Episode 124: Year C – 5th Sunday of Lent
In today’s episode, we focus on two details in the second reading and Gospel for this upcoming Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year C. The second reading is taken from Philippians 3:8-14, and the detail that has apologetical significance is Paul’s teaching that we receive righteousness that comes from Christ. For many Christians, this is proof that our justification is merely forensic/external and doesn’t involve interior righteousness. The Gospel reading, taken from John 8:1-11, involves the woman caught in adultery. The apologetical detail is Jesus’ ability to avoid the trap set by his enemies. The relevance this detail has is that it comes up in conversations concerning the famous Trilemma argument for Jesus’ divinity.
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Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Dr. Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In today’s episode, we’re focus on two details in the second reading and Gospel for this upcoming Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year C. The second reading is taken from Philippians 3:8-14, and the detail that has apologetical significance is Paul’s teaching that we receive righteousness that comes from Christ. For many Christians, this is proof that our justification is merely forensic/external and doesn’t involve interior righteousness. The Gospel reading, taken from John 8:1-11, involves the woman caught in adultery. The apologetical detail is Jesus’ ability to avoid the trap set by his enemies. The relevance this detail has is that it comes up in conversations concerning the famous Trilemma argument for Jesus’ divinity.
Let’s start with the second reading, which, again, is taken from Philippians 3:8-14. Here’s what Paul writes,
I consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him,
not having any righteousness of my own based on the law
but that which comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God,
depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
It is not that I have already taken hold of it
or have already attained perfect maturity,
but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,
since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I for my part
do not consider myself to have taken possession.
Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind
but straining forward to what lies ahead,
I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.
Just to note in passing, Paul says some really important things here for the spiritual life. For Paul, Christ is everything, and the things of this life relative to the value of relationship with Christ is nothing. This is a view that we must adopt in our lives as Christians. Nothing really apologetical here, except the implication that Paul believed Jesus came before all things, which in turn implies the belief that Jesus is divine.
Now, the detail that I want to highlight for apologetical purposes is Paul’s teaching that he doesn’t have a righteousness of his own based on the law, but rather has a righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, which is a righteousness from God.
For many Christians, this is evidence that Paul believed the ground for us having peace with God—having a right relationship with Him (or being justified)—is merely forensic or external. Since Paul says it’s not a righteousness of his own, but comes from God, the righteousness can’t be interior. Rather, the ground of the righteousness is God’s declaration that we are just.
The Reform Baptist Theologian John Piper makes this argument in his book Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness?, on page 62-63.
Australian New Testament Scholar Peter Thomas O’Brien joins ranks in his The Epistle to the Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, on page 392.
Is this what Paul is teaching? I answer no.
Just because Paul says he doesn’t have righteousness of his own but from God doesn’t logically entail that the righteousness is not interior and merely rooted in God’s declaration. That’s something that our Protestant friends are reading into the text.
Paul’s teaching can just as easily fit with the Catholic model of an interior righteousness that God brings about within me by grace and serves as the ground for my right relation to God. Insofar as the interior righteousness is brought about God, it’s a righteousness that “comes from God.” And insofar as it comes from God, Paul’s righteousness is not his own—it’s a gift. Paul can lay no claim on this righteousness because he didn’t do anything to earn the right to have such an interior state of righteousness, like it was thought among some Jews in their seeking legal righteousness by keeping the law. Rather, God is the one who takes the initiative out of pure gratuity to bring about this interior state of righteousness about within Paul (and by way of extension us as Christians). And this is exactly what we believe as Catholics.
But notice none of this entails that that the righteousness is not something within Paul. The righteousness is external, for sure, when it comes to its origin: it’s from God. But that doesn’t mean the righteousness can’t be internal to Paul.
Given that what Paul says here can just easily fit with the Catholic model, a Protestant can’t merely appeal to this verse and conclude with forensic justification.
The Jesuit Jean-Noel Aletti, from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, makes this argument in his book Justification by Faith in the Letters of Saint Paul: Keys to Interpretation.
Now, some have argued that the context lends itself toward the view that Paul does envision this righteousness to be an inner transformation. Notice Paul’s elaboration on that righteousness he receives from God: it “depend[s] on faith to know [Jesus] . . . and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death.” Did you catch that? The righteousness that comes from God depends on being conformed to Jesus in his death and resurrection.
Many have argued that conformity to Jesus in his death and resurrection entails inner transformation. And Paul is saying that such inner transformation is the righteousness we receive from God. Here’s how Pauline scholar E. P. Sanders puts it in his book Paul: The Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought:
Having righteousness by faith is the same as sharing the death and resurrection of Christ. The meaning of these conjoined formulations cannot be “a juridical decision that imputes righteousness to human beings although they are not in fact righteous.” The meaning is born by the terminology of the mystical participation of the believe in Christ. [Paul: the Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought, 612-13]
Now, even if you don’t buy this exegesis that Paul is in fact teaching that the righteousness we receive from God is this inner conformity to Christ, a Christian at least can’t appeal to this passage as evidence for the forensic view. And that’s all we need from an apologetical standpoint.
Let’s now turn to the Gospel reading, which, again, is taken from John 8:1-11. This is the story of the woman who is caught in adultery and brought before Jesus. The scribes and the Pharisees ask Jesus in verse 4,
Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”
John then tells us, “They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.”
What’s the charge they’re trying to bring against him? Well, it’s two-fold. If Jesus says, “Yes, stone her,” then they can rat him out to the Romans and charge him with violating the Roman prohibition for the Jews to carry out public executions. If, on the other hand, Jesus says, “No, don’t stone her,” then they can charge him for violating Moses’ law (Lev. 20:10 and Deut. 22:22) that stipulates a woman caught in adultery should be stoned to death.
Jesus, however, dodges the trap challenging those who were ready to stone the adulteress, saying, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Notice, he didn’t say “yes,” and he didn’t say “no.” Thus, they couldn’t bring a charge against him. And he achieved the goal he intended: saving the woman’s life and forgiving her sins.
How is this apologetically significant, you wonder? Well, this is definitely not the characteristic of a lunatic.
In Christian apologetics, there’s an argument known as the trilemma argument. It goes something like this:
P1: Jesus claims to be God.
P2: The claim is either true, in which case he’s Lord, or it’s not true, in which he’s either a liar or a lunatic.
P3: He’s not a liar or a lunatic, in which case the claim can’t be false.
C: Therefore, the claim is true, and Jesus is Lord.
The detail that I’m focusing on here in this Gospel reading proves that Jesus wasn’t a lunatic. The intellectual acuity needed to escape such a dilemma that the scribes and Pharisees tried to trap him doesn’t match the intellectual acuity, or lack thereof, of a lunatic.
So, our Gospel reading provides data that we can utilize in defending one of the premises of the argument.
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that does it for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The readings for this upcoming 5th Sunday of Lent, Year C don’t provide us all that much apologetical material. However, the material they do give us relate to important apologetical topics:
- The nature of justification and whether it is merely forensic or is rooted in the interior righteousness that God brings about by grace, and
- The trilemma argument for reasonableness of believing in the divinity of Jesus.
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I hope you have a blessed 5th Sunday of Lent, Year C. Until next time, God Bless.