Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2017 12:29 pm
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Galatians 3:23-25
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
There is a scholarly view that „faith“ in Gal 3:23-25 should be understand in a cosmic and eschatological sense. Benjamin Schliesser wrote (tranlation by Wayne Coppins)
Paul evidently understands pistis here [in Gal 3.23, 25] as a powerful eschatological event that marks a turn of the times and opposes the supremacy of the law that was previously in force in order to supplant this once and for all. Faith and Law come upon the stage as personified entities at a certain point in time of the salvation-historical drama. They possess a cosmic dimension that determines the reality as a whole and yet simultaneously a personal dimension that determines the entire person. Through the revelation of faith God has radically transformed the reality of the world and placed it under a new light. From this results the designations with which pistis has been understood [in scholarship]: “eschatological event of salvation” (F. Neugebauer), “divine event-reality”, “transubjective entity” (H. Binder), or “transindividual overall phenomenon” (P. Stuhlmacher).
If that's what Paul meant, could anyone explain how we should imagine this scenario? Is it similar to the esoteric „Age of Aquarius”? And how can Paul claim that there is a new age of faith if he praised the faith of Abraham?
Faith has always been the means by which humans relate to God and here Paul is proposing a new way of relating to God .
Abram has faith in God and Paul has faith in the same statement made by the same God. In Genesis 15 God says to Abram: ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ The same God said the same words to Paul in his vision.
In Genesis ’ 5 He [ God ]brought him [Abram] outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be' . Both Paul and Jesus are descendants of Abram
Faith is the language used by God when communicating with humans and its grammar is free of contradictions ; it also admits different formal expressions of the same statement of faith.
In Genesis 6 And he [Abram] believed the LORD; and the LORD * reckoned it to him [Abram] as righteousness.
The descendants of Abram for Paul is the whole of humanity ( and extra-terrestrial ' humans' existing somewhere in the Universe), But some people persisted in restricting the divine favour to the ones under the Law. Why!!??
Paul would like to take his people with him into the promised land as a brother of Moses, as well as the people of Canaan and Palestinians and ...