A: Errm...well obviously the answer to my nagging question should be 'no'. But when you hear many people talk about 'the law' you can't help feeling that the answer should be 'yes'.
When Moses came down mount Sinai perhaps the Israelites should have responded "You know what Moses, God already has an unconditional covenant with us as children of Abraham. We know that we are accepted on that basis, without circumcision, by faith alone. Frankly Moses, you are selling us down the river with a works-based righteousness that will not lead to life. We'll stick with the unconditional covenant of Abraham and reject your man-made legalism."
You know your understanding of the Mosaic law is wrong when you cannot pin down why that should not have been the Israelites response to the giving of the law.
... I am pretty sure my understanding of the law is wrong!
"But the law is not of faith..."
By the way, this is going to be the start of a mini-series of nagging questions (not doubts) about the Bible. I don't know the answers to any of them so please feel free to help me out.
I'm happy to say the law had a positive role for Israel but just that it wasn't for justification.
ReplyDeletei) it helped preserve a people whose first inclination was always to follow foreign gods. (Galatians 3)
2) it provided a warning to us to take Jesus seriously (the Hebrews 1-2 usage)
3) it taught them some very important things about their God
4) it taught them about the need for Abraham's seed to bring atonement by blood
amongst other things..
but it's definitely one i'm still working on myself.
Thanks so much for commenting Dave. This question is causing me a great deal of angst at the moment - it's no academic question for me.
ReplyDeleteYour answer seems to be the traditional protestant one from Calvin to Stott - and also seems to be Paul's, so I can't disagree with you, indeed I would not want to.
However, I think both you, Paul etc are taking the question in one particular way (correct me if I'm wrong). When Paul's interlocutor asks "Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?" he responds by saying "well it couldn't actually justify, so it is not a alternative route to justification". However... I think this much is clear from the law. The law agrees with Paul in so many ways - clearly showing that salvation is faith. Hebrews demonstrates this and the narrative of the 5 books of Moses as a whole shows it too.
But then I get confused because Paul seems to disagree with me because while he agrees that it doesn't contradict the promise, he states that it is 'not of faith' (i.e. is not looking forward to Jesus).
Now maybe I'm misreading the 5 books of Moses, but I have trouble distinguishing Paul's quotation of Lev 18 from Paul's own comment in Rom 2:13. Romans 2:13 has been read in a number of different ways so that it fits with justification by faith because Paul can't contradict himself in the space of a few chapters. But I don't see why Paul could not do the same and read Lev 18 charitably in the light of the rest of the 5 books. However when he does compare Lev 18 with the rest of the law (in Romans 10) he seems to use the law to argue against Lev 18!
So I seem to end up with a reading of Paul which sees the law as a evil means to a good end because it teaches that legalism is wrong, by teaching legalism. But that can’t be a correct reading of Paul because he also sees the law as a ‘guardian’ as you say… and now I seem to be getting into Raisanen territory where Paul is a bit of schizophrenic. Or perhaps he sees a difference between ‘the Torah of works’ and ‘the Torah of faith’ where there are two competing perspectives within the 5 books of Moses which work in some kind of dialectical way to point to Christ.
But I framed my ‘nagging question’ in a way that is meant to really focus this complex issue by looking at the law not from the perspective of the whole of salvation history but from the point of view of the ordinary Israelite waiting for Moses to descend Mount Sinai with a bunch of commands in his hands. The way you framed your answers, and I think how traditional Protestantism frames the answer to my question is to say: ‘well it taught a false doctrine of justification, but despite that and in part through that life and truth can be found’ (please correct me if I’m misunderstanding). But I find that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, because it is difficult to then see the law as a wholly good (not perfectly good) thing – and I think my understanding of God and the bible demands that the law be a wholly good thing.
Gee, I wish I could write comments as briefly as you. But as you can see I’m in a mess – and I’ll be frank, it is screwing up my relationship with God at the moment. So I really do appreciate your thoughts, and wonder what you make of this essay of a response I’ve just banged out.
Fellows,
ReplyDeleteHave you examined the scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls? Specifically on 4QMMT (that it to say, the document from the 4th cave at the Qumran community called MMT, Miqsat Ma’ase ha-Torah, which means, "Some Works of the Law")?
