ABSTRACT
Central to this chapter is the first stage of an exploration into how the theme of direct guidance relates to the figure of Jesus. We will see how it is possible to speak of Jesus as one who lives by faith, who, as expressed in the clumsy but accurate phrase identified in Chapter 2, lives in complete receptivity and obedience to ‘faith’s “heard thing”’, the ‘word of prophecy’ that is an integral part of living by faith. This, in turn, opens up a new understanding of Paul’s emphasis on the death of Jesus, not as something to be dogmatically asserted as the source of liberation in the past but as indissolubly bound up with the present liberation of individuals. It is the death of Jesus that Paul presents as both the catalyst for his own transformation and the means for understanding its universal theological signficance.
