The Upper Register

Justification and Sanctification: The Tarp Analogy

It's critical for our assurance and the Christian life to understand the relationship between justification and sanctification. Alister McGrath has a great analogy that gets at this:

The German Reformer Martin Luther taught that Christians are "righteous and sinners at one and the same time" (simul iustus et peccator). We are righteous on account of God's having clothed us with his righteousness -- but inside we are still sinners. God justifies us on the basis of his gift of righteousness, rather than on the basis of any righteousness we may possess. Although we are sinners, God is still able to renew and regenerate our fallen natures. Just as workers on a building site might cover their work with tarpaulins to protect it from the elements, so God shelters his work of renewal and regeneration within us with the external covering of his righteousness.

McGrath, "I Believe": Exploring the Apostles' Creed (IVP, 1997), 97.

Our sanctification is always a work in progress. It is messy and incomplete. Perhaps it looks more like one of those government construction projects that seems to go on forever with no end in sight - a source of irritation and disappointment more than of hope. Will the project ever be complete? Yes, it will, at the last day, when he will present us faultless before his presence will great joy. In the meantime, he has us "covered." God is protecting his own work in us (Phil 2:13) by the righteousness of Christ. He ensures that the elements will not undo his labor. He guarantees that the work can proceed uninterrupted until the wonderful day of the unveiling ceremony. No enemy can thwart his purpose. He will see to it that he is glorified in his handiwork.

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 4

Having given a cursory critique of the other main views, in this post I'm going to expound view 2b more fully. My old view (view 1a) was motivated largely by lexicographical concerns. I was convinced that the word telos is most frequently used in a temporal sense, meaning "terminus." This was based on the fact that the temporal/terminal usage of telos predominates in both the Septuagint and the New Testament.

However, what got me thinking along different lines was reading a 1985 dissertation by Robert Badenas titled Christ the End of the Law: Romans 10.4 in Pauline Perspective (JSNTSup 10; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985).

Badenas proved conclusively in case after case that in extra-biblical Greek telos has a strongly teleological meaning. He also showed that it can be used in a prospective or a retrospective teleological sense. When used prospectively, telos means "end" in the sense of a future goal not yet attained, and can be glossed "goal," "aim," "object," "purpose," or "intention." When used retrospectively, telos means "end" in the sense of a goal that has been attained, and can be glossed "completion," "culmination," "attainment," "fulfillment," "climax," "realization," "actualization," or "outcome."

With that extra-biblical usage firmly in place, when we turn to the New Testament – which uses the word around 40 times – we find that the teleological meanings, although infrequent, are not entirely absent. There is one indisputable text where telos is used in a prospective teleological sense:  "The goal (telos) of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" (1 Tim 1:5 NASB; "aim" in ESV). And then there are seven instances where telos is used in a retrospective teleological sense. Of the seven, in six occurrences telos is rendered by the NASB as "outcome" (Matt 26:58; Rom 6:21-22; James 5:11; 1 Pet 1:9; 4:17). And on one occasion, it is rendered "fulfillment." This is where Jesus says to the disciples as he is about to go to the cross, "For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors.' For what is written about me has its fulfillment (telos)” (Luke 22:37 ESV).

At the very least we have to admit that both the temporal and the teleological meanings are possible in Rom 10:4. In the end, the context must decide.

Now Badenas took the teleological meaning in a prospective sense in Rom 10:4 and adopted view 2a. His interpretation of the verse was: "Paul seems to say that faith in Christ is at the same time true faith in the Torah … Right understanding of the law leads to faith in Jesus Christ … The law always required a response of faith" (Badenas, 149-50).

I was convinced by Badenas's examination of the extra-biblical sources, but not by his exegesis of Rom 10:4. I especially did not agree that the law required a response of faith – after all, Paul says that "the law is not of faith, rather 'The one who does them shall live by them'" (Gal 3:12). So I began to wonder, "What if we take Badenas's second teleological usage, the retrospective one, and what if we see the Law not as demanding faith but righteousness?"

And that is when the whole passage finally made sense to me. Here is my interpretive translation of the text:

Romans 10:3-4:  "Being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness [by keeping the Law], the Jews did not submit to the righteousness that comes from God. For Christ is the one in whom the Law's demand for righteousness is fulfilled, with the result that there is righteousness [from God] for everyone who believes."

