St Paul the Apostle
This mosaic was restored by G B Calandra in 1625. It originally decorated the state banquet hall of the Papal Lateran Palace of the Middle Ages. Paul is characterized by his long pointed beard -- Vatican Museums, Vatican City State
Here, with her permission, is the text of a talk given by a dear friend, Anne Askey at her fellowship last weekend. She has journeyed closely with us these past five years as we have completed Torah Club together. Her talk provides an excellent summary of how the Dead Sea Scrolls have thrown new light on the historical context in which Paul has written. As a result, scholars have begun to see a "new perspective" on his writings:
Readings:
From the Torah: Deut 32:46-47 he said to them, "Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you-they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
From the Nevaim or Prophets: Jos 1:8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
From the Ketuvim, or writings: Psa 19:7-8 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
From the Gospels: Mat 5:17-18 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
From the Epistles: Rom 7:12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Pray: Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things in your law and teach us our Father, that we may we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Messiah Jesus to the praise and glory of your Name. Amen
Paradigms are ways of explaining things. When I was a child I was told that the earth was like a ball. In my young imagination I thought we lived inside that ball. And then one day my sister told me that the sun was way larger than the earth. And I began to wonder, “How could the sun fit inside the earth?” My paradigm clearly failed when it came to understanding the relationship between the sun and the earth.
Sometimes paradigms are shared by a group of people. In the time of Nicolas Copernicus, everyone thought that everything in the heavens revolved around the earth. This paradigm explained the simple observation that every morning the sun rose in the east and every night it went down in the west. Every year, the stars moved across the earth’s sky and returned to their starting place. Scientists, mathematicians, philosophers and theologians affirmed this paradigm. But there was one small problem: the known planets in their travel through the heavens did not follow what could be called an orbit about the earth. Sometimes they went backwards to what was expected. This observation bothered Nicolas Copernicus, who began to search for a better paradigm. He suggested that all the planets including earth revolved around the sun. He was initially opposed but eventually, truth won out. The Copernican paradigm fit the data.
Paradigms, both individual and corporate sometimes need to change to accommodate new data. This process is what coming to maturity is about.
We all have paradigms about all sorts of things: nature, society, family relationships, spirituality etc. Some of our paradigms are personal: others are shared with a larger group. Traditional Protestant Christianity is made up of paradigms that have loosely defined a large group of believers since the Reformation. Within this large group, are denominations that are defined by paradigms not necessarily held by the larger group, but held by enough people to form a denomination. This afternoon, I would like to take a look at the Traditional Protestant Christian paradigm regarding the term “law” and related to that, the traditional view of Paul. In so doing, I hope to challenge us all to think about our own paradigms and to be like the Bereans who searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. (Acts 17:11)
The traditional paradigm of “law’ might best be summed up in the triumphalistic statement, “we are not under the law but under grace!” Indeed such a view appears to be buttressed by scripture. Turn in your bibles to:
· Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
· Gal 2:16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
We will look at these verses later, but first we will need a little background information which involves looking back into history. We are products of what has gone on before. Obviously an in depth analysis of history would take us far beyond the scope of this talk…and so I want to warn you that I am making some over simplifications in my summary of history. Historical events are always the result of many complex factors and influences.
We will start with that great name of the reformation: Martin Luther. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk in the Middle Ages. He has had a profound influence on paradigms held by Traditional Protestants. He most certainly interpreted the verses we have read together, as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit God’s favour. For Luther was caught within the legalism of the medieval church. He could not find peace with his angry God. God, in Luther’s paradigm had imposed unattainable requirements on him. In his torment, these words that highlighted grace, leapt out to Luther and wiped away his own legalistic attempts to merit God’s favour. This is indeed grace. However, it is important to remember Luther’s legalism was the legalism of the Medieval Church. But sadly, Luther cast Biblical Judaism in the same light as his medieval church. Luther and reformers after him, shared a paradigm that in Biblical Judaism, salvation was achieved by keeping the law. And since the time of Luther, we have read Paul in the way same Luther did. Paul is understood to be opposing “the law”, just as Luther had opposed “the law” of the medieval church.
