Saturday, December 16, 2006

"It is wrong to suppose that for Paul faith is a meritorious act on man's part, which wins salvation, or even, in a more modern way of speech, a creative moral principle in itself. 

Paul does not, in fact, speak (when he is using the language strictly) of "justification by faith," but of "justification by grace through faith," or "on the grounds of faith." This is not mere verbal subtlety. It means that the "righteousness of God" becomes ours, not by the assertion of the individual will as such, but by the willingness to let God work."

-- C. Harold Dodd

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