Overview
Bruce Metzers The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, & Content takes the reader through a thorough tour of the new testament's fundamental elements as stipulated by Paul. Paul's writings which mainly arose from the crucible of missions he engaged in with the aim of educating and sustaining newly found Christians; form the basis of the Christian faith. His mission consequently led to a major reformation amid tight resistance both from staunch Jews and the Roman Empire (winter and Clark, 44). Through his preaching in a series of missionary trips and prison time, he founded, contacted and was responsible for several Churches. He also contributed the most to the content available in the New Testament.
Bruce Metzger gives a summary of all Pauline epistles, issues of authorship, destination, and missionary trips in 8main leading ideas as follows:
1. God as Father
2. Humankind as sinners
3. God’s grace
4. Redemption
5. Justification through faith
6. Sanctification and the new life in Christ
7. The Church
8. The Kingdom of God
God as father
Bruce Metzger asserts that Jesus Christ and God the father (according to Paul) are the same breaths. The testimony of Paul, he says, is all the more impressive when he chooses to portray Christ as fully divine by using the same preposition (as in Jesus Christ and God the Father) for both persons of the trinity. Metzger goes on to say that when one considers Paul's strict Jewish monotheistic background and thorough training; his statements are strange as he exalts Jesus Christ to such a level so freely. Most surprising is the fact that Paul does not argue it out, reason or defend the issue of Jesus Christ's status and either dobruce Metzger on paules he receives any resistance or negative opinion from within the Church. According to Thomas Schreiner, Paul's theology is God-centered. He asserts that by Paul declaring that all things come from God and were made for his glory, He focuses and centers his theology on God. He goes on to put Christ and God together.
Moreover, Metzger goes on to say that besides scriptures that teach equality of the Son with the Father, there are others that teach that the Son submits to the Father. Of the 1300 occurrences of the word 'God' in the new testament, '500' occur in Pauline letter. This frequency proves the focus of Paul's teaching in relation to other writers
Humankind as sinners
Paul, according to Kenneth Baker, was not a pure dualist; depicting an all-embracing eternal reality that was partly good and partly evil. He was rather hierarchical dualist; citing that there existed God, who is perfect and just and evil orchestrated by Satan. He does not speculate on the origin of evil but focuses his belief in the most powerful Being. Paul, Baker, goes on to say, portrayed evil as influential and fleeting but will surely not triumph. Until then, every single person is considered a sinner before redemption and will be trapped by the devil every day of their lives. The reality of God as is evil is intrinsic in Paul's theology and builds the base of his teaching on deliverance.
Redemption by blood
Metzger, citing the illustration by Paul of the inability of any natural sane man laying their lives for another man because of love, enhances the fact that God has shown great depths of unmatched expressions of His love to mankind who is lost. Christ died on behalf of all men who are willing to acknowledge the fact. Redemption from sin is provided by the paying of the price. This payment, Clark explains, is the logic behind the importance and validity of Redemption (Also equivalent to a ransom). Christians, like prisoners, Paul shows, are released by the payment of a ransom by Jesus Christ's death on the Cross. The cross that was reserved by Roman Lords for punishing the worst crimes in the land was a sign of agony and shame. This shame was what the Jewish religious leaders pressed Pilate for thinking the death sentence would prove to the public that Jesus was not the Messiah; not knowing they were fulfilling Scripture (Clark, 23).
Justification through Faith
Occurring 92 times in the New Testament, Paul mentions Justification a high 58 times (Westerholm, 15). Justification is portrayed by Paul with new definition states Westerholm in Israel's law and the Church's Faith. Justification as a legal stand that depicted one not innocent but exempted from the crime one is accused.
Faith (ek pisteos) reveals the human part of the process of salvation. Man needs to recognize and accept the facts about Christ, Surrender and Obey by believing and trusting the teachings of Christ. Out of genuine faith comes the submission to God in response to sacred instruction. The sinner’s faith is, therefore, vital to their salvation. It, however, according to Metzger creates controversy and conflict with the affirmation of an unconditional covenant. In a letter to the Romans, Westerholm notes, Paul never separates obedience from faith. In the fact, obedience, according to Paul derives its genesis from faith. Moreover, Paul asserts that dying to sin is vital in the justification taking effect such that one makes a resolution no longer to submit to being buried in baptism. Obedience from the heart, Paul observes, delivers one from sin hence justification by faith.
It must be emphasized, assets Herman, that the phrase through Christ is included to complete the statement and make it valid and scripturally accurate. Justification and peace with God are only available through the Lord Jesus Christ. The peace is, therefore, Herman notes, bestowed upon believers by means of the sacrificial mission of Christ.
The Church
The word Church occurs 60 times in every Pauline epistle except 2Timothy and Titus. Christ chose to have a corporate body with individual members from all peoples of the earth; redeemed from the earliest Christians to date. In Paul's writings, Metzger observes, and the term that denotes the entity or body is 'Church.' Although God no longer deals with Jews as a people and chose to view persons as individuals, His saving acts, Machen explains in The origin of Paul's Religion, extend to the entire group of Christians found all over the earth. In this Church; Herman in his book An Outline of His Theology points out Paul's comment that believers are born into it.
In another Pauline letter, Pauline informs the Christians that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and should be treated as such. Living Holy sanctified lives to create a conducive environment for the dwelling of the Holy Spirit.
God’s Grace
The apostle Paul affirms that through Christ, we can by faith, obtain access to this grace. Grace is according to Paul, undeserved and free. Dunn and James in their book The Theology of Paul the Apostle explain that Grace as portrayed by Paul as given regardless of one’s effort and is given without measure. However, believers should not sin so that grace may abound. Paul is rhetoric in pointing out that although there is an abundance of Grace, Christians should take it for granted even though it is free.
Paul's theology is undoubtedly the basis and foundation of the Modern Christian Faith and the most quoted and referred to of all Scripture.
Work Cited
B. Winter and A. Clark, The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting 2010. Print.
Dunn, James D. G. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids (Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998. Print.
J. G. Machen, The Origin of Paul's Religion .2011. Print
Ridderbos, Herman N. Paul: An Outline of His Theology. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1997. Print.
S. Westerholm, Israel's Law and the Church's Faith. Eccestric. H. S. Tweedy, 2009. Print
