fallen so far, and is the hour so late
That nothing remains but the cry of my hate
The cries in the dark that nobody hears
Here where I stand at the turning of the years

If there’s another way to go, I missed it twenty long years ago
My life was a war that could never be won
They gave me a number and murdered Valjean
When they chained me and left me for dead
Just for stealing a mouthful of bread

Yet why did I allow this man
To touch my soul and teach me love
He treated me like any other,
He gave me his trust, He called me Brother
My life he claims for God above
Can such things be
For I had come to hate the world, this world that always hated me

Take an eye for an eye, turn your heart into stone
This is all I have lived for, this is all I have known
One word from him and I’d be back
Beneath the lash, upon the rack
Instead, he offers me my freedom
I feel my shame inside me like a knife
He told me that I have a soul
How does he know
What Spirit comes to move my life
Is there another way to go

I am reaching but I fall and the night is closing in
And I stare into the void, to the whirlpool of my sin
I’ll escape now from the world
From the world of Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is nothing nowAnother story must begin!

PS, listen to the version with Philip Quast playing Javert: he is fantastic! (an Aussie too).