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  • From: "Tim Gallant" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Did Paul break the Law?
  • Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 17:11:07 -0700

Tim Gallant comments:
(Note by Tim: Lest one take this out of context, I elsewhere try to
make clear that the new covenant is not just some de novo
administration, but a glorification and "eschatologicization" of the
Mosaic. Thus one is not to take the "abrogated" side of things on its
own.)

John asks:
What I am about to explain is garbled and, therefore, difficult to
penetrate but it is a sincere attempt to recover what Paul is
actually saying in his epistles.

If we are to face the confessional interpretation of Paul squarely,
the understanding of the 'new covenant' is that this covenant is
written on the heart by those who are 'in Christ.' All others,
therefore, are outside of the covenant. Thus, in saying it is
'eschatologized' the confessions are saying that all other covenants
(the Noahide, Mosaic, Davidic, etc.) are 'abrogated' (abolished, done
away with). What this means in very practical terms is that neither
the Jew nor the Gentile outside of Christ can expect to participate
in the summing up of all things in Christ. My understanding of this
is that it eventually comes to mean that no one goes to heaven except
those who are 'in Christ.' This, then, means that the Jewish religion
is not a legitimate religion in terms of the eschatology of the
confessions. Am I confused on this, Tim?

I'm not sure how helpful it is to speak of all Christian confessions collectively in most cases, as you are doing. But on this point (if I am understanding you correctly), you are largely right (although I don't think "legitimate religion" is apt terminology), assuming by "Jewish religion" you mean Jewish religion apart from Christ. (Nor am I entirely satisfied with describing soteriology in terms of "going to heaven," but that is another matter.)

When one reads a passage such as Romans 2 where both the Jew and the
Gentile are judged apart from halakah (circumcision or
uncircumcision), the idea is that a man is justified by what the Jew
would call kavanah or 'intentionality' (faith working through love).
The implications of an interpretation which moves in the direction of
legitimating the Jewish faith would also imply that the Noahide
covenant legitimates all religions so long as they fulfill the
injunction 'faith working through love.' Conversely, if we want to
say that the Noahide covenant is abrogated, we have to say that the
Mosaic covenant is abrogated.

It seems to me that there are an awful lot of questions begged in that one paragraph, not least what "faith" or "intentionality" would be. If it means something like people being "saved by sincerity," I don't see that as anywhere close to Paul's position. Romans 2 follows Romans 1, and the fall of man is depicted first of all in terms of idolatry. Thus Romans 2 cannot be talking about a vague intentionality, if that's what you mean. The notion that there can be some sort of "faith" which can be filled with whatever content one prefers would be foreign to Paul. The "obedience of faith" which he proclaims is Christ-specific.

John continues:
I am not familiar with Davies but thank-you for the summary. You are
perhaps missing the assumption that I am seeing in Nanos et al vis a
vis the Jewish faith was at the writing of the NT considered a
legitimate vehicle to justification outside of Christ. When the
confessions talk about Christ as a personal torah, do they not mean
to focus on Christ's atonement rather than his example?

I don't know of any confessions that talk about Christ as a personal Torah at all, so it seems to me an odd question to raise.

In other
words, while the Jew would interpret Isaiah 53 as a picture of his
own suffering epitomized in the Messiah (which the NT sees to be
Jesus) whom he is to follow. The confessions interpret Isaiah 53 as
the Messiah's propitiatory sacrifice on behalf of the church. This
appears to be a major difference between Nanos et al and the
confessionals. Also, the NPP would move in the same direction where
Isaiah 53 is the epitome of what God calls us to rather than the
propitiation. Am I missing something here?

Yes, a great deal. For one thing, I am not sure why you are isolating Isaiah 53. In my reading, the Christian tradition generally refers Is 53 to Christ-as-substitute and not much, if at all, to Christ-as-example. But on the whole, the Christian tradition very rarely, if ever, pits Christ's substitionary work over against His "exemplary" character. As for the NPP, N. T. Wright (one of the three primary representatives) certainly argues very explicitly that Christ saw Himself as the suffering Servant of Is 53 (see e.g. Jesus and the Victory of God 588ff), as well as for the propitiatory character of His work (see e.g. Wright's commentary on Rom 3). So I don't particularly find either of these generalizations all that accurate or to the point.

John:
I am trying to reflect back to you the confessional interpretation of
the 'fall' of Israel (Romans 11:11 'they did not stumble so as to
fall'). In the deuteronomic system a Jew is justified so long as he
is allowing torah to be his guide. Thus, if Christ replaces the
Torah, it would follow that those who follow Christ (i.e. are
disciples) are justified rather than those who have entered into a
covenant with Christ.

This is rather obscure to me. Please explain how you mean to differentiate between "following Christ" and "entering into covenant with Christ." I frankly cannot see how you can build a "rather than" out of that. The disciple is inducted into Christ by baptism, and that just is the covenantal rite of initiation (cf 1 Cor 10).

In this view, if the Jew continues to follow
Torah as guide while he is in Christ, the confessionals would say
that he is 'in bondage' to Torah. Nanos et al would contend that this
is a misinterpretation of what Paul is saying.

"Follow Torah as guide" is too ambiguous to be at all helpful. As I have said (repeatedly!) in this thread, Paul never says he condemns Jews for following Torah, except in those (rare) instances where it would entail blockage of full and equal fellowship with Gentiles.

Moreover, who are the "confessionals"? All orthodox Christians? Where do you find statements such as this in the ecumenical creeds?

Let me clarify a term I used above. I believe that for Paul, Jewish
Christians are no longer *de jure* under the Mosaic covenant. But
parallel with that, I don't believe either that he encourages Jewish
Christians to violate the Mosaic law either. Precisely because it has
been relativized along with the rest of "this age," Jews are free and
even encouraged to remain in the place where they were called (cf 1
Cor 7).

John responds:
Mark Nanos treats 1 Corinthians 7 as a key passage to support the
view that the Jewish way of life was not changed by their coming into
Christ. (see his "Paul and Judaism" on his website)

Good!

Tim continues:
And I think Acts is right on the money when it portrays Paul's
response to James's report (James tells Paul that people are saying he
is telling Jews not to observe the law; Paul's response indicates that
he is saying no such thing). The only place where Paul would tell Jews
not to observe the law would be regarding possible issues where
fellowship with Gentiles on an equal footing would be impossible, and
those issues are relatively few, in my reading of the law. Thus the
fact that Jews observe Torah and Gentiles do not is not a matter of
"unfairness" (as someone suggested earlier). Far from it; unfairness
would be requiring Jews to live like Gentiles. Living like Jews is
what they always have done, and following the law's prescriptions as
"lifestyle" is presumably not onerous. (As a friend of mine says:
perhaps for the first generation, avoiding pork was difficult, but in
a culture that hasn't eaten pork for generations, it simply isn't a
temptation, just as for most of us, eating some strange meat is not
all that appealing. Changes in habit are always more difficult than
retention.)

John responds:
I think I understand where you are going here; again where there is a
conflict is in the legitimacy of the Jewish religion as it is outside
of Christ. This appears to be the crux of the issue that Mark is
raising (i.e. the deleterious affects of the confessions).

But as Dr Nanos has now clarified for me, his point there is not exegetical but hermeneutical. But I continue to prefer a different word than "legitimacy," although I recognize that it is convenient shorthand.

Thanks for your discussion.

tim

Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church

http://www.timgallant.org
tim | gallant site group





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