In other words:

"'Christ is the end of the Law,' i.e., its completion or consummation. He gives that which the Law requires, that is, whoever believes in Christ has that which the Law demands, i.e., he is righteous by imputation" (Philipp Melanchthon, Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos, 1540; translation mine; the Concordia translation by Fred Kramer gets it wrong here).

"The moment that a man believes in [Christ], the end of the law is attained in that man; that is, it is fulfilled in him, and he is in possession of that righteousness which the law requires … and consequently he hath eternal life" (Robert Haldane, Commentary on Romans, 1853).

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 3

I will explain and defend view 2b in my next post. In this post, I want to address some of the problems with the other views.

As I mentioned in my first post, my main objection to view 1a – and this applies to view 2a as well – is that there is a weak logical connection between the two halves of the verse. Verse 4a: "Christ is the end of the law," and v 4b: "for (= so that there may be) righteousness to everyone who believes." How does the fact that Christ has abrogated the Law (view 1a) or the fact that Christ is the hermeneutical goal of the Law (view 2a) lead to righteousness being imputed to everyone who believes? The abrogation of the Law does not lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" (view 1a). A Christocentric hermeneutic does not lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" (view 2a). The only thing that does lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" is Christ's obedience to the point of death, his active and passive obedience.

It is interesting to notice how most of the commentators who argue for views 1a and 2a tend to ignore the second half of the verse. They are so focused on the meaning of the first half ("Christ is the telos of the Law") that they almost forget about the second half ("for righteousness to everyone who believes"). But this is the key to figuring out the meaning of the verse as a whole.

Only two of the four views take the second half of the verse seriously and provide a coherent explanation of the verse as a whole. I'm referring to view 1b and 2b (my view). Let's look at view 1b. This interpretation is favored by those who claim that (a) telos must have a temporal/terminating meaning, and (b) who are allergic to the alleged antinomian implications of view 1a. They take "for righteousness" and attach it to the word "Law" as an attributive, and they take "to everyone who believes" and move it to the beginning of the sentence. Their interpretation is that "To everyone who believes, Christ is the end of the Law-for-righteousness." In other words, Christ is not the end of the Law itself, but of the carnal misuse of the Law as a means of righteousness. When a person is converted, they stop using the Law as a means of justification.

But this interpretation is grammatically unlikely. In the Greek, the word "Christ" is sandwiched between "Law" and "for righteousness," which makes it nigh unto impossible that Paul intended "for righteousness" to be an attributive prepositional phrase modifying "Law" ("the-Law-for-righteousness"). Another problem is that when a prepositional phrase is used attributively, the definite article is almost always repeated before the preposition (this construction occurs over 400x in the NT), but here it is absent.

Another problem with view 1b is that it separates "to everyone who believes" from "for righteousness." The two phrases go together in order. This can be seen by comparing Rom 10:4 with 1:16 where Paul makes a statement with the same grammatical structure:

Rom 1:16	The gospel	is the power of God	for salvation	to everyone who believes
Rom 10:4	Christ	is the end of the Law	for righteousness	to everyone who believes

Note the similar structure:  X is Y so that there may be salvation (or righteousness) to everyone who believes. The phrase at the end, "to everyone who believes" is identical in Greek. And in both cases, it goes with the preceding noun ("salvation" or "righteousness"). 

As I see it, then, views 1a, 1b, and 2a are problematic. In my next post, I'll defend my new view, view 2b.

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are actually more views than just the two I have mentioned so far. The easiest way to understand this is to recognize that the two main meanings of telos can be subdivided into two sub-views, resulting in a total of four views. I will refer to the two temporal interpretations as view 1a and view 1b, and the two teleological interpretations as view 2a and view 2b.

Here is a table that summarizes the four views based on how they interpret telos (temporal vs. teleological), how they interpret the word nomos ("Law"), what they take the subject of the sentence to be ("Christ is the end of the Law" vs. "The end of the Law is Christ"), how they interpret the phrase "for righteousness," and then lists representative scholars for each view. I also mention at the bottom those who try to combine various views. The view I used to hold is view 1a. The view I now hold is view 2b.

