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  • From: "moon-ryul jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>
  • To: corpus-paul
  • Subject: Comments on the Mystery of Romans by Mark Nanos
  • Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 1:8:19


Dear Mark,

I finally read through the Mystery of Romans which you referred to several
times vin his posts.

Your picture of Paul makes more sense to me than any other pictures of him.
Some of your theses are:

1. Paul never found fault with the Law and Judaism including its
concept of election and hallakha.

2. Non-believing Jews were brothers to Christ-believing Jews, because
both were in the people of God. Gentiles were grafted into Israel
through Christ, the new revelation of God. Faith in God was essentially
limited to the Jews, the people of God. Now it was open to Gentiles
through Christ, apart from the Law, that is, outside of the boundary of the
Law-people. Though part of Israel was hardened, they were not rejected.
Israel remained to be the people of God. Christ-believing remnant was the
representative of all Israel.


3. Paul's battle hinted in Romans and Galatians was BETWEEN
Christ-believing Jews/Christ-believing Gentiles AND non-believing Jews,
and
the issue was whether Christ-believing Gentiles could belong to the
covenant people of God without becoming Jews via proselyte conversion.


4. Paul's letter reflects the family fight between Christ-believing Jews
(to which Christ-believing Gentiles belong) and non-believing Jews. This
family fight can be easily misunderstood
by those who do not know the family background.


So, you disagree sharply with the conclusions of Sanders, Dunn, and others
who still picture Paul as criticising Judaism itself.
Dunn, for example, believes that, although it was not a religion of
legalism (merit-based righteousness), the covenantal nomism of Judaism,
at least at the time of Paul's letter work, was a stumbling block in
the way to believing Christ.

But, according to Paul, the "stumbling" of the non-believing Jews was
that they did not yet accept Jesus as Israel's Messiah and they did
not accept Christ-believing Gengiles as equal without the proselyte
conversion. Judaism was not a stumbling block, rather it was a guide to
Christ.

I think I found a very plausible reading of Paul after my 20 years
of reading about Paul and the Law, that integrates many pieces
together.

But I would like to raise some questions about passages
which you might have struggled to make them compatible to your
scheme.


Rom 9:30-32:
The Gentiles have obtained the righteousness from faith. But
Israel, though they pursued the Law of righteousness, has not
attained it, BECAUSE they pursued it not from faith but as if
it were from works.

I would not interpret "because they pursued it not by faith
but as if it were by works", to mean that
the response of the Jews to God was not in faith.
Paying attention to the whole context of Romans,
I would interpret it to mean that they did not believe in Christ
but rather adhered to the works of the Law as identity markers of the
Law-people, thinking that they are "saved" because they are
the Law-people.

Q1: By the way, do you take the verse in a similar way?

Now the argument is very subtle. Was it inherently wrong that
they thought that they were "saved" because they were the Law-people?
I would say, Yes and No. Being the law-people meant that they were
in the covenant with God, made in grace. There was nothing wrong in it. But
it was wrong that they still insisted on it after Christ had come.
Because the Law pointed to Christ, it turned out that "they did not
attained the Law" when they did not feel the need to believe in
Christ fully satisfied with being the Law-people. The insistence
on being the Law-people came down to mean that the death of Christ
was redundant.

Q2: In your posts and the book (p. 131 and 132), you said that the
stumbling of Israel mentioned in
Rom 9:32f has to do with their failure to regard Christ-believing
Gentiles as equal participants in the promises of God. I did not quite
understand it. Now it seems to me that, for
non-believing Jews, to believe in Christ meant to regard Christ-believing
Gentiles as equal members in the people of God. Yes, but in this context,
the focus was on Israel's failure to believe in Christ and that was the
stumbling of Israel, wasn't it? In Galtian, the issue of coparticipation
into God's promise is quite visible. What is the reason that you
detect this issue in Rom 9:30ff?



Q3:
Rom 10:5-6

Though you did not say it explicitly (as far as I read your book),
your overall logic would not contrast the "righteousness from the law"
and the "righteousness from faith" in these verses.
You would interpret "the man who does these things will live in them" to
mean that the Law was and is the legitimate mode of life and the guide to
Christ. But then, how do you handle the contrast implied in the
two contrasting expressions? Do you say that the righteousness from
the law is nothing but the righteousness from faith? If so, on what
grounds?

Q4: Gal 2:19
"Through the law, I died to the law in order that I might live for God."

You interpret "throught the law I died tothe law" as follows:

Through the law (which taught me to love God and my neighbor) I died to the
law,
that is, I was UNABLE to fulfill the servie of God and my neighbor:
"the good that I wish, I do not do". t ABLveu

But then, we would have:

Through the law teaching love for God and neighbor, I died to the law
i.e., was not able to fulfill the service of God and the neighbor,
in order that I might live for God.

How would being unable to fulfill the law lead to living for God?


Q5:
Gal 2:16

Knowing that man is not righteoused from the works of the Law, but
from faith in Christ, we too believed in Christ, in order that we
may be righteoused from faith in Christ and not from the works of the Law,
because all flesh will not be righteoused by the works of the Law.

In your posts, you said that
"being righteoused from the works of the Law" was not the position of
the Jews in general, but it became an issue only when
some Jews denied Christ-believing Gentiles equal coparticipation
into the promises of God. When they insisted that those Gentile
believers do the works of the Law, the identity markers of being
Jew, it meant that they were righteoused only by being Jew. Because
there was already a procedure by which Gentiles could become Jew,
the death of Christ was redundant. Paul was against the position
with such implication. Well said. But the language of Gal 2:16
seems to indicate that they reached the conclusion before the
issue of Gentile inclusion arose. The natural way to take the first
part of Gal 2:16 seems to be:
"Having come to know that man is not righteoused by the works of
the Law, but by faith in Christ, we too believed in Christ".

If "being righteoused by the works of the Law" was never an issue
before the issue of Gentile inclusion arose,
I find it hard to understand this statement. The statement implies
that the realization that man is not righteoused by the works of the law
came before they put their faith in Christ.

It seems that the issue was there all the time, when Paul preached Christ
to Jews. If being the Law-people was sufficient to receive the promise of
God, there was no need for Paul to preach Christ to Jews. Now that this
issue arose again among Gentile believers, Paul went back to the basics
which were already restablished: no flesh will be righteoused simply by
being Jews. Though they were given promises, they needed to believe in
Christ to get them fulfilled.

So, I would ask why do you think that Paul's autobiographical
statement has to do just with the debate over the Gentile inclusion.

Yours,

Moon
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea




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