A Theology of the New Testament Quotes

“The presence of the messianic salvation is also seen in Jesus' miracles of healing, for which the Greek word meaning "to save" is used. The presence of the Kingdom of God in Jesus meant deliverance from hemorrhage (Mk 5:34), blindness (Mk 10:52), demon possession (Lk 8:36), and even death itself (Mk 5:23). Jesus claimed that these deliverances were evidences of the presence of the messianic salvation (Mt 11:4-5). They were pledges of the life of the eschatological Kingdom that will finally mean immortality for the body. The Kingdom of God is concerned not only with people’s souls but with the salvation of the whole person.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God is the announcement by word and deed that God is acting and manifesting dynamically his redemptive will in history. God is seeking out sinners; he is inviting them to enter into the messianic blessing; he is demanding of them a favorable response to his gracious offer. God has again spoken. A new prophet has appeared, indeed one who is more than a prophet, one who bring to people the very blessings he promises.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The mission of Jesus brought not a new teaching but a new event. It brought to people an actual foretaste of the eschatological salvation. Jesus did not promise the forgiveness of sins; he bestowed it. He did not simple assure people of the future fellowship of the Kingdom; he invited them into fellowship with himself as the bearer of the Kingdom. He did not merely promise them vindication in the day of judgment; he bestowed upon them the status of a present righteousness. He not only taught an eschatological deliverance from physical evil; he went about demonstrating the redeeming power of the Kingdom, delivering people from sickness and even death.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The miracles of healing, important as they were, were not an end in themselves. They did not constitute the highest good of the messianic salvation. This fact is illustrated by the arrangement of the phrases in Matthew 11:4-5. Greater than deliverance of the blind and the lame, the lepers and the deaf, even than raising of the dead, was the preaching of the good news to the poor. This “gospel” was the very presence of Jesus himself, and the joy and fellowship that he brought to the poor.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“However, the reason for Paul’s appeal to nature and conscience is not primarily to suggest that human beings have an intrinsic inner guide for correct ethical conduct. It is rather to assert that even those who do not have the revealed Law do have an inner sense of right and wrong, but have failed to be obedient to the light they have even as the Jews have failed to keep the Law.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Thus while the ground of justification is the death of Christ, the means by which justification becomes efficacious to the individual is faith.29 Justification is a gift bestowed to be received by faith (Rom. 3:24, 25). Faith means acceptance of this work of God in Christ, complete reliance upon it, and an utter abandonment of one’s own works as the grounds of justification”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Discipleship to Jesus was not like discipleship to a Jewish rabbi. The rabbis bound their disciples not to themselves but to the Torah; Jesus bound his disciples to himself. The rabbis offered something outside of themselves; Jesus offered himself alone.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“We may conclude that a moderate futurist interpretation understands the seven letters to be addressed to seven historical churches that are representative of the entire church. The seals represent the forces in history, however long it lasts, by which God works out his redemptive and judicial purposes in history leading up to the end. The events beginning with chapter 7 lie in the future and will attend the final disposition of the divine will for human history.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The full truth will be disclosed when “the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (1:19) — at the parousia.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Furthermore, the idea that ordinary Christians have obtained a faith of equal standing with that of the apostles “in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (1:1) suits the idea of saving faith in Christ better than a correct theology. Such faith is not a human attainment but is the gift of God.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“In the first place, a possible Hellenistic dualism is shattered by the vivid apocalyptic eschatology of 3:10ff. Entrance into God’s eternal Kingdom (1:11) is not the apotheosis of the soul at death but entrance into the new heavens and new earth (Isa. 65:17; 66:22).”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“He was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (3:18). It is difficult to decide whether “spirit” should be capitalized (AV) or not (RSV), depending on whether the spirit is Christ’s spirit in contrast to his body, or whether it is the Holy Spirit. If it is the former, we may have the idea of an altogether “spiritual resurrection” in contrast to the resurrection of the body. This, however, is contrary to primitive Christian belief, which always thought of the resurrection of the body, although of a body transformed by the Holy Spirit. It is better, therefore, to take flesh and spirit not as two parts of Christ, but two different ways of viewing the whole Christ. Flesh is the human sphere of existence; Spirit is Christ in his heavenly sphere of existence.21 This can include his bodily resurrection, but the body glorified by the Holy Spirit. Our problem is with the words that follow: “in which [i.e., in the Spirit] he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (3:19-20). We can do little more than outline the three major interpretations.22 The older patristic interpretation is that in the intermediate state, Christ in the Spirit went and preached the gospel to the spirits of dead people imprisoned in Hades, who either lived in the days of Noah or in the time before Christ.23 This view soon lost favor, for it opened the door to the possibility of salvation after death. A second view, held by Augustine and many Reformers, holds that Christ in his pre-existent state of being preached the gospel through Noah to Noah’s living contemporaries. The third view, most widely accepted today, is that in the intermediate state Christ proclaimed the victory of the gospel to fallen angels imprisoned in Hades.24 The “preaching” involved may not mean an offer of salvation, but the triumphant announcement that through his death and resurrection, Christ had broken the power of the spirit world.25”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“from God. He endured the penal consequences of our sins.17 Peter’s main concern is practical. The effect of the atoning death of Christ is “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (2:24). The word for “die” (apoginomai) is different from the usual Pauline word and in this context means to be done with, not to partake of. Peter is not so much concerned with the removal of guilt as with the change in the life of these erstwhile pagans.