View	Τέλος	Νόμος	Subject	Εἰς δικαιοσύνην	Scholars
1a	Temporal meaning: End as terminus, termination, cessation, abrogation	Mosaic Law as demanding works for justification	Χριστός	Result/purpose; consecutive clause	Hodge, Käsemann, Lietzmann, Meyer, Michel, Nygren, Sanday & Headlam, Stott, Talbert, Witherington
1b	Temporal meaning:  End as terminus, termination, cessation, abrogation	Misuse of the Mosaic Law as a means of justification	Χριστός	Attributive, modifying νόμου	Dunn, Hübner, Hultgren, Morris, Murray,  Schreiner
2a	Teleological meaning:  End in prospective or prophetic sense: the goal as future; i.e., aim, object, purpose, intention, σκοπός	The Torah as scripture, which demands faith	τέλος	Result/purpose; consecutive clause	Badenas, Byrne, Calvin, Cranfield,  Keck, Matera, Wright, Ziesler
2b	Teleological meaning:  End in retrospective sense: the goal as attained; i.e., completion, culmination, attainment, fulfillment, climax, realization, actualization, πλήρωμα	Mosaic Law as demanding works for justification	Χριστός	Result/purpose; consecutive clause; possibly predicate εἰς	Chrysostom, Fitzmyer, Haldane, Luther, Melanchthon, Rhyne, Shedd
	Combination of 2b & 1a				Barrett, Bruce, Moo
	Combination of 2b & 1b				Osborne
	Combination of 2a & 1a				Achtemeier

Let me offer a translation and summary for each view:

View 1a: "Christ is the end of the Mosaic Law so that there may be righteousness for all who believe." This view sees Rom 10:4 as teaching the fundamental redemptive-historical truth that the Mosaic Law as a covenant has come to an end in Christ and is no longer the covenantal constitution of the people of God in the new covenant era.

View 1b: "For everyone who believes, Christ is the end of misusing the law as a means of justification." On this view, it is not a global statement about a key covenantal transition in redemptive-history from the old to the new covenant, but a statement about the ordo-salutis transition of the individual moving from a life of legalism (striving to be justified before God by keeping the Law) to a life of grace. On this view, Rom 10:4 is about how regeneration changes a person's attitude toward the Law.

View 2a: "The goal of the Torah (= the Law as divine revelation, as Scripture) is Christ so that there may be righteousness for all who believe." This view takes the verse as Paul's affirmation of his Christological hermeneutic. The revelation of God in the Torah (viewed not merely as the legal code of the Mosaic Law but as the entire Pentateuch including the Abrahamic promise) points to Christ.

View 2b: "The object of the law (namely, righteousness) is realized in Christ, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." This view regards the statement as a fundamental redemptive-historical statement about the relationship between Christ and the Law, namely, that Christ is the one in whom the Law's aim or object (which is to demand and offer righteousness to those who do it) has been realized in Christ, specifically, in his meritorious obedience to the point of death as accepted by God in his resurrection-vindication.

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 1

In Romans 10:1-4, Paul writes the following of his kinsmen according to the flesh, that is, the Jews who do not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah:

"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. ² For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. ³ For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. ⁴ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." (ESV)

All commentators agree that Rom 10:4 is a critically important verse for understanding Paul's view of the Law. What does Paul mean by referring to Christ as "the end of the Law" (telos nomou)?

I have long been fascinated by this verse. Until recently, I held the view that "end" (telos) means "termination" or "abrogation," and argued that this verse meant that the Mosaic Law has come to an end with Christ. (This does not mean that the moral law has been abrogated, for that would be impossible; merely the Mosaic Law as a whole, the law as the covenantal constitution of theocratic Israel.) I argued this based on the fact that the word telos in both the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament seems predominantly to have a terminating significance. I was also attracted to this interpretation because it fit with other statements by Paul to the effect that the Mosaic Law as a covenant is no longer in effect after Christ has come (e.g., Rom 6:14-15; 7:1-6; Eph 2:15; 1 Cor 9:20-21; Gal 3:24-25; etc.). I advocated this interpretation as recently as my 2011 dissertation on "the righteousness of God" in Paul.

