Corpus-Paul

["Jon Peter" <jnp AT home.com>]

Paul indeed writes (Rom 3.1-2) "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what
profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto
them were committed the oracles of God."

Unfortunately, the context of Paul's discussion here shows that he is really
'damning with faint praise.' He doesn't mean this at all. This statement
comes immediately after he has just gotten thru saying 'true Jews are those
who obey the law on their hearts,' and that this description applies in fact
to *Gentiles* rather than to Paul's ethnic kin!

Moreover, Paul immediately follows this by saying that the Jews who were
given the Oracles, *disobeyed them*, and so God was faithful and good
anyway. That is Paul's point.

In Rom 3 31, after one anti-Torahic tirade, Paul raises the logical question
anyone might: "Do we then make void the law through faith?"  He answers:
"God forbid: yea, we establish the law."

What's all-important is to understand the rather bizarre sense in which Paul
means that the Law is indeed "upheld." The Law is 'established' and upheld
only as a condemnatory tool! It is not upheld in any conventional or
traditional way one would recognize, but only in Paul's odd sense consisting
of these elements:

(1) As a means of exposing hypocrites who try to follow it!  (Rom 2.1-10)

(2) As a *special* scathing insult to would-be pious teachers (Rom 2:)

(3) As proof that Jews and Gentiles are all in the same boat (Rom 2.11,
14-15)

(4) To expose hypocritical arrogance towards Gentiles (Rom 2.17-24)

(5) To underscore that everyone is a moral failure -- Jews as Torah-reciever
being "tricked" by God into serving as the object lesson of it (Rom 3.4)

(6) To prove God's goodness in spite of human failures.

(7) To solidify justification by faith, apart from the law (Rom 3.28)

Elsewhere Paul writes that the Torah is ultimately the mediator bringing
about humankind's death!

So, the proper context for understanding Gal. Rom. etc., etc., isn't
Jew-Gentile relations at all, but a context in which Paul is fervently
jettisoning Law for Jews -- but he is having to face-down their traditions,
sensibilities and natural inertia/resistance.

The Law does no good for Jews at all, let alone Gentiles.  That is Paul's
real point.  However, that position is so discomfiting that Paul must soften
the blow with a posy here and there. This is especially necessary in answer
to the painful question, "Well, if the Law is such a death-dealing
monstrosity, Paul, then why did God ever bother giving it? You make the Law
into a kind of cruel joke," etc.

So, he answers with soft-soaping about how "the Jews were privileged in
receiving the Oracles of God" --- yet without any logical connection of this
statement to anything, nor expansion on it. He really doesn't mean it except
in an ironic sense. And he's only saying such things to let the Jewish
readers down easy. For another example, Paul elsewhere says the Law was like
a prep-school teacher readying Jewish students for Graduation Day into
Christ.  This is again merely a kind of theodicy, and it is only
half-hearted on Paul's part (no follow-up to the metaphor). All Paul cares
about passionately is Jews and Gentiles adhering to Christ.

As for Jewish-Gentile church relations:  One practical consequence of
abolishing Torah is that Jews have to give up on looking down their noses at
Gentiles. That is an important pastoral issue, but, in theological or other
doctrinal terms, it is merely a side issue. The fact that Paul cajoles in
these terms to get Jews to allow Gentiles full status in no way softens
Paul's antinomianism. Nor does this provide any hint that Paul somehow
upholds Torah-keeping for Jewish converts and has a second-track called sole
fide for Gentiles. To read Paul in that way grossly strains his texts.

Regards,

Jon