Bultmann, Rudolf. Theology of the New Testament, 2 vols. Vol. 1: 187-352. Trans. Kendrick Grobel.

New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951.

Brief introduction on Bultman (1884-1976):

1. Influenced by Martin’s Heidegger’s “Dasein”/“Thrown-ness”: decision making at crisis
2. Emphasized demythologization as a means to do existentialist reading of the Bible, as readers encounter the proclaimed
Christ through the kerygma in their personal (and perhaps individual?) situations.

The historical position of Paul, “founder of Christian theology” (187):

1. In Hellenistic Judaism; Tried to “lessen” the influence of Gnostic religions
2. Paul mentioned not the historical Jesus, but the “pre-existent” Jesus; hence, omitting Jesus’ message
3. On Paul’s conversion, Bultmann argued that it was not the “result of an inner moral collapse” (188), but rather an “obedience
submission to the judgment of God, made known in the cross of Christ, upon all human accomplishment and boasting” (188).

Chapter IV – M an prior to the revelation of faith

According to Bultmann, Paul’s concepts on theology, anthropology, Christology, and soteriology are always intertwined. W hen
speaking of God, one speaks of God’s relationship with people, and vice versa. Likewise, when one speaks of Christ, one speaks
of people’s relationship with Christ, and vice versa.

A. The anthropological concepts

Soma: It is the most “comprehensive term which Paul uses to characterize man’s [sic] existence” (192). Soma is not
only a person’s body (as opposed to “soul” or “spirit”), it is also his or her real or whole self. As a relational term, soma can be
both the object and the subject of a person’s action (195). As an existing body, soma can become either good (“pneuma” – live
according to the spirit) or bad (“sarx” – live according to the flesh) in its relationship with God. Thus, soma needs to be
developed (201). Different from Gnostics’ dualistic understanding, there is a sense of continuity of a person’s soma before and
after death (198-99). Question: Bultmann does not explain what a “self” is.

Psyche, pneuma, and zoe: Psyche (soul) is not the “seat or the power of the mental life” (203); it primarily refers to
“nefesh,” and hence, can refer to a person or a living being. Pneuma or “ruah” can sometimes refer to psyche, but different from
psyche, it can mean “the self regarded as conscious or aware” or a “willing and knowing self” (207), which is similar to nous
(mind) or the “inner person” referred to in Romans 7. According to 1 Thessalonians 5:23, a person (as a holistic being) is
consisted of soma, psyche, and pneuma. This existence is called zoe, a life that is characterized by intention and goal, living
either according to the spirit or according to the flesh.

Mind and conscience: “That being man [sic] means being a specific self that is the subject of its own willing and
doing, is perhaps most clearly expressed by the term nous” (211). Nous takes the meaning of “lev” in Hebrew – “the taking of a
stand, a conscious or unconscious volition” (idem), hence it can become good or bad. W hile it can refer to the inner person or
inmost self in Romans 7, it is not “a higher principle in man any more than psyche or the human pneuma is” (213). Conscience is
a person’s knowledge of his or her conduct. W hile conscience or ethical knowledge is “a universal phenomenon” (218), it
depends on the “correct knowledge.” For Christians then, conscience is faith or obedient submission to God.

Heart: The term refers to a “willing, planning, intending self” (220-21). It can be rendered by “kardia” or “nous,”
although kardia emphasizes less the knowledge part but more the feeling and striving part as well as the more the interior quality.
Like soma and mind, this “will,” depending on the person’s desire and intent, can become either good or bad.

B. Flesh, sin, and world

Creation and man: A person’s existence or soma is “never to be found in the present as a fulfilled reality, but always
lies ahead of him… [it] is always an intention and a quest” (227). Furthermore, “man” is understood in terms of “his creaturely
humanity and his relation to God” (231). For Bultmann, however, “man has always already missed the existence that at heart he
seeks, his intent is basically perverse, evil” (idem). Therefore, history is “salvation-history, and its origin, its guidance, and its
goal are all in God” (229). This history of humankind is also the history of creation or cosmos, where creation is and subject to
“futility.”

The term “flesh: “Sarx can denote not only the concrete body of flesh but also ‘fleshliness’, carnality, meaning the
nature of the earthly-human in its specific humanness – i.e. in its weakness and transitoriness, which also means in opposition to
God and His Spirit” (233-34). Sarx is often depicted as opposed to the spirit, the invisible, and the interior aspect of a person.

Flesh and sin: As flesh focuses on its earthly environment and orients itself towards the world as its goal and desire, it
creates its self-delusion, which is sin “because it is a turning away from the Creator… and a turning toward the creation – and to

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do that is to trust in one’s self as being able to procure life by the use of the earthly and through one’s own strength and
accomplishment” (239). This reliance on oneself is related to pride, fear, anxiety, and attempt to secure the future. As a result, sin
becomes the “active subject within him [flesh]” (24).
Sin and death: “Sin is man’s false pursuit of life, and if this consists in leading one’s life ‘after the flesh,’ i.e. – living
out of the created, the earthly-natural and transitory – then sin leads with inner necessity into death: ‘if you live according to the
flesh you will die’ (Rom. 8:13)” (246; emphasis original).

The universality of sin: The assumption is that “every man is born into a humanity that is and always has been guided
by a false striving. The so-derived understanding of existence applies as a matter of course to every man; and every man brings
himself explicitly under it by his concrete ‘transgression,’ thereby becoming jointly responsible for it” (253).

The term “world” (cosmos): The word can refer to God’s creation or the domain and the age of the evil power. In
terms of the latter, it includes people who live according to the flesh.

