Justification, Good Works, and Creation in Clement of Rome's Appropriation of Romans 5–6

This article explores how Aquinas's and Calvin's theology of justification, the law and the nature of human works integrate with their interpretations of Romans by analyzing their commentaries on 1:16b-17, focusing on the iustitia Dei, and 2:13, which addresses the relationship between works and justification. Aquinas's interpretation unfolds by emphasizing the work of Christ in and through sinners, while Calvin's interpretation emphasizes the work of Christ for and to sinners. I also demonstrate how the theological judgements embedded in these sections inform their reading of Romans as a whole.

The pericopæ of Romans 5:9-11 has generated its own corpus of literature spanning almost two millennia from Clement of Alexandria to Rudolf Bultmann of Germany. Resident in the writers polemics is the theme that has become the Christian’s creed since the Reformation sparked by the German priest and theologian Martin Luther. This creed, “Justification by Faith (in Jesus’ death/blood) sola fide” was tinder for the fire of reformation. The mission call for “reconciliation to God while yet sinners” is integral to the writer’s arguments appealing to the unsaved of the world.

Theology, 2019

This is the accepted version. The final version has been published in Theology, Vol 122, Issue 5 (2019). Abstract: Despite the Catholic–Lutheran Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, justification by faith is a troublesome doctrine to Catholics. Scott Hahn’s Romans is used to illustrate four inadequate ways of explaining (away) Paul’s doctrine of justification.

Scottish Journal of Theology, 2007

Westminster Theological Journal, 2020

This article defends the thesis that Ambrosiaster, in his Commentary on Romans, both grounded salvation in a baptism that established the cat-echumen's union in Christ (which included justification sola fide) and recognized the descent and ascent of the Son as both a movement of reconciliation and a movement of revelation. Within this framework of soteriology, Ambrosiaster knew justification sola fide as both a forensic and a sanative event. Therefore, he did not strictly separate Paul's presentation in Romans of justification from sanctification, though he understood the former primarily as a one-time event. To some degree, this thesis diverges from Dongsun Cho's last two essays on Ambrosiaster (2012 and 2014). There is much to commend in Cho's two essays. However, I present here what Cho did not say about portions of Ambrosiaster's doctrine of justification in Romans in emphasizing other aspects of this doctrine. I argue that Ambrosiaster's view of justification sola fide is misunderstood if it does not also include the opportunity for dehumanized humanity to be saved, healed, and reunited to the Creator by Jesus Christ, who is the source and embodiment of the new creation, and the model for the Word becoming flesh in the redeemed, who are the body of Christ.

Phronema 28:2 (2013) 107-30

The paper begins by emphasising the contemporary understanding of the universe as an encoded message that does not require either an Encoder or a meaning, to which the author opposes the richer Clementine appraisal of the cosmos as theologically meaningful and existentially enriching. Furthermore, together with addressing the current lack of interest in Clement’s Exhortation to the Gentiles, the essay points out the relevance of this small treatise for the category of the cosmos as another scripture. This category is of particular interest since it allows for the construal of the universe as meaningful, which Clement actually accomplished in this treatise. The content of the Exhortation, and primarily its prologue, is studied herein from a revelational perspective (the cosmos as a meaningful song) and a soteriological perspective (the cosmos as a salvific song). The paper stresses out the centrality of Christ the Logos to the Clementine construct, and the repercussions of this core conviction for the representation of the rapports engaging the cosmos, the Old Testament and the gospel; it is precisely these complex rapports that contributed to the depiction of the world as meaningful. The paper ends by highlighting the significance of Clement’s worldview as an alternative to the pervasive nihilism of contemporary culture.

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2006

This essay challenges the criticism usually levelled at the early Fathers prior to Augustine for not articulating a view of justification by faith that corresponded with Pauline Christianity as reflected in the formulas of the sixteenth-century reformers. Not only is such a view anachronistic and tends to assume that there was (or is) a uniform definition of justification, but there is evidence that Latin theology before Augustine promulgated the tenets of unmerited grace and the necessity of righteousness that come only through justifying faith. In particular, the Matthew commentary of Hilary of Poitiers explicitly formulates a biblical theology of ‘fides sola iustificat’, and probably contributed to a revival of interest in the Pauline Epistles by the end of the fourth and early fifth centuries.

This paper gives a bird's eye view of the book of this most important epistle to come out the Apostle Paul's pen. Arguably, it is one of the most important epistles ever written because in it, we see the Gospel of Grace clearly made manifest. The reader does well to read this introductory write up and then proceed to the book itself, much like Martin Luther did over five hundred years ago.

2021

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the saving significance of grace in the writings of the first Century bishops, Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch. On account of their frequent emphasis on knowledge and the need for upright habits of morality – as well as the human role played in attaining them – it is possible to overlook the fact that they presupposed grace as the principle that brings about their attainment. It is doubtless true that they saw no dichotomy between the activity of God and that of man and that they did not, therefore, shy away from highlighting the human dimension of justification given the needs of their times and their pastoral sensitivity. As I hope to show, however, this emphasis in no way implies that they failed to appreciate the Pauline principle that God is the one working (ὁ ἐνεργῶν) in man both to will and to act according to God's good pleasure (καὶ τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ ἐνεργεῖν ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐδοκίας) as the latter works out his salvation with fear and trembling (μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου; cf., Phil 2:12-13).