In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

59 2 John M. G. Barclay 4 Under Grace The Christ-Gift and the Construction of a Christian Habitus Imperatival Grace When Paul pauses, midway through Romans 5, to redraw the map of the cosmos, he sees two, and only two, power structures at work within it (5:12-21). Viewed from the perspective of the Christ-event, all history, even Israel’s history “under the law,” has been subject to the power of sin and propelled toward death (5:12-14, 20). But in Christ, and because of Christ, a new reality has emerged, powerful enough to reverse the tendency to death, and to propel its recipients, contrariwise, towards “eternal life” (5:17, 19, 21). In line with earlier statements in this letter (Rom 3:24; 4:4, 16), Paul refers to this counter-momentum with the term χάρις (5:15, 17, 21), but also, for rhetorical purposes, with a variety of synonyms, χάρισμα (5:15, 16), δωρεά (5:15), and δώρημα (5:16). The extraordinary proliferation of this group of terms (ten times in 5:14-21) matches the motif of “superabundance ” (περισσεία), which also reverberates through this section (5:15, 17, 20). However, the emphasis lies not just on the quantity of this divine gift, but also on its incongruity (cf. 5:5-8). God’s gift in Christ is given not, as one might expect, as a reward to the righteous, but precisely in the depth of sin, out of “many transgressions” (5:16) and following the increase of sin stimulated by the law (5:20). The Christ-gift does not match the worth of its recipients but is given precisely in their abject worthlessness. By this miracle of counterintuitive gift, where sin had thus far “reigned” in death there is now a counter-reign, the reign of “grace,” which operates through “righteousness” in the direction of 60 John M. G. Barclay eternal life (ἵνα . . . ἡ χάρις βασιλεύσῃ διὰ δικαιοσύνης εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, 5:21). Romans 6 spells out the phenomenology of this counter-reign. In baptism, believers are wholly reconstituted. The “old human nature” (the residue of Adam) is put out of action by participation in the cruci fixion of Christ, so that believers are released from slavery to sin (τοῦ μήκετι δουλεύειν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, 6:6). At the same time, drawing on the miraculous resurrection life of Christ, they enter a “newness of life” with a new structure of allegiance (6:4). They are no longer to let sin reign in their mortal bodies (μὴ . . . βασιλευέτω ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐν τῷ θνητῷ ὑμῶν σώματι, 6:12). The echo here of 5:21 (note the common terms, βασιλεύειν, ἁμαρτία, θάνατος/θνητός) implies that instead of sin something else will reign, and from 5:21 we know what that is: χάρις. That implication is confirmed by 6:14, where, using variant language for the same phenomenon, Paul says that “sin will not lord it over you (ὑμῶν κυριεύσει), because you are not under the law but under grace” (ὑπὸ χάριν; cf. 5:20-21). Once again, grace is described as a power, this time more explicitly as a “power over.” Accordingly, the subsequent verses (6:15-23) are replete with the language of “slavery” and “obedience ”: everyone is subject to one power or another, sin or righteousness , and Paul pointedly thanks God that they have been freed from one in order to be enslaved to the other (6:18, 22). There is no neutral zone in Paul’s cosmos, no pocket of absolute freedom, no no-man’s land between the two fronts. The gift of God in Jesus Christ has established not liberation from authority or demand, but a new allegiance, a new responsibility, a new “slavery” under the rule of grace. Although not itself an imperative, grace is imperatival: it bears within itself the imperative to obey. To make such a claim will elicit in some circles howls of protest, on both theological and exegetical grounds. The theological objections will come from those influenced by the rich theology of Martin Luther. Concerned to liberate his contemporaries from their image of Christ as a hyper-demanding legislator, who was preparing to judge them on the final Day, Luther insisted that God comes to us in Christ only as Savior : “Christ is not Moses, not a taskmaster or a lawgiver; he is the dispenser of grace, the Savior, and the Pitier.”1 Drawing a general contrast 1 From the 1535 lectures on Galatians: Luther’s Works [LW] (55 vols.; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1955–1986), vol. 26, p. 178; Dr Martin Luthers Werke [WA] (69 vols.; Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–1993), vol. 401 , p. 298, lines 19–20. [3...

Share