But the roots of the paradigm go farther back than Luther. As a member of the Augustinian order, Luther was influenced by the work of Augustine of Hippo, who founded the order. Augustine, was also one of the ‘church fathers’. He lived in the fifth century AD when the Roman Empire was still intact. The stability of this great empire was known as Pax Romana, a term which means the peace of Rome. Pax Romana was established by a consistent application of Roman law. Rome, the strong power of that time, grew by subjugating weaker countries, annexing them to the empire and imposing Roman law in those conquered lands. Those who conformed to Roman Law lived a peaceful life which was their just reward, and those who didn’t conform were duly punished. Roman justice is retributive justice. Crimes are paid for with suitable punishment and conformity is rewarded. Augustine was not comfortably conversant in the Hebrew language, and not well acquainted with the Hebraic worldview and so he read the scriptures in Latin. Regrettably, he interpreted the Law of God through the lens of Roman law and developed a paradigm of God’s law. The stronger power, God subjugates the weaker power man, and imposes God’s law on man. When man fails to live up to the law, he deserves punishment. The man who conforms to God’s requirements enjoys peace. Augustine’s paradigm kept Luther from finding peace with God because no matter how hard Luther tried, he could not conform to the laws he perceived that God had placed on him.
Let me be clear that I am not questioning everything that Luther and Augustine understood. They preserved and recovered important Biblical truths. But we must also remember they were also products of their times, and understood the scriptures through their own cultures. Their paradigms have influenced our own. And as a result, in Traditional Protestant thinking, Judaism in general is seen as the very opposite of Christianity. Judaism is earthly, carnal, proud and works based; Christianity is heavenly, spiritual, humble and grace driven. This view of Judaism held in many traditional protestant churches is a cruel caricature. The caricature has distanced us from our Jewish brothers. It has distanced us from a more complete understanding of the God of Israel as revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures. And it does not fit with the biblical data as understood today.
If we want to understand the significant events within a culture we need to understand how that culture works. Nowhere is this more important than in Biblical interpretation. One of the first principles of in the interpretation of scripture, is to seek to understand what that scripture was saying to the first hearers. But this requires insight into the culture of the first hearers. Insight into the Hebraic culture is something that both Luther and Augustine did not have. Our understanding of Hebraic culture has grown exponentially since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in l948. In Biblical Scholarship, this discovery is arguably as significant as the establishment of Israel as a nation. The manuscripts from 2 Temple Judaism, unearthed at Qumran have shed much needed light on the time and culture into which God’s revelation through Jesus, the Apostles, and Paul was given. With more complete data regarding the culture into which God revealed himself, Traditional Protestant Christianity is challenged to rethink some of its long held paradigms. And depending on one’s point of view, that can be alarming or exciting.
Let’s look at the Hebraic paradigm of law. You probably are aware that the Hebrew word, Torah, is translated as nomos in Greek and law in our English Bibles. It doesn’t take much reading of the Hebrew Scriptures to recognize that Biblical Judaism has a very high view of the ‘Torah/law’. It is perfect (Psa 19:7) it is a delight (Psa 1:2) it is a gracious provision (Psa 119: 29) . In Biblical Judaism, the ‘Torah/law’ was never given as the entry into covenant with God. Entry into covenant was purely by the grace of God. God freely chose the children of Israel to enter covenant with him in faithfulness to his Promises to Abraham.
Deut 7:7,8 The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Redemption comes before Sinai. In Biblical Judaism, Torah/law is understood as a gift of grace, in which those chosen, were shown how to live as the people of God. Unlike Roman Law, Torah was not the law of a stronger conqueror subjecting its will on a weaker power. It was the teaching of a loving Father. God taught Moses, who taught the children of Israel, who were to teach their children how to relate to their Creator. ( See ArtScroll Chumash introduction, as well as study notes in the Chumash on the giving of the Torah: See also Jewish writers such as Abraham Joshua Heschel, Everyman’s Talmud by Abraham Cohen to get a sense of the Jewish view of Torah. )
Exo 24:12 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them."
