Justification and Law in Paul

The NET translation is a scholarly, respected translation.

Argumentative speculation for which you obviously have no evidence. You have no access to my internal motivations and are speculating, incorrectly I might add, that I am motivated to engage in dubious arguments merely to support my position.

 

Here is the problem with asserting that the Christian will not be subject to a judgement: Paul clearly says that they will:

For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will give praise to God.” 8 Therefore, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, 16 so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil

Do you agree that there will at least be some kind of judgement at which the Christian will appear?

 

That was poor wording on my part. In this thread, I have stated that no Jew who pursued the Law of Moses in a manner which sought to restrict salvation to Jews could be justified under the Law of Moses

 

No.

You need to accept that I am telling the truth - which I am. When I wrote the statement you quoted, I made an error in how I expressed myself. There are some very fine nuances here and I concede that my wording does not always reflect my intent.

 

There are two problems with your position here:

1. I suggest that you will not be able to make a strong Biblical case of this separate "rewards, not eternal life" judgement. I suggest that the 2 judgement model is not strongly supported in the Bible. Rather, it is a model that work if only certain prior assumptions are made. There are, I suggest, no texts that directly make the case for this "rewards, not eternal life" distinction - it is something you more or less need to read in.

2. Now about 1 Corinthians 13: (Sorry about the font - I have no idea why this is happening)

People will often use material in 1 Corinthians 13 to support the argument that there will be a “rewards” judgement – based on works – at which eternal life itself is not at stake. However, the text in question is specifically directed at church leaders and teachers. It is telling them that they will not lose their salvation if they bungle their responsibilities to build the church. But this hardly means that that they will not be judged according to good works and receive eternal life on that basis.

Here is the text, set in context:

For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men? 5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. 10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

In verse 9, Paul clearly sets the "we" who are leaders against the "you" who are the members of the church. The argument goes on to say something about the "we" - the leaders. Paul has identified himself and Apollos as the "we" here. The "we" are not, repeat not, all believers. And, of course, the text goes to say something about this "we" - that if they do not build in the right manner, this "we" will still be saved.

This text nowhere addresses any person, in specific relation to the concluding statement about salvation, who is not charged with church leadership, or any task that is not a church leadership task.

The text is what it is - to generalize what Paul is saying is not proper exegesis. Paul is addressing a very specific issue – the responsibilities of church leaders and how they will not lose their salvation if they fail at those specific responsibilities. He is not making a general theological statement – that is something people “read in”.

 

Even so, please show me a text where it is clear that the Christian is judged in any manner where eternal life is not at stake.

If you want to call careful attention to what Paul actually writes, then, yes, I am indeed being silly.

As my argument shows, Paul is addressing church leaders and assuring them that their salvation is not at risk if they fail as leaders. Going beyond that is to read something in to the text.

But, again, as my argument shows, this statement is made in specific relation to the "works" that church leaders perform in their specific role as church leaders.

Again, the context is what it is - Paul is speaking specifically to church leaders only.

I agree, but, yet again, he is making this statement in specific relation to church leaders and telling them that their final salvation is not in jeopardy if they fail as leaders.

He is not telling them that they will not be subjected to a "good works" judgement.

Incorrect - you have simply not engaged the actual content of my argument.

You will not be able to provide a single scintilla of textual evidence that sustains your view that Paul is speaking generally here.

And you have precisely zero evidence that I have ever "forced" texts to mean something other than what the writer intended. It is one thing to claim that I have done this, it is quite another to defend such a claim.

 

You assume that Christ came to "satisfy" such standards. I suggest that the Scriptures do not really support this position. A case can be made that Jesus did come to be obedient to any law - even though he did not sin - but rather to be obedient to the covenantal vocation of Israel.

Even if Jesus did not "break" the Law of Moses (I think He did, but that's another story), this does not mean that Jesus' keeping of the Law somehow is the basis for our justification. I suggest that you are assuming the truth of certain reformed ideas that, when carefully examined, have some major problems.

 

There was a typo in my original statement. It should have read as follows:

You assume that Christ came to "satisfy" such standards. I suggest that the Scriptures do not really support this position. A case can be made that Jesus did not come to be obedient to any law - even though he did not sin - but rather to be obedient to the covenantal vocation of Israel

No. When Jesus says He came to fufill the Law, this does not require us to understand this a statement that obeying the Law was the thing He was primarily sent to do in terms of "being obedient". I suggest instead that Jesus' fundamental obedience was an obedience to the covenantal obligations of Israel.

I am well aware that many in the reformed tradition understand that when Paul talks about Jesus' obedience, as here:

For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous

......he (Paul) is referring to Jesus' obedience to the Law of Moses. That is not the only possibility. I suggest that what Paul is talking about here is that Jesus was obedient to the covenant obligations of Israel that she (Israel) had not fulfilled.

But the concept of "fulfilling the law" can be understood as "achieving the goal of the law". And Jesus certainly can do that through means other than simply "obeying" it. You are, I suggest, forcing the concept "fulfill the Law" to mean "obey the Law".

