2 - Faith Grounded in Self-Sacrifice

Summary

This chapter clarifies the relation between sacrificial love and human faith in God in Paul’s gospel of divine self-sacrifice. Paul offers a critically important but disputed connection between the two: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working [or made effective] through love” (Gal. 5:6). The chapter contends that Paul understood faith in God to have a formative basis in divine agapē, and that this basis secures a foundational role for divine grace. The case benefits from a neglected appreciation of a bimodal, combined middle and passive voice of a participle for Paul. The result is Paul’s view of a divinely intended ground and expression of faith in divine agapē. The chapter explains how this approach illuminates Paul’s view on the fulfillment-expression of the law of God in divine agapē. It thus offers an underappreciated basis for the importance of such agapē in faith and in pursuing the law, according to Paul. It also relates faith in God to dying with Christ, as sharing in his obedience to God.