Justification Through New Creation

In this paper the reader will hopefully gain knowledge of the article by Frank Macchia entitled “Justification through New Creation: The Holy Spirit and the Doctrine by which the church stands and falls.”. In this paper the reader should hopefully understand what the article is about by a summarization of the article itself. On the other hand the reader will be presented with the key arguments that the author expounds as well as getting a in depth critiquing of the article. Lastly the reader will get an idea of what the writer of this paper gained, learned, and took away from the research of this article.
First, to introduce the article to the reader, the reader needs a general summary of the article itself. In the article Justification through …show more content…
It starts off by informing the readers of the Hebrew understanding of the term righteousness. The Hebrew people knew righteousness as that “saving righteousness” and a righteousness that is revealed in God’s redemptive act’s among the people of God (Macchia). In essence the readers get an understanding of how the Hebrew people saw and understood God as. The times they failed or sinned they knew that God provided that saving grace to grace them so to say with redemption. For instance look at the life of David, a man after God’s own heart but before that wasn’t David after Bathesheba’s heart when she was already in a marriage covenant with another man? David knew that he was in need of God’s grace, there are multiple examples of the prayers that he uttered in the book of Psalms so this word “justification” isn’t new to anyone that studies the Bible. Brevard Childs, a Professor of The Old Testament points out that this understanding of justification carries over into the New Testament but in this case the Bible emphasizes on the saving grace instead of the revenging God in this portrayal of justification. Karl Barth explained justification like this, justification is also God’s act of faithfulness to the covenant promises to creation, establishing justice for creation by delivering it from sin , oppression, and death, and, at the same time, setting things right between …show more content…
This section is based on theology from the Apostle Paul, Paul knew there was something more to this “justification”, he knew that it was merely more than the law of the land. Through God’s saving act in Christ and the Spirit, believers are now able to fully receive that grace that the world longs for. Paul assumes, for example, in Romans 7-8, that new creation through Christ and the Spirit, and not the law, represents the locus of God’s saving righteousness, for what the law could not do, God did by sending God’s Son into the world (Maachia). In order to receive this justification, this grace of God one must be believer and one must understand the Trinity (Father,Son, Holy Spirit) all run hand in hand. By having faith in the Trinity and understanding all three persons play a significant part in justification, one will experience that “newness” to their own life. Readers are informed that in the first couple of chapters of Galatians, justification is the central theme. There are certainly multiple points that Paul makes throughout the book of Galatians but the main one he wanted people to see and realize is that this grace and presence of the Spirit is attained by faith not good deeds or the law. Many different denominations such as the Reformers and even the people of Catholicism believed that justification was attained by having faith. Readers also learn in this section that Justification and the gift of the