The Upper Register

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. 

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 9

Third, the question of literary influence. 

Did Paul borrow his doctrine of justification from the DSS? Or, if direct literary influence is too strong, was he influenced by a Jewish tradition that happens to have been preserved here? If not, what is the explanation for the striking similarities in language between them? I have found two articles by experts on the DSS that are helpful on this question.

Pierre Benoit

Fifty years ago, Pierre Benoit in his reflections on “Qumran and the New Testament,” cautioned against “an imprudent tendency to accept as immediate contacts arising from direct influence what in fact may be no more than independent manifestations of a common trend of the time” (p. 1). It is “imprudent” to latch on to certain verbal similarities between Paul and Qumran and to conclude that Paul borrowed the language or the ideas from Qumran. There is another possibility that must be considered:  the similar words or phrases may be expressions of a linguistic pattern common throughout Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era.

Benoit makes another helpful point near the end of his essay (pp. 29-30) when he speaks of “an error of historical method.” The scholar’s historical distance from the events in question creates an optical illusion of sorts. This “occurs when an early stage of some movement is interpreted in the light of a later stage.” The classic example of this optical illusion is the error of reading the New Testament in light of Gnosticism, which was a second century phenomenon. Bultmann and a whole generation of NT scholars in the first half of the 20th century claimed that certain NT themes and ideas were “Gnostic” in their origin. But the reality is precisely the other way around:  John and Paul did not borrow from Gnosticism, but Gnosticism used and twisted the writings of John and Paul. The reason Gnosticism seems relevant is because the mind is so drawn by the striking verbal parallels, that it cannot help but read the earlier terms in light of ideas that developed later. 

With the DSS, the chronological order is the reverse – the DSS were prior to the writings of the NT. But a similar optical illusion can occur if we are not alert to it, since it is so hard for us to set aside our Christian influence and get into the mindset of the Qumran group. In reality, however, they were not Christian in any way; they were a rigorously Torah-observant Jewish sect that separated from mainstream Judaism and believed themselves to be the true remnant.

“Surely the same mistake is made in the study of the writings of Qumran, when a Christian mind discovers in them doctrines that had not yet come into being? Read in this false light, doctrines or expressions which are still purely Jewish are understood to possess a new meaning, which they received in fact only after the work of Christ had been completed. Led astray by an undeniable similarity of ‘mentality’ some have come to believe that the ‘spirit’ is also the same. Unconsciously (we believe) some have transferred the image of Jesus, the Messiah who was crucified and rose from the dead, to the Teacher of Righteousness, and then have stood amazed at the resemblance between the two” (pp. 29-30). 

To guard against this optical illusion, we must interpret the DSS in light of earlier or contemporary documents, not by later theological and religious developments, such as the New Testament or Christianity.

[Pierre Benoit, “Qumran and the New Testament,” in Paul and Qumran: Studies in New Testament Exegesis, ed. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968), 1-30; originally delivered at the closing session of the 1960 meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in Aarhus, Denmark, and published in NTS 7 (1960-61): 276-96.]

Timothy Lim

Timothy Lim makes the obvious point that “similarities do not prove influence” (p. 138). To make the case for influence, similarities are not sufficient, but one must be able to pinpoint some historical basis for contact or linkage between the two. One link that was suggested early on is John the Baptist, with the idea being that John may have been an Essene who later left that group and became part of the Jesus movement, bringing along some Qumranian baggage with him. But this theory has been examined and found wanting. At the end of the day, there is just no evidence of a direct or indirect historical link between the Qumran community and Paul.

In the absence of any evidence for a historical connection, the verbal or conceptual similarities between Paul and Qumran are best explained as both independently drawing upon OT themes. They did not know one another, but they can at times use similar language because they belong to “the same religious milieu” (p. 146). 

One striking example of this is that both Qumran and Paul use the language of the “new covenant” from Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The Essene community refers to itself as “the members of the new covenant in the land of Damascus” (CD VI, 19; VIII, 21). But for Qumran this “new covenant” is not set in contrast with the “old covenant.” It is merely a renewal/reenactment of the same Mosaic covenant; whereas for Paul it is a new, Christological dispensation. In Qumran, the members of the “renewed [Mosaic] covenant” are simply to redouble their efforts in keeping the law, binding themselves with a solemn oath to keep it perfectly: “Every initiant into the society of the Yahad is to enter the Covenant in full view of all the volunteers. He shall take upon himself a binding oath to return to the Law of Moses (according to all that He commanded) with all his heart and with all his mind” (1QS V, 7-13).

