Chapter Seventeen: The Deliverance of God and Its Rhetorical Implications
S.1. Preamble (p677)
S.2. The Meaning of (Greek: Dikaiosune Theou
2.1 Premable to the (Greek: Dikaious Theou) Debate: R 1.17, 3.5, 21, 22, 25, 26; 10.3 (2x) (p677). More or less following Kasemann (p678); Protestantism and the vicarious effecting of innocence; Catholicism and ethical transformation (p679) a false dichotomy; and the false distinction in God between being and acting (p680); false methodology; semantic claims (p681); different understandings of justice and of wrongness; rightness and justice do not necessarily correlate; Paul and Teacher differ on nature of rightness as related to the actions of God in Christ (p682); problems with translation (p683); an event; singular; saving (p684); liberating (p485); life giving; eschatological, resurrecting (p686). The genitive (p687); arrived at Kasemann's definition: "God's sovereignty over the world revealing itself eschatologically in Jesus"; Christ as an event, a dynamic gift.
2.3 A Possible Intertextual Relationship: Hays R 1.17 cf Psalm 98.2-3; kingship and the enthronement of Jesus (p688-92).
Excursus: The Relationship between Right Action and Kingship in the Psalter (p893-94)
Bossuet’s paradigm of unfolding from Judaism to Hellenism and Wright's reply (p695); Kingship in R (p696-97); R 1.17 "The deliverance of God" (p698); "God the king has acted to save his Messianic son" (p699); Wright and Dunn on Convenantism (p700-01).
2.4 Romans 1.16 and the Discourse of Divine Kingship: "... the right and saving act of God, the divine king, in resurrecting Christ, his appointed royal representative - evokes connotations of divine wisdom" (p702); translation issues in R 1.16 (p703-04).
S.3. The Rhetorical Functions of Romans 1.17 and 3.21.26
"God's right act of eschatological salvation in Christ, ... of the divine king effected through his earthly representative ..." (p705); the Teacher's view of God is Christianised but not Christian, so fundamentally different conceptions of God are at stake at Rome. "... Justification Theory mistakes the presuppositions of the Teacher for the presuppositions of Paul, thereby assimilating Paul's Gospel to the parameters of the Teacher" (p706). Atonement again (p707): in R 1.17 and 3.21-26 express traditional view of atonement: "... the problem is defined in large measure in terms of the oppression and enslavement of humanity by the evil power of sin (... Sin) from which liberation must be effected - and is ('Thanks be to God') by way of participation in Christ's execution and Resurrection. ... commitment to the notion of sin in singular terms" (p708) Paul attributes to his auditors his view of atonement by Resurrection when they hold with atonement by death, reflecting Jewish ritual. "Atonement is effected for Christians ... as they participate in Christ's death and resurrection; this effects a much deeper liberation from the very power of sin, not merely cleansing from sins. ... their very being is transformed and they enter a new world" (p709), pneumatologically drawn into the present (p710).