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corpus-paul - Re: corpus-paul digest: January 30, 2001

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  • From: Jason D Weaver <jsweaver7 AT juno.com>
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: corpus-paul digest: January 30, 2001
  • Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 18:53:48 -0600




> If there is one passage from Dunn’s commentary I agree
> with wholeheartedly, it is his commentary on Rom.
> 10:4. “In saying that Christ is the end of the law,
> Paul is not denoting a timeless sequence which
> subsequent generations of people might expect to find
> repeated in their lives, as if everyone must go
> through a ‘law phase’ and experience futility and
> despair before finally accepting Christ as a gracious
> savior”. However true that would be for Augustine and
> Martin Luther, that’s not what Paul has in mind.
> Christ is the end of one stage of dealings (with
> Israel) and and the introduction of a new stage (with
> Israel and the pagan world). The role of the law as a
> badge of priveleged election is over.

I was not suggesting that Christ is the end of the law as a sequence of
events in the life of an unbeliever. Christ is the only source of
righteousness. The law is powerless to produce righteousness in anyone
(Gal 3:21-22). This has testimony in Israel's history. They failed to
achieve righteousness because they sought it by the law. Righteousness
only comes by faith. Israel missed that. The only righteousness that
comes from the law is that which is achieved by perfect works. The law
was never given to produce righteousness, but only to reveal God's
righteousness. Israel could only behold this righteousness in the law,
but not achieve it by the law. It is in this sense that law is a curse
to those who try to achieve anything under it, it shows sin but offers no
solution. Rom 10 begins as a prayer for Israel. He speaks of their
misuse of the law. They missed the intended point of the law, the
righteousness of God, and they tried to use the law to make their own
righteousness. In so doing, they were rejecting God's righteousness.
How then do we get righteousness? The law points to it, but Christ is
the very fulfillment of it. He is the only source of the righteousness
that the law speaks of.


> Jason, you show no acknowledgement in your posting
> that the law is still to be fulfilled. For that
> matter, I see little evidence that you realize that
> the law is a good and holy thing, which is a point of
> Rom. 7. Keep in mind that Paul believes the law must
> still be fulfilled, in two different senses:

The law is a good and holy thing. But because of the sin that indwells
us, we do not get along with the law. That is why Christ was cursed to
redeem us from the curse of the law (Gal 3:13). This redemption is not
only expressed in justification, but also in sanctification. The law was
made to show the sins of the flesh, not to fix them. All the law can do
for me is show me my sin. But if I walk in the Spirit, I completely
bypass the flesh, having no need of the law to show me my flesh. This is
why Gal 5:18 says what it says. The law is fulfilled in Christ in me (Rom
10:4).


> 1. From the perspective of Rom. 2-4 (and 9-11) the law
> must be upheld as usual, just as before, save that
> Jewish commandments (like circumcision, holy days, and
> some food laws) are optional for Gentiles. Jews,
> presumably, should go on just as before, keeping all
> the commandments -- the Mosaic law -- while Gentiles
> should abide by an implicit “Noahide law”
> [anachronistically speaking]. This is what “the law of
> faith” (Rom. 3:27) is all about.

The Jews died to the law relieving them of their obligation to it(Rom.
7:1-6). Their only obligation is the same as that of the Gentiles, to
serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter (law).
As far as the law is concerned, we don't exist (Rom 7:6) because we have
already died in Christ.

> 2. From the perspective of Rom. 5-8 the law must be
> upheld on account of the fact that believers (whether
> Jew or Gentile) have only died with Christ at baptism
> (Rom. 6), not yet risen with him (Rom. 8). Ideally
> they have “died to the law”, but actually they must go
> on fulfilling the (Mosaic or Noahide) law until the
> end of all things.

There is no verse that says we must go on fulfilling the law itself. Rom
8:4 says that when we walk according to the Spirit, we fulfill the
righeousness of the law. Not the righteousness that comes from the works
of the law, but the righteousness of God that is revealed in the law, and
expressed in us by the Spirit.

In Christ,
Jason Weaver




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