Creating a human fit to receive

But the purpose of the unfitting gift is to create a fit, to turn lawless Gentiles into those who do the Law ([Rom] 2:12–15), and trespassing Jews into Spirit-circumcised servants who bear fruit for God (2:29; 7:5–6). God’s dramatic act of righteousness in the face of human unrighteousness is designed to create not moral chaos but justified and purified creatures. As the letter proceeds, it will become clear that these persons are not old selves morally improved, but new creatures forged ex nihilo from the resurrection life of Christ, by an act of “calling into being” basic to the story of Abraham and of Israel as a whole. But it is clear already that this creation is an incongruous gift, given without regard to prior worth, that founds an existence whose lived practice is congruous with the righteous judgment of God.—J. M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 473–74 (emphasis original)