Lim writes: 

“True, both drew on the same source-text of Jeremiah 31:31-34; both interpreted the promise of ‘a new covenant’ eschatologically; and both redefined ‘the house of Israel’ and ‘the house of Judah’ in a sectarian manner. But the significance of the new covenant is very different: the Qumran community understood this new covenant as a renewal of the old. Reenacted in the ‘blessing and curses’ section of Serekh ha-yahad [The Rule of the Community], this communal ceremony takes place annually. For Paul, on the other hand, the new covenant is a new dispensation, christologically centered with hermeneutical consequences. The old covenant has been transformed into something quite different … While there are superficial similarities between them, there are profound differences between Paul and the Damascus Document” (pp. 141-2).

[Timothy Lim, “Studying the Qumran Scrolls and Paul in Their Historical Context,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers From an International Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (Ed. James Davila; STDJ 46; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 135-56.]

The application is obvious:  the language of “the righteousness of God” is found in both Qumran and Paul. But “similarities do not prove influence,” and given the lack of evidence of a historical link, it is better to conclude that they are both drawing upon the same language of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms. But even as they draw upon the same canonical material, they are putting that language to use in radically different ways. For Qumran, God’s righteousness is revealed in cleansing the individual member of the community from his sin, making him righteous, and placing him back on the path to perfect obedience to the law. For Paul, God’s righteousness is “apart from the law” and is revealed not in the creation of law-keepers but in the reckoning of law-breakers as righteous through the blood and righteousness of Another.

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 8

(3) No notion of justification by faith

The third point of difference between Paul and Qumran is that Qumran had nothing comparable to Paul's doctrine that one is righteous or justified by personal trust and faith in the Messiah who has already accomplished righteousness for his people. 

“The Christian attains to his new justice through faith in Christ (Rom 3:22ff.). There is nothing comparable to this in Qumran, where it is not even conceivable. The Teacher of the Hodayoth never proclaims belief in his own person which would bring salvation to his disciples. Certain scholars have made much of the appeals for belief in his teaching found in 1QpHab 2:6-8; 8:2ff.; CD 20:28, 32. But these are concerned with nothing more than the normal obedience of a disciple to the teaching of his master, and cannot be compared with that total commitment to the very person of Another as the source of salvation. The faith in Christ, which saves a Christian, is not merely faith in his teaching, but faith in his death and resurrection, or, more accurately, it is faith in the crucified and risen Christ (Rom 3:25; 4:25; 5:1, 9; Col 2:12). There is no possibility of such faith at Qumran.”

[Pierre Benoit, “Qumran and the New Testament,” in Paul and Qumran: Studies in New Testament Exegesis, ed. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968), 27.]

Related to this, the Qumran doctrine of righteousness is not associated with the liberating sense of assurance that is so central to Paul's message (cp. Rom 5:1-11). There is no notion at Qumran of the definitive nature of the revelation of God’s righteousness as something that has already occurred and to which we can look back upon in order to have assurance of our standing before God. 

“Nowhere … do we find in the Qumran texts anything like the statement, ‘You have been justified’ [1 Cor 6:11]. … It is not difficult to understand why this is the case. For the Qumran sectaries the revelation of God’s saving righteousness and his justification of sinners is never linked with any event in history comparable to the death and resurrection of Christ.”

[Nils A. Dahl, “The Doctrine of Justification: Its Social Function and Implications,” in Studies in Paul: Theology for the Early Christian Mission (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977), 102-3.]

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 7

(2) Justification "under the law"

Another major difference between Paul and Qumran on justification is that for Qumran, righteousness is “under the law,” whereas for Paul it is “apart from the works of the law.” We may speak of the nomistic basis of righteousness according to the Qumran sect. 

The nomistic basis of righteousness at Qumran is made clear in the oath that prospective members of the community must take in order to join the group. 

1QS V, 7-13: “Every initiant into the society of the Yahad is to enter the Covenant in full view of all the volunteers. He shall take upon himself a binding oath to return to the Law of Moses (according to all that He commanded) with all his heart and with all his mind” (cp. CD XV, 7-12; XVI, 1-6; 1QH VI, 17-18; 1QS I, 7-8, 16-17).

The foundation of salvation is grace, but the basis of acceptance and eternal life is perfect obedience or works; repentance and the forgiveness of sins, for Qumran, merely set one back on the path of perfect obedience, but perfect obedience is the ultimate ground of acceptance before God, salvation from hell, and the obtaining of eternal life in the age to come. 

Perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law is required:  

CD II, 15-16 (“living perfectly in all His ways”); VII, 4-6 (“all who conduct their lives by these laws, in perfect holiness”); CD XX, 2, 5-7 (“the men of holy perfection”); 1QH VIII, 16, 26 (“a perfect heart”); XII, 30-32 (“walk in the perfect way … to perfect a way”); 1QS I, 8 (“all who volunteer to live by the laws of God … so as to … walk faultless before Him, according to all that has been revealed”), 13 (“according to the perfection of His ways”); II, 2, 9-11 (“to walk faultless in all the ways of God”); IV, 22 (“those following the perfect way”); V, 24 (annual promotion/demotion based on “perfection of walk”); VIII, 16–IX, 2 (“walk blamelessly,” distinction between intentional and unintentional sins); IX, 5-9 (“blameless behavior”), 18-19 (“the secret Way is perfected … walk blamelessly”); X, 20-21 (“until their walk be perfected”); XI, 2, 11, 17 (“the perfection of way … the way made perfect”).

Once "perfection of way" is achieved by living within the community, then one will be accepted by God:

1QS III, 8-10:  “Through an upright and humble attitude his sin may be covered, and by humbling himself before all God’s laws his flesh can be made clean .... Let him order his steps to walk faultless in all the ways of God, just as he commanded for the times appointed to him. Let him turn aside neither to the right nor to the left, nor yet deviate in the smallest detail from all of His words. Then indeed will he be accepted by God.”

1QH XII, 21-22: “Those who are in harmony with You shall stand before You for ever, and those who walk in the way of Your heart shall be secure for evermore.”

Not only acceptance before God, but escape from God's judgment at the last day is secured by obedience to the Law:

1QpHab VIII, 1-2: “This refers to all those who obey the Law among the Jews whom God will rescue from among those doomed to judgment.”

CD XII, 22: “If the seed of Israel lives according to this law, they shall never know condemnation.” 

CD XIV, 1-2: “As for all who live by these rules, God’s covenant stands firm for them, delivering them from all the traps of hell.”

And finally, even resurrection life is predicated upon one's works of righteousness under the Law, though one's attainment of such righteousness is not a human achievement but a result of God's sovereign electing will ("if it please you"): 

1QS XI, 16-17: “Establish all of his works in righteousness; raise up the son of Your handmaiden – if it please You – to be among those chosen of humankind, to stand before You forever.” 

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 6

DIFFERENCES

So we have seen the similarities. Now let us take a look at the significant differences between Paul and Qumran on the question of righteousness, that is, how sinful humans can be righteous in God’s sight in order to escape eternal perdition and inherit eternal life at the end of the age.

(1) Monergistic but inherent righteousness

Qumran may have a monergistic soteriology, but its monergism consists in God’s sovereign activity of changing the heart and causing one to become inherently and personally righteous. This contrasts with Paul, for whom justification is solely a forensic declaration, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.  

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” (cp. 1QH XII, 30-32).

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 [cp. 1QH XX, 34]. 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.”

See also 1QH XVIII, 22; XXI, 7-14; XXIII, 9; 1QS IV, 2-3 (“causing his heart to fear the laws of God”), 20-22.

The Qumran sect was totally monergistic and in that limited sense "Calvinistic" in their soteriology, but they knew nothing of the gospel. They would have rejected Paul's doctrine that God justifies the ungodly by imputing to them the righteousness of the Messiah who was obedient in their place. For them, God makes the elect inherently and actually righteous and on that basis declares them to be righteous.

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 5

Second, the question of the doctrine of justification.

Do Paul and Qumran hold to the same or similar doctrine of justification? What are the similarities and differences? 

In earlier posts, I criticized the rending of mishpati in 1QS XI as “my justification,” so one might think it would be incorrect or misleading to speak of Qumran as having a doctrine of justification at all. Yet there is a sense in which the Qumran sect did have a doctrine of justification. This can be seen from the fact that the sect employed the verb tsadaq (Qal: “to be righteous”), often when quoting or alluding to Psalm 143:2 which uses this verb, “Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you” (ESV). Qumran’s reflection on and expansion of this text leads to a doctrine of justification of sorts. Perhaps it would be best to speak of Qumran’s doctrine of righteousness, that is, their view of how a person can be righteous in God’s sight. 

