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New Testament Studies

Table of Contents - 2009 - Volume 55, Issue 03  

Articles

It is No Longer I Who Live: Justification by Faith and Participation in Christ in Martin Luther's Exegesis of Galatians*

Stephen Chestera1

a1 North Park Theological Seminary, 3225 West Foster Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60625, USA email: schester@northpark.edu

Abstract

Traditional Protestant accounts of Paul's theology are often criticized for their inability to relate justification by faith and the participatory categories of Paul's thought. The two are driven apart by sharp distinctions between declaring and making righteous, between justification as a once for all external act and regeneration as an internal lifelong process. The way is left open for justification to be treated as a legal fiction. Contrary to popular misconceptions, these difficulties do not stem from Martin Luther. In his exegesis of Paul, Luther intimately connects justification by faith and participation in Christ, integrating the two effectively. This article explores the manner in which Luther does so, evaluating his exegetical conclusions and assessing their relevance for contemporary attempts to interpret Paul's theology.

Keywords

  • Galatians;
  • Luther;
  • justification;
  • participation;
  • imputation;
  • objective/subjective genitive

Footnotes

* An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Paul Seminar of the British New Testament Conference in 2005. I am grateful to all those who participated in the discussion on that occasion. This article is part of larger project on Reformation readings of Paul subsequently to appear as a book with Eerdmans.

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