ABSTRACT
Abraham is absolutely faithful to God’s directly given word even when it is, by any human logic, in conflict with God’s purposes. (see p. 187)
This is the ‘mind that was in Christ Jesus’ that, as was shown in the last chapter, was demonstrated most clearly in his death. This is obedience to what God directly reveals, even when it contradicts God’s written law and therefore brings the consistency and faithfulness, in other words, the righteousness of God into question. Faith, according to Paul, is obedience to the living word of God in each moment. There is no way of ‘fixing’ God’s guidance, of capturing God’s word in written form, ‘the letter’. The most extreme demonstration of this claim is that, as demonstrated in the way Jesus goes to his death and in the way Abraham is prepared to sacrifice Isaac, faithfulness demands following this living word even when it seemingly contradicts what God has promised. For Abraham, that faith meant being prepared to kill Isaac, even though Isaac’s very existence was the vindication of God’s promise to Abraham that, even though he was old, he would have a child and be the father of a great nation blessed by God. For Jesus, that faith meant accepting a death at the hands of the guardians of the law, and cursed by the law, even though it had seemed in his ministry of word and healing that the inauguration of God’s kingdom – God’s vindication of Israel and the promises of God’s covenant law – was at hand. This is the faith of Abraham and Jesus; further clarification about the nature of this faith is to be found in this chapter by considering how Paul presents the faith of himself and his fellow apostles.
