The Relationship of Jewish and Gentile Believers to the Law Between A.D. 30 and 70 in the Scripture

187 what sense does Paul use the term "faith" here . Is he thinking in the category of the individu– al believer's experience or in the category of redemption history? Bornkamm insists that Paul's thought in chapters 3-6 is fundamentally heilsgeschichtlich and apocalyptic. When speaking of the "revelation" in 3:23 he says: It means ... as it does already in Jewish apocalypticism, a freshly commencing, aeon– changing, eschatological act of God, in the sense of an objective event not brought about by men. The word nfan<; requires to be understood in this way in our passage - not as a human attitude or a concern of the individual, but as the 'principle of salvation' (H. Schlier) opposed to the voµo<;, made possible and set in force by God and an– nounced to the world as a whole. 122 Martyn also notes the major epochal contrasts of Galatians and contends that they are fundamental to Paul's thinking throughout the book. He says that "the crucial issue of the entire letter [is] : What time is it? . . . It is the time after the apocalypse of the faith of Christ . . . . " 123 In chapters three and four in particular Paul contrasts two major periods of history . This emphasis may be seen in a series of temporal and telic clauses: 124 P K, 1982), 5. 122 Giinther Bornkamm, "The Revelation of hri t to Paul on the Dama u R ad and Paul' Doctrine of Ju tification and Reconciliation: A tud in Galatian 1," Reconciliation and Hope , ed. Robert B nk (Grand Rapid : erdman , 1974), 95- 7. 123 J . ui Mart n, "Apocalyptic Antin mie in Paul ' tt r to th lati n " e ' tament tudt 31 (1985) : 418 . 124 hi t but tion i ad t d fr m n d " h ur f th L nd th r " 1