Once, for Paul, as for his contemporaries, Israel’s electionand the demand of the law stood side by side in unresolved tension. Now he found their resolution, not in some synthesis or new idea, but in an event: the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of the Son of God. In Christ the demand of the law and the fulfillment of promise meet.

The real cause for Paul’s rejection of the ‘works of the law’ liesbeyond both self-understanding and ethics. As we shall see, faith for Paul is the correlate to Christ’s cross and resurrection. It is obedience to the promise of God fulfilled in that event (see e.g. Rom. 4:13–25). One is justified not because of a mere inward disposition, but because of Christ in whom God has atoned for sin and effected a new creation.