Today I read Tony Costa's book on the worship of the resurrected Jesus in the Pauline epistles. Overall, I found the book to be well thought out; granted, I disagree with Costa on his assumptions of (creedal) Trinitarianism and take exception with a few things here and there, but it is a good study on a topic that is rather neglected in Christology and related fields.
While reading the book, he did touch upon issues about soteriology, including these nuggets:
On Romans 6 and the effects of Water Baptism
Baptism as Identification
The first thing we note is that Paul equates being baptized into Christ as being baptized into his death (Rom 6:3). Here Paul employs a metaphor. The believer does not necessarily die in baptism in a physical sense, but he or she is described as dying with Christ by way of spiritual analogy. They have died to their old self (cf. 2 Cor 5:17). Here we see baptism functioning as an identity marker in that the believer in baptism is identified with Christ in his death. Another metaphor that Paul includes with baptism is that of the believer in baptism being identified with Christ in his burial (Rom 6:4), but again this is not literal but metaphorical. Paul proceeds to use a third metaphor in relation to baptism to show that as Christ was raised from the dead to a new life by the glory of the Father, so believers have been identified with him to walk in a new life on a spiritual plane (Rom 6:4). This new life vis-á-vis baptism is often marked by calls and exhortations to ethical living . . . Paul reasons that since Christian believers are united by baptism with Jesus in his death, they will also consequently be united with Jesus in the resurrection. What happened to Christ on a physical plane is applied metaphorically to the believer on a spiritual plane. In tying baptism to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, Paul is identifying and associating believers via baptism to Christ in his salvific work. The essence and heart of the gospel upon which believers are saved according to Paul is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15:14). These are the very three points with which believers are identified with Jesus in baptism. Thus Paul presents baptism first and foremost as an identification of the believer with Jesus in his death, burial, and resurrection. The idea of identity with Jesus in baptism is similarly stressed by Paul in Gal 3:27, ὅσοι γὰρ εἰς Χριστὸν ἐβαπτίσθητε, Χριστὸν ἐνεδύσασθε//”As many of you as were baptized into Christ, you have clothed yourselves with Christ.” The idea of identification in baptism in Gal 3:28 is seen in the metaphor of being clothed with Christ. (Tony Costa, Worship and the Risen Jesus in the Pauline Letters [Studies in Biblical Literature vol. 157; New York: Peter Lang, 2013], 219-220)
On the salvific importance of the resurrection
I have addressed the common Protestant abuse of John 19:30 and the phrase τετελεσται ("it is done/finished"), most recently in a paper entitled, "Why Latter-day Saints cannot believe Evangelical Protestantism: A Response to Dave Bartosiewicz." In this article, I wrote the following:
In the theology of the apostle Paul, this common Protestant interpretation of John 19:30 is anti-biblical. According to the apostle Paul, the Father raised Christ for our justification:
Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for (δια here has a causal sense [i.e. for the sake of]) our justification (Rom 4:25)
On the salvific importance of the resurrection of Jesus, Costa, critiquing the likes of Leon Morris and other Reformed authors, wrote the following:
Morris is therefore incorrect to maintain that the gospel of God’s Son, which Paul announces (Rom 1:9), “centers on Christ’s atoning act. Without that there would be no gospel.” Morris, Epistle to the Romans, 58. On the contrary, without the resurrection of Jesus the gospel would be rendered superfluous and empty (1 Cor 15:12-20). The atoning act of Jesus is only validated by the resurrection, for it is the resurrection of Jesus itself that gives the cross any soteriological significance. (Ibid., 319-20, n. 39)
Paul usually couples the death of Jesus with his resurrection (Rom 4:25; 1 Cor 15:3-4), but here in Rom 10:9 he focuses primarily on his resurrection, for as Paul asserts in 1 Cor 15:14, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then all Christian faith is vain and futile, which includes the soteriological significance of Jesus’ death . . . Following Rom 10:9 where Paul lays down the confession of Jesus as Lord and the belief in his resurrection from the dead, Paul goes on to introduce his points in Rom 10:10-13 with the preposition γαρ beginning in each of the verses, which is intended in these cases to denote a reason or explanation of the preceding statement. Morris, Epistle to the Romans, 386-88. The preposition γαρ of course never stands first at the beginning of a sentence. (Ibid., 375 notes 107 and 109)