However, I have recently changed my mind. I now think that telos should be taken in a teleological sense, meaning "goal" or "aim." I would now translate the verse as follows: "The object of the Law is realized in Christ, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." My main reason for changing views is that my old view did not provide a reasonable explanation of the second half of the verse. How does Christ's being the termination or abrogation of the Mosaic Law result in righteousness being available to everyone who believes? It doesn't.

Furthermore, my old view does not fit well with the preceding context. In vv 1-3, Paul is expressing his heartfelt prayer and desire that his Jewish kinsmen would come to faith in Christ. He says that he acknowledges their zeal for God, as expressed in their zealous commitment to the scrupulous observance of the Mosaic Law, but the problem is that their zeal is not according to knowledge. Their problem is that they imagined that they could achieve righteousness before God by their own zeal in keeping the Law. But the righteousness that comes to humans as a free gift from God was revealed in Christ's death and resurrection. They chose to ignore and reject that righteousness, and instead sought to establish their own righteousness, rather than submitting to the righteousness God has made available in Christ. It is here that we come to our verse. They should have submitted to the righteousness of God, for the law's object (namely, righteousness) is not attained by human effort but by Christ himself, with the result that righteousness (i.e., the righteousness of God) is now available to everyone who believes.

So far I have presented the debate as being between two views - taking telos in a chronological or a teleological sense. But in my next post, I'll explain that the interpretive situation is more complex than this. These two main senses of telos can be subdivided into two sub-views, and so there are actually four main options for interpreting Rom 10:4. After that, I will provide brief arguments against three of these views and return to further explaining the view I am defending. Along the way, I'll mention commentators who hold to these various views.

Luther and Melanchthon on Imputation

I recently learned that many scholars think Luther did not hold to the concept of imputed righteousness. The scholars who belong to this camp are typically associated with the so-called “Luther Renaissance” that took place in the first half of the 20th century, mainly under the influence of the German church historian Karl Holl (1886–1926).

Holl argued that Luther’s discovery of the Protestant doctrine of justification occurred earlier than typically thought, during the time of his lectures on the Psalms (1513-14), before his lectures on Romans (1515-16), and before the 95 theses (1517). The problem is that at this early stage, Luther had not yet made his break with Rome. He was an Augustinian but not yet a Protestant. In his lectures on the Psalms and on Romans, he confuses justification and sanctification, views justification as a process of moral transformation, and does not affirm imputation. Holl elevated the young Luther as the benchmark of Luther’s thought, and explained the rise of the doctrine of imputed righteousness by claiming that this was Melanchthon’s creation and that this doctrine of Melanchthon was then later made the standard of Lutheran orthodoxy in the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord. It is the Lutheran version of the (now discredited) “Calvin vs. the Calvinsts (aka Reformed scholastics)” thesis.

The Holl thesis has influenced many. For example, Mark A. Seifrid, in his chapter in the book Justification: What's At Stake in the Current Debates (ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier [IVP/Apollos, 2004], 137-52), argues that Melanchthon is the father of the concept of imputed righteousness, and that this is a betrayal of Luther's more dynamic view in which justification is a verdict that takes place through the event of the cross and resurrection.

I found out the hard way about Seifrid's dependence on the Holl thesis when I received his comments on my dissertation as the external reader. Seifrid was criticial of me for being too influenced by classic Reformed theology and not grasping the interpretation of Luther promoted by "the Luther renaissance," which Seifrid seems to equate with his reading of Paul's view. Seifrid also lamented the fact that this view of Luther is widely accepted in Europe but hardly known in America.

I was taken aback by Seifrid's comment and decided to dig into this issue a bit. I discovered three good responses to the view that Melanchthon and Luther were widely different on the issue of imputation:

Armand J. Boehme, “Tributaries into the River JDDJ: Karl Holl and Luther’s Doctrine of Justification,” Logia 18.3 (2009): 9ff.

Lowell C. Green, How Melanchthon Helped Luther Discover the Gospel (Fallbrook: Verdict Publications, 1980). [I want to thank John Fesko for alerting me to this helpful book. It’s a little hard to find, but used copies are available at various online used bookstores. Providentially, Fesko's lecture at the ETS Far West Region Meeting this past April was on Melanchthon's understanding of union with Christ.]

