The Narrow Path Ministries

Paidion wrote:Have not the Calvinist "doctrines of grace" made some pretty heavy inroads into the evangelical and fundamentalist understanding? Is this not reflected in the latter's definition of "grace" as "the unmerited favour of God?"

What happened to the understanding of "grace" as "the enablement of God" as Paul taught in Titus Chapter Two?

That understanding has persisted in the Catholic Church to this day, although the Catholics also define "grace" in other ways as well.

Is this not reflected in the latter's definition of "grace" as "the unmerited favour of God?"

Christian theology, so Sanders and Wright argue, has seen Judaism as a legalistic religion that was somewhat akin to the heresy of Pelagianism, where human beings had to perform good works or keep a religious law in order to be acceptable to God, or to be ‘saved’. By contrast, Jesus comes and offers salvation and forgiveness by grace, as opposed to the Pharisees who insisted that one had to ‘earn’ salvation. This same hypothesis has also been read into Paul. Protestant exegesis has read Paul – especially Romans and Galatians – as being about justification by faith over against ‘earning’ salvation by performing good works.

Both Sanders and Wright (amongst others) have shown that this interpretation of Jesus, Paul, and historical Judaism is almost entirely without foundation historically speaking. The Jews did not believe that they ‘earned’ salvation by observing the law, and neither were Paul and Jesus offering salvation whereby one is justified freely by faith (as opposed to religious works.)

What the Jews did believe however was that keeping the law zealously was their part of the bargain as God’s covenant people. They had already been chosen by grace, and the keeping of the law was a response of gratitude to God. Keeping the law did not get you into God’s people, but you kept the law to stay in. This way of keeping the law was not a form of proto-pelagianism, but what Sanders termed ‘covenantal nomism’. As Wright puts it, “keeping the Jewish law was the human response the God’s covenantal initiative.”
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This is the heart of Paul’s message in Romans. He is not proposing a system of righteousness by faith as opposed to a righteousness that is earned by good works. God’s righteousness is his covenant faithfulness, which is nothing less than his plan to defeat sin and evil once and for all. He has done this in Jesus Christ, and by raising Jesus from the dead God has vindicated him. Those who believe the Gospel and are faithful to Christ are likewise declared to be ‘righteous’, that is to say, God will show them to be in the right and also raise them from the dead. God does this from his own righteous status as judge, but this is not the same thing as God giving this status to human beings.
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And I commented:
(Wright does not deny justification by faith, or that God declares us to be righteous. He simply states that these things do not mean what Protestant theology has generally read them to mean).