In my article Transformative Justification and the Odes of Solomon, I refuted the claim by some Protestants that the Odes of Solomon teaches forensic justification, instead, showing that it teaches the doctrine of transformative justification.
The Odes of Solomon also is a witness of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would entail transformative, not merely declarative, justification. As one scholar, writing on the Odes of Solomon and its theology of water baptism noted:
The Odes of Solomon
The Odes of Solomon have so much of Orthodox Christianity about them that their author, if he was not himself in the same church as Ignatius and Polycarp, must but lately have left it What he has to say of baptism is so extensive that only the most salient passages can here be considered for the value that they have in helping prove the continued use of the Name at baptism in the early 2nd century, to which time the Odes belong. Of these passages, the most important are 15.8 and 29.5-7:
“I have put on incorruption through His name; and have put off corruption by His grace.”
“He justified them by His grace. For I believed in the Lord’s Christ: and it appeared to me that He is the Lord; and He showed me His sign: and He led me by His light, and gave me the rod of His power.”
It hardly needs pointing out that the putting on of Christ, in virtue of whose resurrection Christians hope for incorruption, took place at baptism, according to the Pauline teaching of Galatians 3.26. The second passage emphasizes the fact that belief in Christ as Lord was required at the time when the sign, seal, or enlightenment of baptism was received. The giving of the rod at baptism is perhaps reminiscent of the allegory of Hermas in Sim. 8.I, though the rods are green and have to be kept so by the Christians, whereas here the ode continues with words about the power and victory which the rod gives. As the idea of power predominates, it will be more probable that the writer of the Odes was thinking of the rod of Christ, such as it is described in the Apocalypse 12.5 and 19.15, being given into the hands of the one who is baptized, so that in his faith he may have the victory which overcomes the world.
The picture that is drawn of Christ in Ode 28.11-13 is that of one who gave to mortals the saving water of baptism:
“They came round Me like mad dogs who ignorantly attack their masters; their thought is corrupt and their understanding perverted. But I was carrying waters in My right hand, and their bitterness I endured by My sweetness.”
Christ portrays Himself as the man with the pitcher, exactly as He was described by Tertullian (de bapt. 19) . . . There is another Ode where baptism in the Name is alluded to, in a context which the editors have found puzzling. In 25.11, after many images have been used to express thanks for deliverance, the author says:
“I became the Lord’s own, by the name of the Lord, and was justified by His gentleness.”
The Harnack-Flemming version rendered the verse: “Ich bin dem Herrn zu eigen geworden, im Namen hes Herrn,” following the Syriac, though Bernard took up a suggestion of Rendel Harris and read: “I became admirable . . . “ Obviously, unless one has in the background some idea of baptism in the Name, the phrase as it stood in the Syriac was rather mystifying. The preceding verses of the Ode are sufficiently clear about the baptismal reference of the whole, and this Bernard has very well brought out, e.g. in his note on verse 8, but he pressed over this concluding verse rather summarily. The “gentleness of the Lord” reminds one of the saying in Titus 3:4-5, about the χρηστότης καὶ φιλανθρωπία of our savior who according to His mercy saved us by the bath of regeneration. (Joseph Crehan, Early Christian Baptism and the Creed: A Study in Ante-Nicene Theology [London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1950], 52-54)
Instead of being an early witness of Reformation theology, the Odes of Solomon are an early witness of (1) baptismal regeneration and (2) transformative justification.
