868. According to Bultmann, "to believe ...

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According to Bultmann, "to believe in Christ [for Paul] does not mean to have certain ideas about his being, as sure as it is that one can have such. Nor does it mean to follow him in the sense of allowing oneself to be drawn into his faith in God and his way of leading his life. The believing Jesus never comes in question for Paul. What he means by faith has existed only since the death and resurrection of Christ, not before. It is indeed a following of him by taking up his cross, not in the sense of an imitatio, but as laying hold of the forgiveness and possibility of life procured through his cross. Jesus comes in question neither as a human personality -- which would be the Χριστὸς κατὰ σάρκα, who is no longer (2 Cor 5:16) -- nor as a heavenly divine being. True, everything depends on the person of Jesus, but in such a way that person and destiny are seen as one; in other words, Christ comes in question as a historical event [= geschichtliches Ereignis], as the event that took place when the time had fully come (Gal 4:4), that introduces the new age, that gives the possibility of new life, which is laid hold of by the υπακοή πίστεως." Thus faith in Christ for Paul is not "the illegitimate mythological expression of a faith in God that is awakened or confirmed by an impression of the personality of Jesus," but, rather, is "subjection to what God has done in Christ. In this sense, . . . Christ is the Lord for Paul and Paul is his slave" (GV, 1:259 f.).

31 October 1989