Note: In the quotes from the DSS that follow, I am using the Wise-Abegg-Cook (WAC) translation. However, I do not reproduce their use of brackets to indicate scholarly reconstructions of the text, since this would be tedious and distracting. In a few instances I modified WAC, changing "justified" to "be righteous" (a more accurate translation of the Qal of tsadaq).

SIMILARITIES

To begin with, let us consider the similarities:

(1) Human sinfulness and necessity of divine grace

Both Qumran and Paul have a deep recognition of the sinfulness of humans and the inability of humans to be righteous in God’s sight apart from his grace. For example, here is one sample of a common motif in the DSS – the use of various self-deprecating phrases to describe fallen humanity apart from God’s grace:

1QH IX, 21-23: “These things I know through Your understanding, for You have opened my ears to wonderful mysteries even though I am a vessel of clay and kneaded with water, a foundation of shame and a spring of filth, a melting pot of iniquity and a structure of sin, a spirit of error, perverted without understanding and terrified by righteous judgments.”

From this, it is a short step to the quotation of Psalm 143:2:

1QH VIII, 20: “I know that no one can be righteous apart from You.”

1QH XV, 28: “Who can be righteous before You, when he enters into judgment?”

However, it is not that the Qumran sect is denying the possibility that humans can be righteous before God. They are rather reflecting on the sinfulness of humans apart from God’s grace and outside of the community. God in his grace has provided a way of humans to be righteous, namely, by repenting of their sin, joining the community, and practicing the law within that community. Righteousness is thus possible by God’s grace. 

There is a sense in which we may say that both Qumran and Paul have what may be called a doctrine of righteousness sola gratia. The Qumran sect explicitly uses the term “only” (raq) to express this:

1QH V, 20-23: “What is one born of woman among all Your awesome works? He is but an edifice of dust, kneaded with water, … his foundation is obscene shame … and a perverted spirit ruled him … Only (raq) by Your goodness shall a man be righteous, and by the abundance of Your compassion.”

Now, it must be pointed out, that “to be righteous” in Qumran is not the same as in Paul. We will examine this in greater detail in future posts. But for now it is sufficient to say that “to be righteous” in the DSS means to be actually, inherently, and personally righteous in a moral sense, including the possession of both a righteous inclination and righteous behavior.

Cp. 1QH XI, 23-25; XII, 29-30; XV, 16-18; XVII, 14-15; XIX, 3; XX, 24-26, 32-25; XXII frag 4; XXIII, 11-13.

(2) Predestination

Both Qumran and Paul are predestinarians in both the comprehensive sense (God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass) and in the salvific sense (God foreordains who will be saved and who will not). 

In the comprehensive sense, both Qumran and Paul believe in God’s sovereign decree in respect to all that comes to pass:

1QH IX, 7-9, 19-20: “By Your wisdom You have established the successive generations and before You created them You knew all their works for ever and ever. For apart from You nothing is done, and without Your will nothing is known. You have formed every spirit and You determined their deeds and judgment for all their works … and in the wisdom of Your knowledge You determined their destiny before they came into existence and according to Your will everything comes to pass, and nothing happens apart from You.” 

In the salvific sense, both believe God is sovereign in salvation. Some are “foreordained to God” and others are “foreordained to Belial” (1QS II, 1-10). 

1QH VII, 15-17: “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 and to walk in all things … But the wicked You created for the time of Your wrath, and from the womb You set them apart for the day of slaughter” (cp. 1QH XII, 38).

In addition, there are several references to election:  1QH X, 13 (“the chosen of righteousness”); 1QH XVIII, 26: (“You chose them from the sons of men”); 1QS VIII, 6 (“chosen by God’s will”); 1QS XI, 7, 16 (“to them He has chosen … those chosen of humankind”).

The Qumranian doctrine of predestination is spelled out in great detail in “The Treatise of the Two Spirits” (1QS III, 13--IV, 26), which is too long to quote here.

(3) Atonement for sin

Both Qumran and Paul speak of the need for and possibility of forgiveness, cleansing, and atonement: 

1QH XII, 36-37: “I rested in Your mercies and the abundance of Your compassion. For You atone for iniquity and purify man from guilt by Your righteousness.”

Of course, it goes without saying that while both Qumran and Paul affirmed that God provides atonement for sin, they differ on the means of atonement. For Qumran, atonement is provided within the community and is obtained by means of repentance (turning from one’s sin) and pursuing obedience to the Torah by strictly following the community’s interpretation thereof. For Paul, of course, atonement for sin is only possible through the sacrificial death of Christ.