The law: Nomos usually refers to the “Old Testament Law or the whole Old Testament” (259), which includes the
cultic, ritual and ethical aspects. Law is not an inferior revelation nor is it invalid for Christians (Romans 7). Law is supposed to
lead people (or an individual, which is suggested here) to faith but it becomes lacking when its direction is wrong when it leads
people thinking that by law they themselves can be righteous before God. Rather, “the ultimate purpose of the Law is to lead man
[sic] to death and thereby to let God appear as God” (267; emphasis original). In other words, Law functions to lead people to
make an authentic decision, i.e., turning and relying on Christ, in the face of crisis.

Chapter V – M an under faith:

A. The righteousness of God
The concept of righteousness: The word “righteousness” can be used in forensic and ethical (being upright) sense. As a
forensic word, “righteousness is the condition for receiving salvation or life” (270; emphasis original), where both the condition
and the result of it are the gifts of God. Hence, righteousness is not a quality but a relationship in which one is acknowledged
by God as righteous, especially at the final judgment in Jewish tradition.

Righteousness as a present reality: Different from the Jewish understanding of “righteousness,” Paul’s teaching “of this
forensic-eschatological righteousness [is] that it is already imputed to a man in the present (on the presupposition that he “has
faith”)” (274; emphasis original), as the preaching of the gospel makes “righteousness” a possibility to be fulfilled. This present
reality hinges upon the salvation occurrence through Christ and is similar to the term “adoption to sonship” (278).

Righteousness as God’s righteousness: Another contrast with Jewish notion, righteousness, according to Paul rests solely on the
condition set by God for humankind. In other words, righteousness as a grace of God, which is an eschatological merciful act
of God, is “by, or from, faith” in Christ (280), as opposed to any merit or work a person can accomplish. In short, righteousness
is called God’s righteousness because “its one and only foundation is God’s grace – it is God-given, God-adjudicated
righteousness” (285).

Reconciliation: Rather than using the phrase “forgiveness of sin,” Paul uses “reconciliation” to show the goal of God’s
righteousness in inviting us to faith.

B. Grace
Grace as event: Grace is not a quality but an eschatological deed of God; it is an event because it is through Christ’s obedient
deed to God that salvation-occurrence for humankind becomes a possibility. As a love of God or Christ, grace being an
eschatological gift, then, is the power against the power of sin.

Christ’s death and reconciliation as salvation-occurrence: This salvation-occurrence includes the incarnation, death and
resurrection of Jesus. Paul only interested in Jesus being a historical person, as he focuses more on the pre-existent Christ. The
death of Jesus can be understood as a (1) “propitiatory sacrifice by which forgiveness of sins is brought about;” (2) vicarious
sacrifice by which “one died taking the place of all” (296); (3) redemption by which “men are ‘redeemed’ (ransomed)… from
the ‘curse of the Law’” (297), and hence freed from the punishment or powers of sins; (4) participatory mystery by which “the
fate of the mystery-divinity through baptism and sacramental communion grants mystes (iniates) participation in both the dying
and the reviving of the divinity” (298); and (5) Gnostic understanding by which people are invited to become one body with the
crucified, resurrected and exalted Christ through God’s grace in the proclaimed word. Among these five explanations,
Bultmann leans towards (2) and (3).

The word, the church, the sacraments: “The preached word calls and gathers men into the ecclesia, the Church, the
Congregation of those who are ‘called’ and saints’… only in the ecclesia is there authorized preaching” (308). Individual is
then “taken into the ‘body of Christ’ by the sacrament of baptism” (311; emphasis original).

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C. Faith
The structure of faith: “Paul understands faith primarily as obedience” (314; emphasis original), and it “is the condition for the
receipt of ‘righteousness’” (idem). Faith is not an experience, a state of soul, a piety, a disposition nor a virtue. Faith is neither
a trust founded on repentance nor simultaneously a confession. Faith is “faith in… it always has reference to its object, God’s
saving deed in Christ” (317). Faith, however, contains knowledge, which comes from faith. Grounded on grace, faith is
characterized by obedience, acknowledgement, confession, confidence, hope, and fear in God. “Existence in faith, then, is a
movement between ‘no longer’ and ‘not yet’” (322).

Life in faith: “Faith as man’s relation to God also determines man’s relation to himself” (324). “Accordingly, faith both as to
degree and to kind realizes itself in concrete living: in the individual acts of the man of faith” (idem; emphasis original). The
kind of faith refers to different kinds of gifts, of which knowledge is a prominent component referring to knowledge about the
will of God, about one’s self as the receiver of God’s grace, and God’s salvation history. Hence, everything in one’s life
becomes “in Christ” and “of Christ.”

Faith as eschatological occurrence: “Faith as response to the proclaimed word” (329), which is an eschatological occurrence.
“Faith working through love or (in the other case) a new creation, reveals that the existing of a Christian in the faith that
operates in love is eschatological occurrence: a being created new” (330).

D. Freedom
Freedom from sin and walking in the spirit: Through faith, we gain new self-understanding, which in turn leads us to
freedom to belong to Christ. W e are then slave “not to sin any longer, but to righteousness” (331). This freedom from sin in
Christ, as a result of walking in the spirit (which is related to unity and love) as a new creation, is the result of justification.

Freedom from the law and the Christian’s attitude toward men: W hile by the grace of God in Christ Christians are
freed from the Law, sin, and fleshly desire, they are nonetheless slave to all in terms of serving one another in imitating the love of
Christ.

Freedom from death: As Christians are free from the Law and sin, we are free from death, which is the punishment of
sin. This freedom from death and the world’s power and anxiety is shown through “traditional Jewish-Christian teaching of the
resurrection of the dead” at the parousia (346; emphasis original). As a result, our life centers on how to please God and Christ.