R. Scott Clark, “Iustitia Imputata Christi: Alien or Proper to Luther’s Doctrine of Justification?” Concordia Theological Quarterly 70 (2006): 269-310.

Clark writes:

“Scholars have too often focused on what Heiko Oberman called the ‘romantic and unrealistic’ notion of a ‘one-time breakthrough.’ For example, Holl failed to recognize the development of Luther’s theology in the period 1513–1521. As a consequence, he used as a baseline to determine Luther’s doctrine of justification things Luther said in that period but that he later rejected. It is more historical to say that gradually, from 1513 to 1521, Luther came to reject the doctrine of progressive justification in favor of the forensic doctrine of definitive justification” (287-88).

According to Clark, the three places where Luther most clearly expounds his mature doctrine of justification are his lectures on Galatians (1535) (especially his comments on Gal 2:16) and in two disputations on justification (both held in 1536). To give one quote from the second disputation of 1536 in the home of Johannes Bugenhagen, right at the very outset, Melanchthon asks Luther if he believes that man is righteous by intrinsic renewal, as Augustine taught, or by a truly gracious imputation which is outside of us. Luther’s response is straightforward and unambiguous: 

“I think this, and am most persuaded and certain that this is the true opinion of the Gospel and of the Apostles, that only by a gracious imputation are we righteous before God” (sola imputatione gratuita sumus iusti apud Deum) (quoted by Clark, 303).

The Latin text of this disputation is found in Melanchthon’s supplemental writings, and is available on Google books (go to page 344).

Quick Thoughts on ETS - correction

So here are some quick thoughts on ETS. Sorry for taking so long to get around to this.

The three plenary speakers were excellent. I thought Tom Schreiner did a marvelous job defending the traditional Reformation understanding of justification against N. T. Wright. He was gracious but forceful and pretty much dismantled N. T. Wright's position.

N. T. Wright was his usual witty self. But he did not impress me with his defensiveness and constant references to how he has been unfairly criticized on blogs or in hearsay reports of oral criticism muttered by faculty at a certain Southern Seminary. Scholars interact with published criticisms, not things heard through the grapevine. I would have had more respect for him if he had taken the high road of Schreiner and simply stuck to the arguments rather then mucking about in the ad hominem stuff, e.g., telling his critics to "get a life." 

One comment N. T. Wright made was quite enlightening -- and here I paraphrase from memory. He dismissed as "medieval" the view that humans lack righteousness, but, oh, Jesus has a bunch of extra righteousness lying around, so, here, take some of his and get the righteousness you need to go to heaven. This is all derived from the medieval mistranslation of "the righteousness of God" as iustitia Dei. (Compare his statement that it is "a Latin irrelevance" in What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 103).

Of course, that is a caricuture of the Reformation view, but the fact that he can be so dismissive and casual about his rejection of it is troubling. In my view, the heart of the matter rests on the question: Does God require perfect righteousness in order to admit anyone into heaven? Wright seems to be saying No to that question. The Pauline and Reformation understanding of the gospel says Yes -- and since none of us have that righteousness, God has graciously provided it in Christ. Not by "the righteousness of the law" (i.e., inherent righteousness) but by "the righteousness of faith" (iustitia aliena).

My paper critiquing the view that "the righteousness of God" is a cipher for "God's covenant faithfulness" went well. It was in one of the breakout sessions with maybe 15 people in attendance. Of course, no one important was there, as expected, but I enjoyed the time and felt that those present did as well.

Oh, one last morsel. In another breakout session, Mark Seifrid said that N. T. Wright's theology is not evangelical. That got everyone's attention. What he meant by that is that for Wright, faith is merely the badge of membership in the people of God. For Paul, the NT generally, and the Reformers, faith is the empty hand, the receptive instrument, by which we rest upon and receive the righteousness of Christ. In my view, any position which takes that precious reality and turns it into something as cold as "the badge of membership in the people of God" distorts the gospel and cannot be called evangelical.

