The Theology of Grace According to the Pauline Corpus
(2024) Versöhnung: Theologische Perspektiven: Festschrift für Martin Leiner — ISBN: [978-3-525-50028-6], p. 59-78, published
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- What is grace? Christian theology proposes a dossier on grace so dense and opaque, so mired in polemics, that it inspires legitimate apprehension – a strange fate for a notion that actually evokes a freely-given gift and implies the hope of the glory of God. Ploughed in all directions, this field has no shortage of workers; one is always the last to enter, behind so many others. Within the confines of the article format, this study limits its scope to the Pauline corpus. The economy of grace as it unfolds in teaching to the first Christian generations can only be fully considered with reference to the fertile soil of the religion of Israel and the Greco-Roman cultural context. It is, therefore, appropriate to start with the Old Testament (1), before examining the theology of the Pauline corpus situated within the Greco-Roman context and first-century Judaism (2). It appears that grace designates the relational dimension of God’s gift in Jesus Christ. God’s freedom is affirmed in the election of Israel and the calling of the chosen; in Jesus, it sets in motion the new dynamic of a free, superabundant, universal gift that commits the faithful to conform what they are and what they do to this magnanimity through the expression of gratitude to God and solidarity with their neighbour. The theme of grace emphasizes the powerful work of God, who frees man from sin and death to establish him in peace and make him reign “in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (Rm 5,17b). Absent from the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, the notion of grace is an action noun like the theme of the Kingdom, which corresponds to certain aspects of grace in the preaching of Jesus in these gospels. Like grace, the Kingdom is God’s gift par excellence, which he alone has the initiative to grant, and everything must be sacrificed in order to acquire it (parables of the treasure and the pearl; Mt 13,44-46), and like grace, the Kingdom is the divine energy that grows in those whom it penetrates in order for life to triumph (parables of the mustard seed and the leaven; Mt 13,31-33, and par.). Where the Kingdom focuses attention on the eschatological sovereignty of God and the paradoxical kingship of Jesus, grace signifies the act of liberation of man and the active work of God in him to lead him, if he consents, to final glory. This study shows that the Pauline theology of grace embraces the scope of God’s great purpose, which the Bible presents in so many different ways. In short, God shares himself with the faithful in his Son and the Spirit in order that they may live 60 Benoît Bourgine in the freedom of love, which is his own life. By grace, God places his human partner in harmony with the Trinitarian relationship. Grace conveys from the depths of God to the depths of the human heart the pulse of unquestioning love, creator of communion, as expressed in the concluding formula of 2 Corinthians: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all!”
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Bourgine, B. (2024). The Theology of Grace According to the Pauline Corpus. In Francesco Ferrari (Hg.), Susan Baumert (Hg.), Charalampos Karpouchtsis (Hg.), Georg Schmolz (Hg.) (ed.), Versöhnung: Theologische Perspektiven: Festschrift für Martin Leiner (vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage, p. p. 59-78). vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/237132