Basically this was the "Declaration of Independence" for the "monastic" community at Qumran: The reason they separated themselves from the worship going on at Jerusalem, from both the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It basically asserted that everyone in charge of the ceremonial practices at the temple was getting the "Works of the Law" wrong: They weren't doing the ceremonial practices correctly. They weren't attending to the purity of liquids poured from one container into another. They were introducing variations on the old traditions that confused the people and led them to wonder which way was right. That sort of thing. This criticism was particularly scathing against the Pharisees, who defined themselves by how strictly they separated themselves from impurity and how well they kept every precept; yet here, the Essenes were saying that the Pharisees were "all hat and no cattle"; that even they were getting these ceremonies, these "Works of the Torah," wrong.
The important things revealed by this are:
1. By 150 B.C. the phrase "Works of Law" was a part of an ongoing debate between the Pharisees and the Essenes;
2. That phrase, at least as used by the Essenes and Pharisees in this debate, referred not to righteous living in general (such as even the Gentiles' conscience knew about) but to the unique Jewish religious practices that kept them separated from surrounding peoples: The dietary laws, the laws against blended-fiber fabrics, and so on.
Taking that into account, certain parts of Paul become clearer.
Note, for example in Romans where Paul talks about whether people can only be justified by "Works of Law" and asks rhetorically whether God is God of the Jews only, or isn't he God of the Gentiles also?
If you take "Works of Law" in that passage to refer to "doing righteous deeds, being righteous, obeying the commandments" then it honestly doesn't make much sense. If that's what it meant, Paul would be saying: "Can a person be saved by being a righteous person? Of course not; don't you know that God is God of the Jews and the Gentiles also?" A reader would reply, "Huh? What does someone being a Gentile have to do with righteousness?"
In fact, such an interpretation could only make sense if Paul believed that Gentiles were never righteous, but he clearly doesn't think that since (only a few sentences away!) he says that the Gentiles have the righteous requirement of the Law written on their hearts (e.g. against murder, adultery, lying) and are "a law to themselves."
So that interpretation won't scan.
...continued...
...continuing...
ReplyDeleteBut if we take what we know about how the Essenes, in criticizing the Pharisees, used the phrase "Works of the Law" (and don't forget Paul was a Pharisee and was almost certainly aware of this controversy!) then suddenly it all makes sense:
When Paul says "Works of the Law" he is thinking in Hebrew or Aramaic (even if he's writing in Greek). He's thinking of the distinctive ceremonial/separateness/purity precepts of Judaism. He's telling Jewish Christians not to anchor their hopes in these old covenant precepts because God is not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also.
In Paul's view, the separateness regulations may have served as a sort of "quarantine" for God's people after they were brought out of Egypt. They were not ready to cope with contact with pagan cultures and convert them to monotheism; instead, as the whole Old Testament demonstrated, only the prevention of intermarriage with outsiders (and eating with outsiders, and buying garments from outsiders...all the things the separateness/purity code made impossible) was sufficient -- barely -- to prevent paganism from sweeping in and replacing worship of YHWH in Judah and Israel.
But that was prior to the Messiah. With the coming of the Messiah, the mission of the People of God had changed. No longer was their mission to stay in quarantine, keeping themselves separate from all other nations, until Messiah came!
Instead, the mission of the People of God would now be "Go ye therefore into all the world...." The quarantine was ended; instead of worrying about the pagans converting the monotheists, it was time for the monotheists to convert the pagans. The "Works of Torah" had now served their purpose and were obsolete.
This doesn't mean the parts of the Torah dealing with righteous living were eliminated, of course! People are still obligated to worship God alone, to not worship idols, to not disrespect the name of God, to keep the Sabbath holy, to honor their parents, to not murder or steal or lie or commit adultery or envy people's wives or stuff. That part, Paul said, even Gentiles had written on their hearts, and were thus "a law to themselves."
So there, I think, is your answer. When writing to early Christians, Paul is often writing to a mixture of Christian Jews and converted Gentiles. And the Judaizers are roaming about claiming all the Gentiles need to be circumcized and keep kosher. Paul clarifies for us that nobody gains righteousness before God by keeping these "Works of Torah" any more: Their time has come and gone, and the time for a new righteousness, by faith, has come: And that can include the Gentiles also.
And this answers the original question: Should the Jews have rejected the Mosaic law?
Of course not: They should have rejected neither the basic Moral Laws against adultery and whatnot (since these apply for all times and peoples), nor the "Works of Torah," the ceremonial requirements, because those applied to the Jews as a necessary separateness which they desperately needed to retain their cultural identity as the People of God while they awaited the Messiah.
But a time came later when the "Works of Torah" had fulfilled their purpose and could be put aside.