Deut 6:7 MOSES speaking: You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
God’s Torah/law is primarily relational and its justice restorative. It brings shalom, wholeness to man with himself, man with his fellow man and man with God.
Torah/law does not demand perfection, for within the Torah itself, is a way of return through offering and repentance. In the Hebraic understanding of sacrifice, offerings were not required as a penalty FOR sin. They are God’s provision for drawing near to God. The foundational basis for sacrifice/offering has always been the heart relationship. This is why the sages of Judaism teach that there is no forgiveness without repentance. (Chumash introduction to Leviticus 4: also Brad Young’s Meet the Rabbis.)
Jesus shared this high view of the Torah/law with the people of his day. Yes, He challenged the religious leaders to reevaluate their traditions relating to the Torah, but he never undermined the true intent of God’s gracious and loving instruction in how to live. In fact, Jesus takes us to the very heart of Torah/law. Jesus teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, which was given to his community of followers, reveals the heart principle of the commandments. For example,
.
Mat 5:27 "You have heard that it was said to those of old,[3] "You shall not commit adultery.'[4]
Mat 5:28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
With such teaching, Jesus reinforces Moses’ words to circumcise one’s heart.
Deut 10:15-16 Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.
The caricature of Judaism as works-based salvation through keeping the law, has been perpetuated by people who have not respectfully engaged with, or are ignorant of the Hebraic culture. The reasons for this lack of engagement are complex and varied. However, since 1948 and the revitalization of Biblical Scholarship that has been generated through the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this caricature has been challenged. A pivotal work in l977, by EP Sanders marked a turning point in Biblical Scholarship. Sander’s understanding of the times and culture of 2 Temple Judaism was informed by his study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Rabbinic Literature, and other extra Biblical writings of that time period as they related to scripture. Please note that Sanders is not a “liberal” scholar. He is a Biblical NT Scholar who carefully considered the new data that was emerging post 1948 – data that didn’t fit with the traditional protestant paradigm. Sanders has convincingly shown NT scholars that the Judaism at the time of Christ and Paul was not a works-based religion. He coined a term called ‘covenantal nomism’ (Quoted by Dwight Pryor in his audio study of Romans. Referenced to p 422 of Paul and Palestinian Judaism, by E P Sanders. ) by which he describes his understanding of human obedience to the Torah/Law. Torah/Law was not construed as a means of entering God’s covenant. Entry into covenant cannot be earned, It is a gift of grace. Rather Torah obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within covenant, a means of declaring one’s love for God, a means of being separate/holy set apart. While various scholars disagree with Sander’s conclusions on some points, in general NT scholarship at the academic level has affirmed the understanding that, Judaism with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness has never been a religion of salvation through legalistic works. ( See N T Wright, Mark Nanos, Walter Brueggeman, Markus Bockmuehl, also writers in Judaism such as David R Blumenthal The Place of Faith and Grace in Judaism. )
But it is a fact of life that paradigm shifts at the academic level take time to filter down to the people who sit on the pews of Traditional Protestant churches. While it may feel unsettling, it is always good to remind ourselves that coming to maturity does involve paradigm shifts: and coming to maturity in faith is no different.
From this basic misunderstanding of the culture in which Jesus and Paul walked, comes a misunderstanding of the words of Paul. And so in the paradigm of Traditional Protestant Christianity, Paul has been understood to be the first Christian. Paul moved us on into the dispensation of grace. After all, he himself said, “you are no longer under law, but under grace”. But NT Scholars are rereading Paul in light of the new data from his culture and there is emerging what is called the New Perspective on Paul. This perspective, I believe offers a corrective voice to how we read Paul.
