Something from Michael Bird's book on Paul

I have read the Bible from cover to cover many times, and I have to admit that I cannot easy detect the notion of imputed righteousness in the texts.  I cannot, for example, recall the words "imputation" and "imputed" in the Scripture (or have I missed them?). I have therefore referred to Michael Bird's A Bird's-Eye View of Paul for help. Here is what he says on pages 96-98.

But what about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness as the basis of justification? That is the notion that God imputes the obedience and merits of Jesus to believers and in turn imputes their sins to Jesus on the cross. Well, the fact of the matter is that we cannot proof-text imputation. If we think we can cite 2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 4:1-5, 1 Corinthians 1:30 or Philippians 3:6-9 and find the entire package of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience and the imputation of our sin to Christ embedded in all these texts, we are sadly mistaken. These texts all come close to saying something like that, but fall short of doing so…

The imputation of Christ’s righteousness is a necessary and logical inference to make, as it allows us coherently to hold together a number of ideas and concepts in Paul’s story of salvation. Although no text explicitly says that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believers, nonetheless, without some kind of theology of imputation a lot of what Paul says about justification does not make sense. Imputation is a synthetic way of holding together a number of themes that clearly point in the direction of imputation, or something very much akin to it…

Taken together, the language of ‘reckoning’, the emphasis on Christ’s obedience and faithfulness, the representative nature of Adam and Christ, the references to union with Christ, the fact that righteousness is explicitly called a ‘gift’ and the forensic nature of righteousness all make sense with some kind of theology of imputation. The mistake comes when scholars, even well-intentioned ones, try to read the entire package back into certain texts of Paul’s letters – it just does not come out that way. I concur with Leon Morris, who said that imputation is a corollary of the identification of the believer with Christ. (Here Bird refers to Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3^rd edition [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2984], p. 282.)

Counter-imperial gospel (?) - Some interesting thing from Michael Bird

In a recent post in his blog, Michael Bird said that he's increasingly convinced that the gospel would have been perceived as counter-imperial. Here is an excerpt from his post.

"Paul’s colleagues in Thessalonica were mobbed because: 'They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus' (Acts 17:7).  This story reminds of an an episode from Caligula’s life described by Suetonius (Caligula 22):

'Upon hearing some kings, who came to the city to pay him court, conversing together at supper, about their illustrious descent, he exclaimed,

Eis koiranos eto, eis basileus.
Let there be but one prince, one king...'"

Click here to see the rest of Michael Bird's blog post (6th September 2011).

Some quotes in Walter Hansen's commentary on Philippians (from Mike Bird's blog)

In one of his latest posts Mike Bird has cited some good stuff in Walter Hansen's commentary on Philippians. Here are two of those quotes.

"One of the biggest highlights of the book is the discussions on “The Gospel of Christ” (pp. 31-32). Hansen writes: “The content of the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord. Pulsating with praise for the humility and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Christ hymn (2:6-11) is the heart of the letter … Living according to the gospel is a process of pressing on to apprehend the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ and being apprehended him him (3:12). Progress in the Christian life is not measured by ‘righteousness based on the law’; instead, it begins with the gift of ‘righteousness that comes from God through faith in Christ’ (3:6-9).”"

"Enjoyable also is the discussion of the meaning of union with Christ (pp. 87-90). Hansen writes: “When he looked at the cross of Christ, Paul thought, ‘That is my destiny! As Christ embraced the cross in humble obedience to God, so I desire to embrace my death as a witness to my union with Christ.”"

Click here for more from Mike Bird's post.

Michael Bird on the cross - death and resurrection of Christ

Michael Bird's recent post is well written. Here are some excerpts.

"David Bebbington noted that in the nineteenth interdenominational newspaper the The British Weekly the most frequently preached text was Gal 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer life, but Christ lives in me. The life I life in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”."

"Christian discipleship is cruciformity, being conformed to the pattern of the cross, dying to self in service to God. That is is what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus daily (Luke 9:23) and to be crucified to the world (Gal 6:14)."

"We have to remember, that cross and resurrection are an indissoluable unity. The cross without the resurrection is just martyrdom, at the most an act of solidarity with the persecuted nation, and at worst a wrongly calculate disaster. Conversely, the resurrection without the cross is a miraculous intrusion into history, a redemptive-historical enigma, and a paranormal freak show with indeterminable significance. But together the cross and resurrection constitute the fulcrum upon which God’s intention to repossess the world for himself is launched and enacted."

Click here for Mike Bird's post. (I would like to add that without death there is no resurrection. Both the death and resurrection are important. In fact, his life is also important to our Christian life and faith.)

1,100 attending a conference at Wheaton to listen to Tom Wright - Why?

Tom Wright will be speaking at a conference at Wheaton College, a well-known Evangelical seminary in the world. Apparently 1,100 people will be attending. Michael Bird has posted something in his blog about why so many are attending the conference at Wheaton.

Click here for the link.

"The End of Reformed Evangelical OT Scholars" (Michael Bird)

Something to ponder!

Michael Bird, an Aussie New Testament scholar from the Reformed tradition, post a link in his blog entitled "The End of Reformed Evangelical OT Scholars". It is about the resignation of two very respected Old Testament scholars from Reformed seminaries. One of them is Bruce Waltke, who is a well-known professor at Regent College, Vancouver (which is widely thought of as a good evangelical college). The other is Tremper Longman, who is also a well-known scholar.

Click here for the link to his blog.

Another post is also worth reading. It is from Professor John Stackhouse at Regent College. Click here for the link.