Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 151:601 (Jan 1994)
Article: The Center of Pauline Theology
Author: Don N. Howell, Jr.

BSac 151:601 (Jan 94) p. 50

The Center of Pauline Theology

Don N. Howell, Jr.

[Don N. Howell, Jr., is Associate Professor of New Testament, Japan Bible Seminary, Tokyo, Japan.]

The quest for the “center” or integrating truth for the whole of Pauline thought has produced a picture far from uniform.1 The common feature of most attempts at integrating Pauline thought is their reference point in either soteriology or Christology. In the soteriological domain the arguments have tended to polarize around juridical versus participationist concepts of redemption encountered in Paul. Advocacy for the traditional center of justification by faith (the juridical view) runs from Luther to modern Lutheran and Reformed theologians.2 Focus on the believer’s incorporation into Christ (the participationist view) gained its greatest impulse from Schweitzer and continues in its modern form with Sanders.3 The justification-participation debate, then, provides an arena in which to evaluate the feasibility of a soteriological center for Pauline theology.

The Traditional Center: Juridical Righteousness

The Historical Context

History found a man of destiny when Martin Luther rediscovered the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith apart from the works of the Law and thereby sparked the Protestant Reformation. For Luther the doctrine of justification became “the principal doctrine of Christianity,” the “touchstone by which we can

BSac 151:601 (Jan 94) p. 51

judge most surely and freely about all doctrines, works, forms of worship, and ceremonies of all men.”4 Luther’s elevation of justification to the status of a center was incorporated in the various Lutheran confessional statements, especially Article Four of the Augsburg Confession, as documented by Reumann.5 Lutheran and Reformed interpreters have continued to defend the centrality of justification by faith, though Luther’s original sole focus on the forensic side of justification has been considerably broadened to include its ethical dimensions as well.6

Judged by its attestation, the δικαιόω (“to declare righteous”) word group was an integral force in the apostle’s articulation of the Christian gospel. The adjective δίκαιος (“righteous”) occurs 79 times in the New Testament, of which 17 (22 percent) occur in Paul’s epistles. The noun δικαιοσύνη...