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Furthermore, suffering in some way has a sanctifying influence. “Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin” (4:1). Some take the verb to be a passive (pepautai), meaning that such persons are freed from the dominion of sin.15 However, the verb may be a true middle and be quite intelligible in its context. Those who have suffered because they are Christians have obviously broken with their old sinful lives and suffer precisely because they no longer participate in the flagrant evils of their erstwhile friends (4:3-4). Such suffering is a testimony to the change in a person’s life from pagan evil to Christian conduct.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The eschatological glory is inseparably related to the sufferings of Christ (1:11).”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“In fact, Paul and James have different meanings for the words “faith” and “works.” By faith, Paul means acceptance of the gospel and personal commitment to the one proclaimed. James means something different. “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe — and shudder” (2:19). James is using the concept of faith in accordance with the rabbinic assertion of ʾemûnâ, which means the assertion of monotheism! Faith for Paul is personal, cordial trust; for James it is orthodox opinion.15 Furthermore, by works Paul designates Jewish deeds of formal obedience to the Law that provide a person a basis for boasting in his or her good achievements.16 For James, works are deeds of Christian love”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“In Hebrews faith is the faculty to perceive the reality of the unseen world of God and to make it the primary object of one’s life, in contrast to the transitory and often evil character of present human existence.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The tabernacle with its priests was a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary. The real has come to people in the historical life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. History has become the medium of the eternal. There is nothing ephemeral or transitory about Jesus’ life and work. The Christ-event was history with an eternal significance. What Jesus did, he did once for all (ephapax, 7:27; 9:12; 10:10).”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Nevertheless, judgment remains an eschatological fact, even for believers. The righteousness we hope for (Gal. 5:5) is acquittal at the final judgment.53 “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10), which is also the judgment seat of God (Rom. 14:10, RV, RSV, NRSV). However, because of the justification in Christ, the day of judgment has lost its terror for the person in Christ (Rom. 8:1, 33-34). Nevertheless, believers will be judged for their works. Our life will be laid bare before the divine scrutiny that each one may receive the proper recompense for the things done through the life of the body, in accordance with the things that he or she has done, whether that life record is good or bad.54 This judgment is not “a declaration of doom, but an assessment of worth,”55 involving not condemnation or acquittal, but rewards or loss on the basis of the worthfulness or worthlessness of the Christian’s life. The”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The living will, as it were, put the new resurrection body on over the mortal body (ependysasthai, 2 Cor. 5:4) without the dissolution of the latter. This is what Paul means by the so-called “rapture”51 of the church. The “catching up” of living believers, immediately after the resurrection, to meet the Lord in the air is Paul’s vivid way of expressing the sudden transformation of the living from the weak, corruptible bodies of this physical order to the powerful, incorruptible bodies that belong to the new order of the Age to Come.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The goal of redemption is nothing less than the establishment of God’s rule in all the world, “that God may be everything to every one” (1 Cor. 15:28).”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The events of the eschatological consummation are not merely detached events lying in the future about which Paul speculates. They are rather redemptive events that have already begun to unfold within history.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“It is not at all clear that Paul conceived of baptism as the Christian equivalent of circumcision.65 The “circumcision of Christ” (Col. 2:11) is easiest to understand as the circumcision of the heart that Christ performs.66 This is an altogether spiritual event, one “made without hands,” and is synonymous with dying to sin. Circumcision then stands in contrast to baptism, not in correlation with it.67”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Fullness” (plērōma) has two different meanings. Some take it to mean that the church completes Christ — fills him up. However, it is easier to take it to mean that the church as the body of Christ is filled with his life and power,54 which are to work through Christ in the world. The church is a “partaker of all that He owns and is for the purpose of continuing his work.”55”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“This close relationship falls short of being one of complete identity. Paul does say once that “your bodies are members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6:15). But in the discussion in 1 Corinthians 12, Christians are thought of as members of Christ’s body rather than members of Christ. It is too much to say that Paul thought of the church as an extension of the incarnation — that just as God was incarnate in Christ, Christ is incarnate in the church. Paul preserves a clear distinction between Christ and his church.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Membership in the old Israel required circumcision and acceptance of the Law; membership in the new Israel requires individual personal faith and confession of Christ as Lord (Rom. 10:9).”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“That personal faith in Jesus Christ is constitutive of the church is clear from Romans 4, where Paul argues that the salvation wrought by Christ is effective only to those who, like Abraham, believe. Abraham was not accepted by God because of good works of religious rites (circumcision) but because he believed God. Circumcision was the sign or seal of the righteousness that he had by faith. Thus he is the father of all who believe apart from the rites of Judaism but who emulate the faith of Abraham (Rom. 4:1 If.).”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“One of the most notable features in this eschatological people is that of fellowship (koinōnia).44 Fellowship was one of the distinctive marks of the Jerusalem church (Acts 2:42). This is something more than human fellowship or the pleasure people of like mind find in each other’s presence. It is more than a fellowship in a common religion. It is an eschatological creation of the Holy Spirit.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“This fact is expressly affirmed in Philippians 3:20, where Paul affirms that the Christians’ true homeland (politeuma)36 is heaven; and we await the coming of the Lord, who will fulfill the eschatological hope by the transformation of our lowly bodies. This statement had particular significance to the Philippians, who constituted a Roman colony in the heart of Greece. The word politeuma designates a colony of foreigners whose organization reflects their native homeland. “We have our own home in heaven and are here on earth a colony of citizens of heaven.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The local congregation is not part of the church; the universal church is not thought of as the sum and total of its parts; rather, the local congregation is the church in its local expression.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament