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corpus-paul - Re: The purpose of the law in salvation-history

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  • From: "Bob MacDonald" <bobmacdonald AT home.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: The purpose of the law in salvation-history
  • Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 10:42:49 -0700


1. Exoneration of God

While I do not think God needs exoneration, I do think He needs advertising.

Job and Paul are both good advertisements - all the worst aspects (truth in
advertising) are noted, but also all the best. Faithfulness is needed on
both sides when things are really problematical.

What is meant by ' the perverse implications of these texts'?

I hear many interpret them perversely - but the implications may be in our
minds rather than in God or the intent of God's spokespeople.

"History or beliefs raised challenges to the view that God is constant and
fair"

This is uncontestable. At least from our observations, life has no
predictability. The tension in the canon of Scripture is in the claim that
'God promises to faithful Abraham' that the reality is otherwise than
observed. Faith in the promise produces the conflict in us between
observation and expectation. Sin is an explanation - but woefully inadequate
as Job shows - after all Job's faith is held up to us as justified, and not
the simplistic answers of his comforters. (Ezekiel deals with this somewhere
too but I couldn't find it this morning.)

"How could God, who intended to save on the basis of faith, have given a law
which does not save... Paul then recoils from the potential denial that God
acted for the good"

Recoil is too strong - Paul is hardly 'concerned' about these arguments as
he demolishes them one by one. Paul's confidence in his analysis is not in
question in my mind at least. (I read confidence as arrogance on first
reading 30 odd years ago - but that was my fault.) But the modern or
post-modern person has clear problems finding a resolution to the tension
between God and good; law and righteousness; etc on the basis of logic
alone. Anyway, I don't see Paul 'driving a wedge' between God and sin as if
he was worried about a possible dualism that would eliminate the postulate

of God's sovereignty. I guess I am missing something.

2. Speaking to multiple audiences

Loren wrote
>>Anguish, torment, and repeated recoils run through Rom. 7:7-25.<<

Here you appeal to emotions in Paul - as have others reading this passage
through Freudian eyes. And it raises Dieter's question "For some of the
players this may not even be a theological problem but a socio-political
one."

Who are the players and how would they read this epistle?

Gentiles - sympathizers, proselytes, God-fearers, or pagans?
Jews - resident in Rome - originating from Israel, originating from Pontus,
or Antioch, or Cyrene, Hellenist or Hebraic, or converts?

"All God's beloved in Rome."

In chapter 7 - Paul explicitly singles out those who know Torah (vs 1). This
puts the Gentile hearers to one side for a moment. The centre of the piece,
the resolution of all conflicts, is verse 4. The rest of chapter 7 and 8 is
a commentary on this.

It would be an interesting exercise to examine how Paul tailors his argument
for each of his potential audiences. How hard it is to address everyone in
the same room at once! What an astonishing mind is at work in this epistle,
God Himself, eh?, taking the time to prod us into a response so that
explanation becomes possible.

Anguish, torment, and repeated recoils? - No, I don't think so, rather
confidence, love, and a spring to his step that has considerable resilience
and is in no danger of wearing out.

Bob

mailto::BobMacDonald AT home.com
+ + + Victoria, B.C., Canada + + +

Catch the foxes for us,
the little foxes that make havoc of the vineyards,
for our vineyards are in flower. (Song 2.15)
http://members.home.net/bobmacdonald/homepage.htm






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