Corpus-Paul

["John Brand" <jbrand AT gvsd.mb.ca>]

From:                   "Tim Gallant" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>
To:                     "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject:                Re: [Corpus-Paul] The use of shame in reasoning

> Part of what we must recover is a biblical (OT) view of what
> justification entails. The judge did not simply make a bare verdict,
> but executed the sentence. The primary sentence of condemnation, Paul
> says in Rom 5, is death. And that means that the ultimate meaning of
> justification is resurrection - precisely what Paul indicates in 4.25.
> Paul draws the parallel in the passage - Abraham received life from
> the dead (justification) through the birth of Isaac (if you think that
> sounds odd, look at 4.17 carefully). That's the thrust of much of
> 4.13-25.

John responds:
Are you able to see an OT view of justification in a Protestant
interpretation of Romans, Tim?

A. Justification in the OT is a verdict based on a righteousness that
is intrinsic while the Protestant verdict is based on the sacrifice
of Christ.

Deuteronomy 24:10 "When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort ...
If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge ... when the
sun goes down you shall surely return the pledge to him, that he may
sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for
you before the LORD your God."

B. Because A is true it follows that the OT justification is never
perpetual; thus, for example, in the Book of Judges, God hands the
people over to their enemies as his response to their turning to
other gods.

In Protestant theology the verdict that justifies is based on the
unchanging righteousness of Christ and is, therefore, perpetual. This
is the reason why the Jew is perceived to be outside of the covenant,
is it not?

Let's look at a classic OT case of judge, judgment and justification:

2 Chronicles 6:22-24 “If a man sins against his neighbor and is made
to take an oath, and he comes and takes an oath before Your altar in
this house, then hear from heaven and act and judge Your servants,
returning punishing the wicked by bringing his way on his own head
and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his
righteousness."

If we were to recover a first communication situation for Romans
rather than applying a retrojection of Protestant theology, we would
be more on the mark if we were to take Paul to be applying an OT view
of justification than a later development.

Thus, when Paul says 'in the gospel' (defined 1:2-4) 'a righteousness
(dikaiosune with hebrew referrent of zedaqah) of God is revealed ...
just as it is written 'the just shall live by faith' we would have to
take Paul in the OT context. What does that mean in terms of
Habakkuk's argument?

There are two men in Habakkuk 2:4 one whose soul is upright and the
other whose soul is not. The just is delivered from the proclivity
that characterizes the proud man in Habakkuk 2 because his soul is
upright rather than because he has made a sacrifice.

How does this apply to Romans? Paul says that a wrath of God is
revealed against sin (1:18) in that God gives men over to their
sinful desires just as we see in the judgment of 2 Chronicles 6 and
in the book of Judges. The righteous on the other hand are
'justified' in the sense that they are preserved or saved from an
adverse circumstance which in the case of Romans 1:18ff is the
proclivity of desire that leads to more and more sin (cf Romans 6).

1SA 12:7  "Now therefore stand still, that I may plead with you
before the LORD concerning all the zedaqoth of the LORD which he
performed for you and for your fathers."

It is more consistent with Paul's thought in Romans for a person to
take an intrinsic righteousness as the basis for the verdict of
justification and to take the salvation as a deliverance from the sin
that leads to the condemnation of the judgment. The Jew's confidence
is in the righteousness that comes from his Torah observance in the
same sense as the Protestant trusts in his adherance to the standards
of his confession as opposed to the entrance into the cruciform life
that Paul advocates.

Let me attempt to recover a first communication situation: The Jew is
suffering (Isaiah 53) because he has not been faithful to the
covenant and thinks that his Torah observance will or should bring
him salvation. But he is wrong. He needs the Gentile to show him what
the righteous servant looks like so that he can be delivered from the
sin that is the basis for his condemnation. As the Gentile enters
into the death of Christ (Romans 8), he demonstrates what the Jew had
missed. Both the Jew and the Gentile can then enter their
inheritance.

Regards,

John Brand
B.A. (Providence College, 1980)
M.Min. (Providence Seminary, 1990)