Whenever we read Paul, we must read him as a Hebraic thinker and not as a traditional Protestant. (Dwight Pryor audio teaching on Paul, the Law and the Church, available from www.jcstudies.com) Many of us have been told a story that on the Road to Damascus Saul was ‘converted’ to Christianity and to signify that change, his name became Paul. This story resonates with that Hebraic understanding that a name change accompanies a change in character or a significant event. But this is not the case in the story of Paul. Firstly Paul himself never mentions a name change in his defenses made before the Sanhedrin in Acts 22 and Agrippa in Acts 26. He simply reiterates his Damascus-Road vision in which a voice called to him, “Saul, Saul”. If the voice had changed his name, this would have been the time to note it. If his name ‘had changed’ subsequently, perhaps during his time in Arabia, surely he would have noted that fact in his defense. He does no such thing. Secondly, Luke the writer of Acts simply tells us that Saul was also called Paul.
Acts 13:9 Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas ….
Paul/Saul was known by two names. Why? He was born and raised in Tarsus, which was in the Greek-speaking world. In the context of Greek speakers, Saul uses his Greek name, Paul. This so called name change simply reflects the reality that Paul/Saul lived in two cultures each with its own language.
“What about Paul’s conversion to Christianity?” My Bible has the heading, “Saul’s Conversion” right there in black and white at the beginning of Acts 9. Firstly, is important to remember that Bible headings are only additions made by a translator. They are helpful in finding passages, but they are not and should never be understood as the ‘inspired word’. Given Luther’s influence on the traditional protestant Christian reading of Paul, the ‘title’ is an understandable interpretation drawn by the translators. For since Luther, we have understood Paul as a Jew who left his legalistic Judaism, and embraced the grace of Christianity. But in the light of Paul’s cultural context, is the conclusion true? Let’s look at the witness of the book of Acts. In chapter 16 we find the story of Paul casting the demon out of the slave girl at Phillipi. Turn to Acts 16: 20-21 and read the charges laid against Paul by the owners of the girl.
Acts 16:20 They brought them before the magistrates and said, "These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar
Acts 16:21 by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice."
The slave owners testify that Paul is a Jew. Of course they had an ‘axe to grind’. But more convincing is the witness of Paul himself. After his arrest in Jerusalem, when Paul asks his guard for an opportunity to speak, we read
Acts 21:37 As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander, "May I say something to you?"
Acts 21:38 "Do you speak Greek?" he replied. "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?"
Acts 21:39 Paul answered, "I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people." NOTE the present tense.
And when he speaks to the crowd
Acts 22:1 "Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defence."
Acts 22:2 When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic/Hebrew, they became very quiet.
Acts 22:3 Then Paul said: "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.
And again before the Jewish court of the Sanhedrin
Acts 23:6 Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, "My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead."
From his own lips, Paul, post Damascus-Road, situates himself firmly within the Judaisms of his day. He worships the same God he worshipped prior to his Damascus experience. But now he worships him with greater understanding than he had before, through the brighter light of Messiah. The voice on the road to Damascus did not say “Saul, Saul, repent of your legalistic works driven religion”. No, Saul was simply told to take the good news of the Messiah to the Gentiles so that they too could come to the true God, the God of Israel.
Acts 22:21 "Then the Lord said to me, 'Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'
For Paul, the Damascus experience is a calling and he affirms this in various letters.
1Co 1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God,
Romans 1:1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—
In Galatians, he likens his calling to that of Jeremiah (1:5)
Gal 1:15,16 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace,
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,…
God also made Ananias a witness to this calling when He instructed Ananias to go to Paul’s aid.
Acts 9:15 But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.
Indeed, by Paul’s own witness he is of the Jewish sect of the “The Way”, (Nazarenes) and that is all. Standing before Felix, he says
Acts 24:14 But this I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets.
Do you see how the force of our Traditional Protestant paradigm explaining Paul has caused us to gloss over these truths about Paul?
