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  • From: "Billy LeJeune" <billyl AT wcs.edu>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: the role of the law in salvation-history
  • Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 06:06:49 -0500

Greetings all,

What about NT Wright's take that the law was given for the purpose of
exposing and locating and piling up sin in a place where it could be
dealt with once and for all. In his view the tension seems to me to be
resolved. The law doesn't consign the humanity to sin; the world is
already consigned to sin. It consigns Israel to sin which is
representative of humanity, therefore when Jesus takes Israel's curse,
he takes the world's curse as well. He takes the "we" in Galations to be
Jews and the "you " to be gentles which seems to me to be be the most
natural reading.

Im am an amateur, so please be gentle.

Billy LeJeune
Amateur Biblical Exegete


-----Original Message-----
From: moon-ryul jung
Sent: Mon 10/1/2001 1:42 AM
To: Corpus-paul
Cc:
Subject: [corpus-paul] Re: the role of the law in
salvation-history

Loren raised important issues about the role of the law
in salvation-history. In particular, he thinks that the
following three sets of statements are in
tension with each other, if not contradicting each other.
What was going on in Paul's mind? Can we make sense of him?
I will comment only on number 1 below for now.


1. Gal 3:19 (echoed in Rom 11:32)
-- God gave the law in order to consign humanity to
sin so that he might subsequently save on the basis of
faith.


2. Rom. 7:7-13 (echoed in Rom. 3:20, 4:15, 5:20):

-- God gave the law for obedience and life, but sin
foiled God's intent by working disobedience and death
through the law.


3. Rom. 7:14-25:

-- God gave the law for obedience and life, but sin
foiled God's intent by working disobedience and death
through human flesh.
-------------------------------------------------------


Loren also said:
It was certainly later pressed into the service of
misguided Lutheran/Calvinist agendas. But the
statements of Gal. 3:19-24 and Rom. 11:32 need to
dealt with in any case, and not simply wished away.
What sense do you, Robert, make of Paul's assertion
that "God has imprisoned us under disobedience so that
he may be merciful to all?"

--------------

Dieter wrote as follows about the issues that Loren raised:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes - but... in Gal 3:19-25 Paul may not be aiming at dealing
with (or expressing his own) worries with regard to
"God's constancy in dealing with Israel"
(depending, of course, on what you mean with the phrase).
Why would Paul want/have to worry about that?
We may have a situation where nobody is especially worried
about God's dealings with Israel. The issue at stake may be
the inclusion of the Gentiles into God's covenant with Abraham and
how that can/should/must be realized. For some of the players this
may not even be a theological problem but a socio-political one. And if
that is so, overstatements as the ones we have been discussing may in
fact
turn out to mean something quite different (if we understand an
utterance's
meaning to belong within the utterance situation) than if they had been
uttered
out of worries about God's dealings with Israel.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----


At the present moment, the framework of Mark Nanos book, "the mystery of

Romans", provides the best solution for me. His framework does not seem
so different from Dieter's, which is summarized above. But I think that
Paul's statements reveal some truth. Otherwise, they would not have any
effect as a propoganda to win his audience. So, let me try to make sense

of the three sets of his statements, without forgetting that they were
part of his strategic propoganda to win his audience.

First of all, following Nanos, I believe that key issues of Galatians
and
Romans
was (1) that the Gentiles, who were the primary audience of both
letters,
can become God's people, the children of Abrahma, without
becoming the poeple of the Law by practicing the "works [deeds] of the
law"
as an identity marker of the covenant people, and (2) that they should
live
a holy life like Jews, even though they are not under the Law and
thereby
do not need to practice the "works of the law".

The first point is argued in various manners. The clearest argument for
it
seems to be
Rom 3:28 - 30:

For we hold that a man is righteoused by faith apart from works of law.
Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also?
Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will righteous
the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through
the faith.

This is an example of the famous "proof by contradiction".
Claim: A man is righteoused by faith apart from works of law.
Proof: (i) Suppose it is not true. This is expressed by "Or" in the
above
paragraph.
(ii) Then we should conclude that God is the God of Jews only.
But this contradicts the fundamental truth that God is one.
(iii) So, we must accept the claim.

The fact that "by faith not by works of law" has nothing to do with
"work-righteousness" is clearly revealed in that it means essentially
the same as "God is not of Jews only but of Gentiles also".
In other words, "saved by faith not by works of law" simply means
"saved by faith without becoming Jews", the people of the Law, that is,
without practicing the Law as an identity marker of being Jews.

In Rom 3:28 - 30, Paul proves his point without "exposing" the
"negative"
aspect of the Law. But he proves his point by using some negative
language
in Gal 3:19-24. This proof goes deeper than Rom 3:28-30, in that
it explains why the "works of the law" / "being under the Law" does
not/should not go beyond the boundary of Israel. The way of life of
Israel as the people of the Law is confined to Israel because it
was a temporary measure to guide and protect the people of Israel
until the new age comes (the argument using pedagogue). That state
was immature in that it had to discriminate the Gentiles according to
the Law. It did not have the common basis that allowed both Gentiles and

Jews to have an access to God on equal foot. Though the way of life
of Israel was ordained by God and was good in itself, it was limited in
scope and should not hinder the end-time plan of God in Christ.

In Gal 3.21, Paul clearly states that the Law and the promise are
distinct. No law was given which was able to "make alive" (ZWiPOIHSAI).
The law was given simply to guide and regulate the life of Israel as the
people
of God. But the law was the law of blessing and curse. It was supposed
to
curse the poeple when they disobeyed the law. That curse happened to
Israel
throughout its history several times (several exiles, for example)
and perhaps it was under way at the time when Paul was writing.
I think that this fact of Israel's fate is expressed in Gal 3:22
"But, the scripture confined all under sin". It is echoed in Rom 11:32,
"God confined all in disobedience in order that he might mercy all"
Here "all" refers to both Jews ("they") and Gentiles ("you") in the
context
(cf. 11:30-31). In sum, both ways of life, that of Jews and that of
Gentiles,
resulted in disobedience.

So, if in Rom 3:28-30, Paul discourages Gentiles to adopt the life
characterized by the works of the Law based on the fact that God is one.
But in Gal 3:10- 4:7, he does so based on the fact that Israel's way
also led to disobedience and needed redemption.
Israel also needed to be redeemed from the curse of the law, that is,
from the state resulted from their disobedience to the law (Gal 3:13).


I am not comfortable with the fact that God
confined both Jews and Gentiles under sin and in disobedience
in order that he can show mercy to them. On human level, it is not
acceptable. Suppose that some strong guy put you into a great trouble
and
then
he helped you out of the trouble. You will be thankful for him for his
mercy.
But when you know that all things were his grand scheme, you would be
very angry with him.

But perhaps that might have been the only for God to be able to give us
his grace and mercy. In that case, we should be thankful for God's grand
scheme of salvation history.

Moon
Moon R. Jung
Sogang University,
Seoul, Korea


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