Paul: Liberation of the Oppressed

Dr Christopher Marshall teaches New Testament at the Bible College of New Zealand in Auckland. This blog is taken from his article, Paul and Christian Social Responsibility. For complete texts, please push the link to read.

Many Christians assume that Paul the premier Christian thinker of all time counted social justice commitments to be, at best, secondary to Christian faith, or at worst, a positive threat to it. But such a conclusion, I believe, does a grave disservice to the great apostle, and offers little hope for overcoming the dichotomy between personal faith and public life that afflicts so much of the church today. … All I wish to do is point to three emphases or themes in Paul's writings which, I believe, have great potential for contributing to a Christian theological basis for social commitment.

The first theme is that of God's righteousness. Modern scholarship is virtually unanimous that the leitmotif(主旋律）of the epistle to the Romans is the 'righteousness of God'. The phrase recurs eight times in the letter, and righteousness-terminology features more than 60 times. Paul announces the theme at the outset: 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "The one who is righteous will live by faith"' (Rom. 1: 16-17; cf. 3:21-26).

For Paul, the Christian message is about the manifestation of God's righteousness in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and the accompanying promise that human beings are 'justified by faith'. From this it follows that the church's mission is essentially the proclamation and appropriation of this epoch making event.

So far so good. But what most modern readers fail to realize is that when Paul defines the gospel in terms of God's righteousness, he is using justice language. That is to say, in order to explain what God has accomplished in Christ, and its radical implications for human experience, Paul deliberately, and pervasively, employs the categories and terminology of justice and justice-making.

In so doing, he is affirming that the Christian gospel is all about justice. We often miss this because our English translations obscure(隐藏) a significant fact. The Greek terms for 'righteousness/justice/ justification' derive from the same lexical root (dik stem), as does the corresponding Hebrew terminology (sdq root). They are part and parcel of the same basic concept. But in rendering these terms into English, translators employ terms deriving from two different language stocks - the Latin terminology of 'justice/justification' on the one hand, and the Anglo-Saxon terminology of 'right/righteousness' on the other. As a result, English readers do not readily perceive the intimate connection that exists between the biblical language of 'righteousness' and the notion of justice.

The problem is compounded by the fact that in modern English, 'righteousness' and 'justice' have quite different connotations. Righteousness carries the sense of personal moral purity and religious piety, while justice is concerned with social policy and legal rights. One term belongs to the private realm, the other to the public realm.

But this is not so in Scripture. In biblical usage, righteousness and justice have closely related, often identical, meanings. The basic idea behind the biblical notion of righteousness is 'doing what is right', living in a condition of 'all-rightness', maintaining right relationships, both with God and with other members of the community.

To be righteous is to do justice, that is, to bring about harmony and well-being in all one's relationships, both individual and communal, and especially by defending the oppressed.

The second theme in Paul's writing is that of solidarity with the weak, i.e. his theology of the cross--that we are to imitate Jesus.

The third theme is that of care for God's creation, a theology of cosmic redemption...

Christopher Marshall 博士在新西蘭Auckland聖經學院教授新約課程。本文摘譯自他的文章Paul and Christian Social Responsibility。

很多基督徒以為保羅這位歷史上最偉大的基督徒思想家根本沒有在書信中討論過社會公義的問題--他要麼把社會公義放在基督信仰的次要位置，要麼就是反對。這是對保羅的嚴重誤解，使當今的基督徒無法在社會生活中活出自己的信仰。…

保羅書信有三個重點或主題，Marshall 博士相信都對基督徒的社會責任神學有重要貢獻。

第一個主題是關於神的義。現代聖經學者基本上都同意，“神的義”是羅馬書的主旋律。羅馬書1章16-17節的主題宣告：我不以福音為恥；這福音本是上帝的大能，要救一切相信的，先是猶太人，後是希臘人。因為上帝的義正在這福音上顯明出來；這義是本於信，以至於信。如經上所記：“義人必因信得生。”

對保羅來說，基督徒的信息就是：基督在他的生平、死亡、復活中彰顯了神的公義，並且基督應許人要“因信稱義”，即被上帝接納為自己百姓，進入基督的公義治理國度。所以，教會的使命就是傳揚這件劃時代的事。

可惜，多數的現代讀者沒有意識到，當保羅講論上帝的公義治理這一福音時，他用的是公道或正義措詞justice。也就是說，為了解釋上帝在基督裡成就的拯救之恩，以及所帶來的極其不同的體驗，保羅故意大量使用了實現公平和公義的字眼。

如此，他就確定了基督福音全然是關乎上帝實現公義治理的福音。我們常常錯過這一點，因為英文翻譯掩蓋了這一顯著事實。希臘字的字根dik衍生出關於公平或公義不同詞格的名詞和形容詞，希伯來文的字根sdq也是一樣的字義。可是翻成英文時，譯者除了利用拉丁譯文的justice及衍生字，有時還用了英國日耳曼人的字眼right或righteousness。這樣一來，英文讀者就看不出聖經語言中的“義”與“公正”的密切聯繫了。

因為現代英文的righteousness和justice含義相當不同。Righteousness帶有個人道德純正、敬虔的味道，而justice是講論社會政策的公平或法律權利的公正。一個是私下的，一個在公眾領域。

但在聖經的用法中，righteousness公義和justice公平是密切聯繫的字眼，甚至可以互換--righteousness意味著行為正直、完全公道、與上帝與其他人都維持正當的關係。說一個人有義就是這個意思--照顧個人情面，照顧群體的關係，特別是為受欺負的人發聲。

這樣一來，上帝稱你為義，是因你的信讓你與他有了和好的關係。根據羅1:16-17，保羅說的就是：這福音關乎上帝的公平正義，要救一切族裔的人--首先是猶太人，然後是其他人，要讓所有人知道上帝是公義可靠的。上帝的公正從他的信實屬性而來，以至於人人可以信靠他。如經上所記，行為正直的人必信靠上帝而生活。（中文的“公義”觀念非常類似，主要不是講個人性情，乃是講社會公平。）

至於羅3:21-26所解釋的上帝的義，你可以參考我幾年前寫的一篇重譯筆記：稱義的新觀。我發現賴特的解經觀點和本文的論證吻合--有義就必顧念關係，公正待人，類似於中國人的“講義氣”說法。

保羅書信的第二個主題是與弱者團結認同，即稱為十字架神學的種種講論—我們都要效法耶穌的捨己精神。

他的第三個主題是保護上帝創造的萬物，即全體受造之物都盼望有一天得贖，從敗壞中得釋放…

英文全文請閲讀Marshall 博士Paul and Christian Social Responsibility一文。