Corpus-Paul

["moon-ryul jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>]

Dear Jon, David, Mark.

In the recent discussions on Gal 2:16 et. al., I found an interesting
statement or proposition, which I would like to discuss.

[David]

> I would detect the development of an argument here: a. that even Jews who
> observe the law are still actually justified by their faith in the
promises  God made to Abraham's offspring,

[Jon]
I would agree with you, except to put this in the past tense 
"... Jews who observe(d) the law *were* still actually justified by faith"; 
but only until Christ came on the scene. Christ becomes the litmus test for 
any claim of faith, and to reject him in favor of the Law proves that faith 
never really existed.


The observation that Jews who observed the law were actually justified by 
faith is quite true, because, as Mark always emphasizes, they observed
the law out of faith in the gracious God. Now the proposition I want to
discuss is:

(a) To reject Christ in favor of the Law proves that faith [in God]
    never really existed.

It seems that Jesus said a similar thing: If you had believed in Moses, you 
would have believed in me. Anyway, I guess that Mark would not accept
statement (a). He would say that the situation would have been more complex 
than the statement (a) would imply. I think he needs listening.

One may read (a) out of Rom 9:31-32 and Rom 10:3:
Rom 9:31-32.
But Israel who pursued the law of righteousness  has not attained it. Why?
Because they pursued it not by faith but as if by works.

10:3:
For, they,  being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to 
establish their own, they have not submitted to God's righteousness.

But these statements should be read in the context of the neighboring
paragraphs. For example, one needs to think about why Paul inserted
Rom 10:12 "For there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile" in the
text that talks about Israel's "unbelief". I am surprised to find
this statement here.

Respectfully
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University,
Seoul, Korea
  

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