Granted, Paul is difficult to understand. Peter tells us
2Pe 3:15,16 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
2Pe 3:16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
One complicating issue with understanding Paul’s writing with respect to the law is that Paul uses the Greek word nomos in a variety of ways. Sometimes, law nomos is simply the Greek translation of the Hebrew word, Torah and refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Scripture or the entire Tanach. As a Jew of 2 Temple Judaism, Paul would have been firm in his conviction that Torah/law was a gift of grace, and that observing Torah, was not the entry point into God’s covenant. Hence Paul tells us in Romans 7:12 that the “Torah/law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” In this instance he uses ‘nomos’ to refer to the Torah given by God.
Sometimes nomos is used to refer to a specific Oral Law. During the times of 2 Temple Judaism, Gentiles were being drawn to the God of Israel, even prior to the Messiah’s advent. An overriding question facing Judaism during these times was “What do we do with Gentiles? How do they enter covenant with God?” The rabbinic answer, communicated as oral law, was that Gentiles needed to convert to Judaism through the ceremony of circumcision and seal their proselyte status with the essential practices of keeping Kashrut Food laws, and Shabbat. But Salvation belongs to Our God. God, who sees the heart, is the one who saves. No man, not rabbi, priest, nor preacher, has the right to reduce God’s gracious calling, to a man-made formula, a set of steps defined by man for man. Paul argues vehemently against the specific ruling that Gentiles must become Jewish Proselytes in order to have a place in the kingdom of God.
New Perspective Scholars have shown us that Paul uses other terms to refer this specific oral law requiring Gentile conversion. In addition to the single word, nomos or law, he uses the phrase “works of the law”. Sometimes, he shortens that phrase to the single word “works”. In other places he refers to the requirement for Gentile conversion with the single word, “circumcision.” In reading Paul, we must be alert to the fact that the words , ‘law’, ‘works of the law’, ‘works’ and ‘circumcision’ in most cases, actually are technical terms for the concept of becoming a proselyte. ( Mark Nanos, N T Wright, Tim Hegg, J D G Dunn, Dwight Pryor audio teaching, Galatians Teaching bereansonline website)
Paul argues against this specific ruling, using the written Torah as his foundational document. He reasons in Galatians that Abraham was called by grace, while he was yet uncircumcised. Therefore God’s calling is extended to the uncircumcised without the need to become proselytes. This foundational truth plus the experiential knowledge that God was granting salvation to Gentiles without their becoming proselytes form the basis of his argument against the ruling. New Perspective Scholars on Paul are agreed that Paul is not referring to ‘legalistic works of Judaism” when he is speaks of ‘works’ or ‘works of the law’. Rather he is referring to those practices, which proselytes to Judaism had to embrace to confirm their proselyte status: circumcision, kashrut and Sabbath.
So in Gal 2:16 the term “works of the law” is not used to oppose the Written Torah/gracious teaching of God, but is used to argue against the specific ruling that Gentiles had to convert to Judaism.
Gal 2:16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law , (technically becoming a proselyte) but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we (i.e. Jews) have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law (that is our own defined badges of circumcision, keeping of kashrut and Sabbath keeping) for by the works of the law ( i.e. becoming a proselyte through circumcision accompanied with kashrut and Sabbath keeping) no flesh shall be justified.
This verse, which has been used as support for Luther’s understanding of law, takes on a very different meaning when we understand the culture into which it was written. We could glean even more from this verse if we had time to consider the Hebraic understanding of the words: justified, faith in Christ, and belief.
Paul is convinced that it is the grace of God that calls both Jew and Gentile to come into the community of God. Entry into the kingdom is never and has never been, by “works of the law”, either for Jew or Gentile.
Sometimes Paul uses nomos as a metaphor that gains force through comparison with Roman law, where a strong power subjugates a weaker power and forces it to yield to the law of the stronger power. Sin is like a strong power that subjugates the weaker power (us) and forces us to yield to the law of sin. Paul sometimes even speaks of the ‘law of sin’. It is indeed like a law that forces its will on society and the individual. This is quite clearly seen in Rom 7: 22,23
Rom 7:22-23 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
Paul delights in the Torah, the loving instructions of God. The ‘other law’ at work is not the Torah. The Torah does not work in the members of our body to wage war against the Torah. No, sin is at work, imposing its power on us. We are slaves/prisoners to sin, and this is why we need redemption!
