Publisher's Synopsis
This book 3 in the series, Understanding the Soteriology of Paul, goes deeper into the issues of how Paul and New Testament soteriology are being misunderstood and how our New Testaments are being misunderstood and mistranslated by Protestant translators. Book 1, Paul is Misunderstood and Mistranslated (approx. 400 pages) shows how Paul was not teaching that one is saved through a mental faith alone separate from obedience to what Christ was requiring for salvation, and that Paul was not teaching that one cannot do anything to be saved. He was teaching a faith perspective on pursuing justification/righteousness and salvation (cf. Rom. 9:30-32) in contrast with the Law of Moses and what Paul came out of--Pharisaic legalism (the Oral Torah, later written down as the Talmud and Mishnah), not with what Christ was requiring. And that being saved through obeying what Christ was requiring was being saved by grace (Titus 3) and through faith (Gal. 3!) as opposed to a works approach of merely checking boxes which can lead to spiritually dead legalism. Paul's context was not the medieval Catholic Church, Paul was helping emerging Christianity to separate from the Law of Moses as a requirement and to pursue righteousness and salvation from a perspective of faith (Rom. 9:30-32). Paul's rabbinic and hyperbolic approach that was about faith "from first to last" (Rom 1:17, NIV!) was taken too literally and legalistically by post medieval Gentile theologians putting a mental faith above all of Christ's salvation requirements. Paul was teaching a deep internal heart faith, a working (Gal. 5:6), faithful (by definition!) and obedient (Rom. 1:5; 15:18; 16:26; cf. Rom. 6:16ff.) faith. As it turns out, Paul was teaching a new perspective. Book 2 in the series on understanding Paul's soteriology shows how there is only one gospel but two perspectives in the NT on obeying Christ's salvation requirements--the straightforward perspective taught by Jesus and His original apostles and Paul's "through faith...not by works" perspective aimed against the LOM as a requirement and against legalism. Book 3 shows that, as in agreement with such as N. T. Wright, Paul was not teaching a new and different way to be saved different from what Christ was teaching, Paul was teaching people who had already been saved (Acts 2! 19:1-7) through obeying what Christ was requiring, that they had been (cf. Eph. 2:8-9, compare translations) through faith. This latest book in the series shows that when Paul's teachings are viewed as a new way to be saved, it clashes with what Jesus was (and Jesus' original apostles were) teaching (Acts 2:37-41; cf. also His brother James' writings in Jms. 2). But when it is recognized that Paul was not teaching a new and different gospel (cf. Gal. 1) but the gospel of Christ (Rom.1) from a rabbinic "it's all about faith" (cf. Rom. 1:17) perspective, all of the many problems go away! And when this is understood, there can be much more unity within Protestantism and even between Protestantism and the more ancient witnesses to Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox)! Book 1 and especially book 3 show that Paul was teaching a practical soteriology, salvation through the faith of (belonging to, for scholars--the natural sense of the Greek genitive) Christ. Book 3 goes deeper into the subject of how there are two perspectives in the NT on justification/righteousness. It shows that trying to understand Paul as teaching a new and different gospel from Christ has resulted in the Catholic vs. Protestant train wreck. Viewing Paul's "through faith" teachings as a new and different way to be saved (immediate, full and complete salvation), in contrast to what Jesus was teaching, has been the problem. The question in scholarship, "Jesus or Paul?" can and should be viewed as Jesus and Paul, not Apples to Apples, Apples to Oranges! There is one gospel, two perspectives on the one gospel--Jesus' and P