That is not legitimate. Suppose that there was some law in place whose goal is to make a certain society free of crime. Fine. Now suppose someone comes along and gives everyone a miracle drug that transforms them into nice people. That person has "fulfilled the law" in the sense that he has done something that has achieved the intent of the Law.

Was that achieved by obedience to the law? No. It was achieved by something else.

And I suggest that this is the case with Jesus. While it can be argued that He obeyed the Law, we do not need to understand this to constitute the important aspect of Jesus' obedience (as per Romans 5). I suggest that the central aspect of Jesus' obedience was to the covenant obligations of Israel.

 

Sorry for the length. This material addresses the issue of "what" Jesus was primarily "obedient" to.

Consider this famous statement from Paul in Romans 5:

For as through the one man's disobedience (AM)the many (AN)were made sinners, even so through (AO)the obedience of the One (AP)the many will be made righteous.

What is Jesus obedient to here? Many, if not most, think that Paul is referring to Jesus’ perfect obedience to the Law of Moses. By contrast, I believe that Jesus was obedient to Israel's covenant obligations, thereby fulfilling the long plan of God to use Israel to solve the problems of sin and death.

In the book of Romans, Paul speaks at several points of the righteousness of God. One particularly relevant example is this text from Romans 3:

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed – namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Now many of your translations will have “righteousness from God” and / or “faith in Jesus Christ”. Huge difference in implied meaning don’t you think? The NET translation which I have provided describes righteous acts that God and Christ perform, where as “righteousness from God” renderings line up with what I have to come to believe is a non-Biblical position – that the believer is imputed the righteousness of Christ. I will not argue the point as to why I think the NET rendering is correct, but I can upon request. So, in summary, these verses are asserting that God’s righteousness is revealed through Jesus’ faithful actions.

Can we narrow in more precisely on what Paul means here by “righteousness”? - In what exact sense is God, through Christ, being righteous? I believe that we get an insight in Romans 10 – the only place later in the letter where the phrase “righteousness of God” appears:

For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.[/COLOR]

Paul is talking about the Jews here, commenting that they have not understood how God is acting in history in this “righteous” manner whose sense we are pursuing. Note, what Paul goes on to write:

But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: "(H)DO NOT SAY IN YOUR HEART, 'WHO WILL ASCEND INTO HEAVEN?' (that is, to bring Christ down), 7or 'WHO WILL DESCEND INTO THE (I)ABYSS?' (that is, to (J)bring Christ up from the dead)." 8But what does it say? "(K)THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART"--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching,

Paul gets this text from Deuteronomy 30. And what is Deuteronomy 30 all about? It is about the covenant, and more specifically about its renewal. This section of Romans 10 is a kind of nexus for a number of theological themes. But for our present purposes, note that immediately after having referred to the “righteousness of God”, Paul quotes from a passage that concludes the great covenantal block of chapters running from Deuteronomy 27 to 30.

How likely does it seem to you that Paul would be referring to something other than God’s fidelity to His covenant here in the phrase “righteousness of God”. Not likely, I suggest. His mind is clearly tuned to Deuteronomy 30, which is all about God’s promises in the specific context of the covenant.

Besides, look at Romans 9 – it is clearly a treatment of God’s covenant dealings with Israel. At the very outset we get a huge hint as to what is on Paul’s mind: “But it is not as though (Q)the word of God has failed”. What can this “word” be except the covenantal promises. And that the covenant is in view by the immediately following references to promises made in respect to Abraham’s descendents. Note also that we get all the key players and events, in the right sequence: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Pharaoh, Moses, the exodus, threat of exile and now, here in Romans 10, covenant renewal. And notice what we get later in Romans 10 – the very blessing of the Gentile nations which are part of the covenant (refer Genesis 12, 22, etc).

This is simply too much to be coincidence – Paul is clearly absorbed in God’s covenant dealings with Israel here. So it would be an odd departure from that argument to refer to the “righteousness of God” in some non-covenantal sense. Good writers do not do things like that – and Paul is a very good writer.

So to conclude, we return to Romans 3 where this same phrase “righteousness of God” is said to be fulfilled by the faithfulness of Jesus.

So what is Jesus being faithful to? He is faithful to the covenant, fulfilling Israel’s covenant obligations. There is this interesting sense in which Jesus takes on the role of Israel, God’s covenant partner and does what Israel was supposed to do.

 

You are ignoring another possibility: that when it comes to statements about Jesus being "righteous" or "obedient", Paul is referring to Jesus' obedience to Israel's covenantal obligations.

You cannot simply sweep such a possibility off the table. I have presented it and, in my last post, I argued for it at some length.

I was not talking about Jesus and the Law of Moses. I was merely asserting that statements about Jesus' obedience (by Paul) are not statements about His obedience to the Law of Moses - they are instead statements to the effect that Jesus took the role of Israel, and was obedient to her covenantal obligations.

What was Israel's covenant obligation? To be a blessing to the world. How did Jesus "obey" this obligation? By going to the cross and dying for the world.

No - as already argued.