The many nuances of the word nomos may not have been as difficult for his first hearers to identify as it has become for us because we have been so thoroughly prejudiced to think that the word law refers to a legalistic Judaism. We do well to check our paradigms when reading Paul.
Let’s go back now and look at Romans 6:14, which also appears to support the Traditional Protestant Paradigm of law. When we understand Paul as a Hebraic thinker, we may find it easier to discern how he is using the word nomos in this verse. I find it helpful to exchange the phrase “teaching of a gracious God” for the word “law’ in Paul’s writing. This helps me think about whether Paul is referring to Torah/law or to something else. For example
Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
“For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the teaching of a gracious God but under grace.”?
Does it make sense say we are not subject to God’s teaching? Does it make sense to a Hebraic thinker to put God’s teaching in antithesis to grace?
Romans 6 is about sin. I believe it makes more sense to see Paul’s use of nomos/law in verse 14 as referring to that strong power of sin which forces its will on us. Here how I think the verse is better understood:
For sin, (this strong tyrannical power so like that of imperial Rome,) shall not have dominion over us, for we are not under its law (in the sense that we are presently under the tyranny of Roman Law) but we are under grace, (the covenantal faithfulness of God demonstrated to us in the life, death and resurrection of our Messiah, who releases us from the tyranny of sin.)
Paul's gospel was not freedom from Torah/law. Paul's gospel was the Gospel of God. It was a declaration that Gentiles could come to the true God through the messiah without becoming proselytes first. Listen to his introduction to Romans.
Rom 1:1-5 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God--the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.
Paul’s announcement to the Gentiles was that they too could enter covenant with the God of Israel through the Messiah. For Paul, the good news of God is that Gentiles can leave their idols, and draw near to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They did not have to become proselytes. However, Gentiles are called to the obedience that comes from faith. Have you ever wondered about that intriguing phrase at the end of verse 5? What did “obedience that comes from faith” mean to the first believers? What does it mean to us?
Why do paradigms matter? It matters because we don’t want to be guilty of those who substitute the teachings of men for the teachings of God. In the case of Law, the paradigm of Traditional Protestant theology is a misinformed paradigm. It does not fit with the data. If we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of Messiah Jesus, we must be willing to change our paradigms. As new data comes to light, under the sovereignty of God, it behooves us to search study the scripture through the Hebraic world view in which it is given.
Secondly it matters in our witness to Jews. It is true that they have stumbled over the Messiah. But we do Judaism a disservice when we assume it is a legalistic religion. The failure of Judaism is not its alleged legalism. It has failed to see that Yeshua is further revelation of God’s grace and truth. Grace and Truth are two attributes of God that Judaism has reverently kept over the millennia. We, who have been so influenced by Luther’s paradigm, need to remember that what may appear to us as legalism is to Judaism, mitzvah: good deeds that express love for God and fellow man. That sounds to me a lot like Jesus summation of the Torah.
Thirdly, it matters to our daily obedience. What is God asking of us? Do we take seriously the words of our Hebrew Messiah?
Mat 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'
And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice torahlessness.'
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If you want to learn more about NPP work on Paul try. NT Wright, Paul, Fresh Perspectives or What St Paul Really Said Tim Hegg’s The Letter Writer, Brad Young Paul the Jewish Theologian, Mark Nanos The Irony of Galatians.
If you want to investigate the Hebraic roots of our faith try websites: bereansonliine and jcstudies, hebrewforchristians or Marvin Wilson’s book, Our Father Abraham.
If you want to understand Biblical Judaism better, try the works of Walter Breuggemann such as Theology of the Old Testament or Reverberations of Faith