[Correction and retraction 12/10/10: I originally wrote, "Mark Seifrid said that N. T. Wright is not an evangelical." Dr. Seifrid wrote, via his colleague Dr. Jim Hamilton, to say, "I didn't say that Tom Wright is not an evangelical.  I said that his theology is not evangelical." I want to apologize for misrepresenting Dr. Seifrid. I also would like to apologize to N. T. Wright. I wasn't attempting to judge N. T. Wright's spiritual state or personal relationship with Christ. So I have also rephrased my last sentence to reflect that.]

I am reminded of this remark by Calvin in the section on justification: "It is, indeed, an easy matter for these indolent rabbis to carry on such discussions sitting in their soft chairs under the shade, but when the supreme Judge shall sit on his tribunal, all these blustering dogmas will behoove to disappear. This, this I say, was the true question: not what we can fable and talk in schools and corners, but what ground of defense we can produce at his judgment seat" (Institutes III.xiv.15).

Romans 2:6-13: Response to Sam Waldron, Pt. 4

I've let my blogging slide for a while as I make a push to finish my dissertation by the end of the year. In the meantime, it has been brought to my attention that Sam Waldron responded to a post in which I quoted Murray as holding to the hypothetical interpretation of Rom 2:13 (but not Rom 2:6-11). It looks like we have both shifted somewhat from our initial attempts to claim Murray unambiguously in support of our divergent views. I started out claiming Murray for the "hypothetical" team; and Waldron started out claiming Murray totally for the "evangelical obedience" team. By means of the give-and-take of blogging, we both have given and retained some ground. I have conceded Murray to Waldron's side regarding Rom 2:6-11 and Waldron has conceded Murray to support my interpretation of Rom 2:13 (just this narrow verse). Because Murray adopted a mediating position, we can both have our Murray and eat it too.

In this same post, Waldron brings up another issue, the question of how Rom 2:25-29 fits into the broader context of Romans 1:18--3:20. Let me back up for a moment. My argument is that Rom 2:13 must be taken hypothetically because it is the interpretation that makes best sense in the context, which is a diatribe with an imaginary Jewish interlocutor who thinks that he will be accepted as righteous at the day of judgment on the basis of his law keeping. As Calvin writes in his commentary, Paul's point in Rom 2:13 is not to assert that post-fall humans can in fact be justified by keeping the law but that "if righteousness be sought from the law, the law must be fulfilled; for the righteousness of the law consists in the perfection of works." The Jews do not keep the law perfectly; therefore, they are condemned rather than justified by the law. This is precisely what Paul says in the preceding verse: "All who have sinned under the law will be judged/condemned by the law" (v 12b, taking krino in the negative sense). And why is it that the law condemns the Jews who think that they will be justified by the law? "For (gar) it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified" (v 13 ESV). As Paul goes on to say in vv 17-24, the Jews boast in the law and yet they break the law. The very thing in which they boast will bring them not justification but condemnation.

Now I have been arguing that it does not fit in the scope of this argument to take v 13 as an affirmation that the evangelical obedience of believers will be the eschatological vindication of the genuineness of their profession of faith. As true and as theologically sound as that may be, it is not germane to the context, namely, Paul's diatribe with the Jewish interlocutor as part of a larger indictment of Gentiles and Jews whose conclusion is stated in Rom 3:9-20. 

Waldron responds by pointing out that later in the same chapter Paul brings up the evangelical obedience of the Christian (vv 25-29). He writes: "By Irons' reasoning we should not find all this stuff about the truly circumcised man who does good works and so proves that he is a true Jew in this context. And yet we do!" I guess his point is that Paul sometimes goes off into irrelevant tangents in the midst of pursuing other arguments.

