Corpus-Paul

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

Dear Loren,
thanks for bringing up a good topic to discuss. I came to read
Galatians from a new perspective, once I "understood" that
the primary significance of the Law was that it was the identity
marker of the Jews, the people of God. The distinction between
the Jews and the Gentiles is the distinction between the Law-people
and the non-Law people. In some context, Paul seems to consider 
the Law as ethical standards rather than as the identity marker 
which defines the Jewish people. But that should not make us forget
the primary significance of the Law. 


Now let me answer your comments.

-- moon-ryul jung wrote:
> 
> > The negative remarks Paul made on the Law include:
> > "Before this faith came, we [the Jews] were held
> > prisoners by the
> > Law, locked up until faith should be revealed"
> > ((3:23) "Now that the faith
> > has come, we [the Jews] are no longer under the Law,
> > [but under the bigger
> > scheme of the faith, i.e. Christ, so that we do not
> > need to discriminate
> > the Gentiles based on the Law]" (3:25) "When we [the
> > Jews]were children,
> > we were enslaved under the stoicheia of the world"
> > "(4:3)
> > 
> > NOTE: I take "we" to refer to the Jews, the people
> > of the Law. Those who 
> > were under the Law were none other than the Jews.
> > The Gentiles were not 
> > under the Law at all.  

[Loren]
> This isn’t entirely accurate, Moon. Paul could speak
> of God-fearers “under the law”. Rom. 2:14-16, for
> instance, says that Gentiles who don’t have the Torah
> are nonetheless are subject to, and bound by, “the law
> written on their hearts, to which their own conscience
> bears witness”

[Moon]

In the very paragraph you mentioned, Paul clearly distinguish
those without the Law and those under the Law. That Paul was 
able to say "All who sinned WITHOUT the Law will also perish 
WITHOUT the Law" clearly indicates that the Gentiles was NOT
UNDER THE LAW. They sinned but they did not violate specific 
commandments of the Law, but what the Law requires. Though this
distinction seems meaningless for many interpreters, that
distinction makes the Jews the people under the Law, and
the Gentiles the people not under the Law. For the Jews under
the Law, so called ethical laws, ceremonical laws, and civic laws
have the equal significance; all are commandments of God. 
The Law of the Jews was a complete system like the constitutions
and the subordinate laws of modern governments. The Law also defined
who could be citizens of the Jewish nation, the people of God. 
For the Gentiles, the intentions of the ethical laws are meaningful. 
They were quite different from the Law as a whole system controlling 
the whole Jewish nation. 

I think you would readily agree to the above description of the Law.
Now the issue is what are meant by the "Law" and the "stoicheia tou
kosmou"
and the "children" in the following verses. They will in turn determine
the referent of "we".

>>  "Before this faith came, we were held
> > prisoners by the Law, locked up until faith should be revealed"
> > ((3:23) "Now that the faith has come, we are no longer under the          
> >   Law"(3:25) "When we were children,  we were enslaved under the
>>  stoicheia of the world" "(4:3)

You said:
> In the case of Gal. 3:23-29, “we” may not refer to the
> Jewish people anymore than “I” refers to the Jewish
> Paul in Rom. 7:7-25. I’m inclined to believe that “we”
> is rhetorical -- especially considering that Paul’s
> Galatian audience is a Gentile one.

It is more important to examine the context of Gal. 3:23-29 and the 
context of the whole Galatians. Moreover the issue of who "I" in
Rom 7: 7-25 refers is more difficult than the issue of who "we"
refers to in Galatians. So, I will ignore Rom 7:7-25 in my comments.

It is my contention that by "we/us/our", Paul refers to the Jews
[3:13,3:23-25,4:3], or all the believers [3:14,4:6,4:28,31,5:1,5], and by
"you/your",
Paul refers to the Gentile believers [3:26-29, 4:6].

The problematic cases are 3:13,3:23-25, 4:3. Whether "we" in these verses
refer to the Jews or all the believers depends on how we understand 
the other expressions, e.g. "redeemed... from the curse of the Law",
"held prisoners by the Law", "no longer under the  Law". In the "Old
Perspective" in which Judaism was thought to teach
salvation based on "work-righteousness", these expressions were
readily applied to the Gentile believers. I was not the exception.
So, the referent of "we" depends on what you understand Paul was trying
to argue with respect to the Law in the letter. 

Paul was tring to prevent the Galatians from getting into "under the Law",
i.e. getting proselyte conversion. He did it by trying to explain the
role and significance of the Law. He said "you who desire to be under
the Law, do you not hear the Law?" The fact that "they desired to be
under the Law" means that they were not under the Law. So, it does not
make
sense to say that "they were no longer under the Law", because they were
not under the Law all throughout history. 

Paul's argument in 3:23-25 was that
the Law was a system that guided the Jewish people until the new age.
Before Christ came, we, the Jews,were confined under the Law, that is,
believed and lived according to the limits that the Law set up. According
to this Law, Gentiles should become Jews to be included in the people of
God.
We, the Jews, were kept under restraint, under custodian. But all these
statements were made retrospectively, once the new age had come. 
This constraint was broken when Gentiles became sons of God, 
children of Abraham by believing in Christ apart from the Law, that is,
without becoming the Law-people. This is what I take as the meaning of
3:25-26.

"Now that faith has come, we, the Jews, are no longer under a custodian;
for in Christ Jesus, you, the Gentile believers, are all sons of God, 
through faith."

That is, the reason that the Jews are no longer under the custodian 
of the Law is that the Gentiles can be sons of God apart from the
Law/ without getting circumcised/ without becoming Jews, 
through faith in Christ. 

In conclusion, I determined the referent of "we" in Gal 3:23-25 and
the related verses based on the fact that according to Paul,
in the old age, the Jews was constrained to require Gentiles
to become Jews to be sons of God, but now in the new age, they
should not require so.

Loren, it is already deep into the night. I am not sure if I communicated
myself well enough. But so far this time. 

Regards,
Moon

Moon-Ryul Jung
Associate Professor
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea