The Spirit, Ethics, and Eternal Life: Paul’s Vision for the Christian Life in Galatians

by Jarvis J. Williams

Publisher:

IVP Academic

, 2023

Overview

What should the Christian life look like? What vision does Scripture cast for living as a follower of Christ?

The New Testament scholar Jarvis Williams considers how Paul’s letter to the Galatians can inform our understanding of the Christian life here and now as well as into eternity. What emerges from this careful study is a multifaceted vision of God’s saving action in Jesus Christ for both Jew and Gentile, in both the vertical relationship between God and humanity as well as the horizontal relationships among people—with cosmic ramifications.

Through Paul’s instructions and Williams’s interpretation, Christians can learn the importance of walking by the Spirit.

Key Features

• Explores the importance of walking by the Spirit
• Provides a multifaceted vision of God’s saving action in Jesus Christ for both Jew and Gentile
• Considers how Paul’s letter to the Galatians can inform our understanding of the Christian life

Contents

• Preface
• Introduction
• A Selected History of Interpretation of the Spirit and Ethics
• The Spirit and God’s Revelation of the Resurrected and Crucified Christ in Paul
• Justified by Faith and Walking in Step with the Spirit
• The Spirit and Eternal Life
• The Spirit and the Necessity of the Is and the Ought for Personal Agency, Ethical Transformation, and Eternal Life

Praise for the Print Edition

Jarvis Williams has made a significant contribution with this work on the Holy Spirit in Galatians. He situates his study in the Second Temple Jewish context of Paul’s day and also enters the conversation with contemporary scholarship on the role of the Spirit. At the same time, he offers a robust exegetical defense of his own reading. Williams shows the danger of false polarities and thus reads Galatians as both apocalyptic and salvation-historical, as cosmic and individual. Along the same lines, he doesn’t divide theology from ethics, showing that the work of the Spirit transforms individual lives and communities.

—Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

For many years theologians have debated salvation issues in Galatians, such as justification and what Paul meant by works of the law. These conversations are important, but Williams widens the perspective to look at how the Spirit plays a crucial role in vertical, horizontal, and cosmic dimensions of the gospel. This carefully argued book demonstrates that Paul was passionate about human transformation by the living God in Christ Jesus through the Spirit.

—Nijay K. Gupta, professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary

In The Spirit, Ethics, and Eternal Life, Jarvis Williams provides us with a carefully researched investigation of a crucially important set of related themes in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Painstaking scholarship is applied to topics of incredible relevance for Christian theology and living in this and any age: the intersecting themes of God’s Spirit, eternal life, and Christian ethics. This book will help many gain a much better grasp of Paul’s life-transforming theology and ethics, for the good of the church!

—Roy E. Ciampa, Armstrong Chair of Religion and chair of the Department of Biblical and Religious Studies at Samford University

Product Details

• Title: The Spirit, Ethics, and Eternal Life: Paul’s Vision for the Christian Life in Galatians
• Author: Jarvis J. Williams
• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2023
• Logos Release Date: 2023
• Pages: 226
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Paul, the Apostle, Saint; Bible. N.T. Galatians › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Spirit › Biblical teaching; Ethics › Religious aspects--Christianity; Future life › Biblical teaching; Ethics in the Bible
• ISBNs: 9781514002339, 9781514002322, 1514002337, 1514002329
• Resource ID: LLS:TSPRTETCETNLLFE
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-03-06T19:35:50Z

About Jarvis J. Williams

Jarvis J. Williams is an Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s published numerous academic monographs and scholarly articles and essays on Paul’s soteriology (broadly defined) in Romans and Galatians in its Second Temple Jewish context. Williams’s research focuses on soteriology in Second Temple Judaism, the Second Temple context of Paul’s soteriology, and Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians. He’s a member of the Society of Biblical Literature.