Really? In my view, Waldron is wrong to interpret the language of "the circumcision of the heart" and the "true Jew" as unambiguous, explicit, and direct references to the evangelical obedience of Christians. These terms surely could be applied to Christians, but I don't think Paul is, at this point in his argument, speaking so directly of the new obedience of Christians. None of the terms used in vv 25-29 is outside the bounds of the Old Testament or Jewish point of view. The notion that a true Jew is not one who is merely outwardly circumcised but one who is also circumcised in heart is taught in Deut 10:16; 30:6; Jer 4:4; 9:25-26; Ezek 44:7, 9. It is further explored in such non-canonical Jewish texts as the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS V,5; 1QpHab XI, 13), Philo (Spec. 1.305; Migr. 92), and Jubilees (1:23). Paul has not gone beyond a Jewish frame of reference in vv 25-29. He is still engaging in a diatribe to indict the Jews who boast in the law of actually being law breakers. This part of the diatribe, the exposure of the hypocrisy of the Jew, also contains a hypothetical reflection on the possibility of one who is not physically circumcised, yet who keeps the law. Would it not be a condemnation of the law "boasting-yet-breaking" Jew if there were such a thing as a law "not-boasting-yet-keeping" Gentile?

Now it is certainly true that in the back of Paul's mind, he knows that regenerate, Christian Gentiles do fit the description in a non-literal, "new covenant" sense, i.e., they fulfill the moral core of the Mosaic law by the Spirit, even though they do not literally keep the Mosaic law in its totality. Indeed, his audience of Roman Christians who were primarily Gentiles, probably overheard the description here as one that ultimately does include them (in a different way than the Jews would recognize). I have no doubt that Paul delights in the irony of his Christian audience overhearing a deeper meaning that the imaginary Jewish interlocutor wouldn't "get." But as Brendan Byrne says, "It is a disservice to Paul’s argument to 'Christianize' it 'too early' and fail to appreciate the way in which it operates as an 'inner-Jewish' indictment couched in biblical terms" (Romans [Sacra Pagina 6; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1996], 104). 

Paul's point in Rom 1:18--3:20 is to reach the conclusion that "by the works of the law no human being will be justified in [God's] sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin" (3:20 ESV). It would singularly distract from that argumentative conclusion, and in fact seem to contradict it, were Paul to be read as affirming that "the doers of the law will be justified" (2:13) in a real sense, a reading that can only be made orthodox by changing the meaning of the key terms "doer," "law" and "justified" in this one verse, and taking them in ways out of accord with the meaning in which they will be used in the conclusion of the argument. 

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 11

Ultimately, for Paul, the debate with Judaism of all varieties – monergistic or synergistic – boils down to the need to submit to the righteousness of God revealed in Christ:

“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom 10:1-4 ESV).

All varieties of non-Messianic Judaism affirm that the law is the God-appointed means for attaining the status of “righteous before God.” Christianity teaches that Christ has brought the Mosaic Law to an end, so that righteousness is now only attained by faith in Christ.

In conclusion, I cannot do better than to quote one recent scholar who has compared Paul’s and Qumran’s doctrines of justification in detail:

“[For the Qumran sect] God’s righteousness lies in his setting the member of the community free from sin and in making it possible for him to observe the law perfectly, so that he might stand righteous before God in the final judgment on the basis of his works in the law … It is God’s prevenient grace, in establishing the covenant, that first allows for righteousness in the law; in the end, however, it is perfect fulfillment of the works of the law that establishes one as righteous before God in the final judgment …. Within Qumran’s strictly covenantal framework a nomistic basis is the only possible ground for justification, no matter how deep a sense of God’s grace is involved. Therefore justification must also be sub lege” [under the law] (emphasis mine).

[Stephen Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant to the Covenant of the Community: Literary, Historical, and Theological Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ 66; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 448, 451, 459.]

Note that phrase that I have highlighted: for Qumran, the righteousness of the saved is still a righteousness under the Law, “no matter how deep a sense of God’s grace is involved.”  In the final analysis, the deepest choice in soteriology is not between monergism and synergism but between Christ and the Law (as a covenant of works, not as divine revelation), between the righteousness of faith and the righteousness of the Law. To have a doctrine of justification that is truly “by grace alone” (sola gratia) one must not only affirm that righteousness is a monergistic work of God but that righteousness is “by faith alone” (sola fide) “in Christ alone” (solo Christo) apart from the works of the Law.

Did Paul misrepresent Judaism? Not in the slightest. He accurately represented Judaism of all stripes when he said that the Jews refused to submit to the righteousness of God revealed in Christ and sought to establish their own righteousness through keeping the Law. Nor is there any need to resort to the Sanders/Dunn/Wright (New Perspective) theory that, since Judaism was a religion of grace, his target must have been something else like ethnocentrism or exclusivism. Those who take this option don’t want to accuse Paul of misrepresenting Judaism, so they misrepresent Paul instead. But Paul knew his target well – the Jewish attempt to attain righteousness before God by means of the Law – and he hit it.

