The Most Fundamental Transition

James Dunn, commenting rightly on the salvation-historical substructure (he calls it the "epochal character") of Paul's theology:

Human history is familiar with talk of transitions from one age to another. We speak of the stone age, the Middle Ages, the age of empire, the nuclear age, the electronic age, and so on. Paul's claim is much more far-reaching. What he envisaged was a transition not only from BC to AD, but the most fundamental of all transitions, within which all others must be evaluated, a transition capable of affecting every age and transforming each individual existence.

The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 318