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 10

Fourth, the question of the character of Judaism.

Did Paul misrepresent Judaism as a legalistic religion of salvation by works? Or have Protestants misunderstood Paul? What objections would Paul have had to the soteriology of the DSS?

In my fifth post, I pointed out the strongly predestinarian, monergistic soteriology of the Qumran sect. They believed that it is only by God’s grace that a person's heart can be turned from the wicked path and be kept from sinning in the ways of righteousness:

1QH IV, 21-22: “You determine the way of the one You have chosen, and in the insight of Your truth You keep him from sinning against You; restoring to him his humility by Your chastisements, and by Your trials.”

1QH VII, 12-15: “I know by Your understanding that it is not by human strength … a man’s way is not in himself, nor is a person able to determine his step. But I know that in Your hand is the inclination of every spirit … and all his works You have determined before ever You created him ... You alone have created the righteous one, and from the womb You established him to give heed to Your covenant at the appointed time of grace.”

1QH XV, 13-20:  “You have established my heart in accordance with Your teaching and Your truth, setting my steps straight in the paths of righteousness, so that I may walk in Your presence in the domain of the righteous ones in paths of glory and life and peace without turning and never ceasing … For in Your righteousness You have stood me in Your covenant, and I have taken hold of Your truth.”

So was Paul in error when he charged the Jews of his day with legalism, with holding to a proud doctrine of justification by human effort and self-sufficient merit? Or are E. P. Sander, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright to be believed when they argue that it is precisely passages like this which show that Judaism was a religion of grace and that therefore Paul could not have charged his fellow Jews with legalism but must have been aiming his guns at a different error like ethnocentrism?

For starters, the Qumran sect was a sect of Judaism and is not representative of mainstream Pharisaic (proto-rabbinic) theology in the first century. The Pharisees did not emphasize God’s grace and predestination to the same degree that Qumran did. Although they did affirm a doctrine of divine providence and foreknowledge, they tended to place more weight on the freedom of the will than the Qumran covenanters. This is made clear in the Psalms of Solomon, a first century BC document widely believed to represent the theology of the Pharisees:

“Our works are in the choosing and power of our souls, to do righteousness and unrighteousness in the works of our hands … The one who does righteousness saves up life for himself with the Lord, and the one who does unrighteousness causes his own life to be destroyed” (Ps. Sol. 9:4-5).

This synergistic, even Pelagian (to use anachronistic labels), view that salvation is “in the choosing and power of our souls” is repeated in the famous saying of Rabbi Akiba (ca. 50--ca. 135 AD): “Everything is foreseen, yet free will is given. The world is judged with goodness, and all is according to the majority of deeds” (Abot 3:15). 

The point is that the Qumran sect is not representative of mainstream Judaism of this period. They held to a much stronger doctrine of divine grace than most of their contemporaries (whom, by the way, they regarded as apostate Jews). Thus, one should not turn (first) to the DSS for a description of the soteriological views that Paul is fighting against in Romans and Galatians.

But this leads to a useful thought experiment. Let’s hypothesize that Paul met some members of the Qumran sect.  Some scholars seem to imply that Paul would have said: "Oh, you guys are fine. You understand monergistic grace, so I have no beef with you. When I wrote Romans and Galatians, I wasn’t concerned about your group at all. I’ll see you brothers in heaven. I was only critiquing the Pharisees and their synergistic doctrine that salvation is in the power of our free will."

Somehow I can't imagine such ecumenical words from the lips of the apostle Paul! He would have had just as much of an issue with the monergistic/Qumran variety of Judaism as the Pelagian/Pharisaic/proto-rabbinic variety. He would have said that one's view of the relative weight of divine and human activity in salvation is surely important, but that one has not yet penetrated to the core issue -- the stone of stumbling and the rock of offence, that is, the necessity of throwing overboard one's own righteousness, whether monergistically or synergistically created, and receiving and resting in Christ and his righteousness alone.