When faced with the demanding requirements of the Law juxtaposed with the Grace that Jesus offers, the modern Jesus-follower finds a perplexing dichotomy in the Scriptures. On the one hand, the totality of the Law’s demands leads to a realization of the futility of success against the cosmic forces of Sin and Death.[1] However, presented with the liberty that Grace offers, the temptation to adopt a libertine mindset encroaches. With this challenging backdrop, the modern believer traverses a treacherous path that requires the guiding wisdom of the Holy Spirit to answer the underlying question – are they required to keep the Law?
In his letter to the Romans, Paul clearly states that salvation is by faith alone, not a result of observance of the Law. Paul declares, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (Rom 3:21-22, ESV).[2] Paul reinforces his “justification by faith” theology in his letter to the Galatians by declaring in chapter 2, “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Gal 2:16). Also, Paul declares emphatically that not only is faith the substance of justification, he definitively rejects the premise that it is even attainable through “works of the law.”
In order to answer the question of law-keeping concerning Paul’s statements in his letters, the reader must first define what Paul meant in his writings concerning the “works of the law” and the challenges he supposed for Gentile believers. Two scholarly approaches to Paul’s view of the law have emerged: the traditional (Reformation) and, in contrast, the New Perspective understanding. In their discussion of the traditionalist view, Bruce W. Longenecker and Todd D. Still state that “Paul imagined that human sinfulness has rendered the law ineffective since the law is incapable of overturning the condition of human sinfulness.”[3] The traditionalist assumed two divergent viewpoints emerging from first-century Judaism that since they could not keep perfectly the law’s statutes, there was little hope of salvation, or that by their works of the law, they could earn their salvation.[4] As a result of the traditional view, the interpretation of Paul’s teaching concerning “justification by faith” informed a “replacement understanding” where the freedom of Grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ superseded the legalism of the “works of the law.”
In contrast, the New Perspective approach allows for as Longenecker and Still unpack an understanding of first-century Judaism outside of the classic legalistic definition and one more defined by “covenantal nomism.” Judaism, in the time of Paul’s writings, was “animated by a robust awareness that God had elected the people of Israel through his gracious mercy.”[5] Furthermore, as a result, the keeping of the law was an outworking of the gracious covenant establish with the Jews. With this understanding, the reader of the Pauline writings surmises that Paul’s concern was more focused on the Jewish “identity markers” that produced division within the Gentile churches he had established.
Paul’s intent in both his writings to the Galatian and Roman Jesus-followers sought to firm up his gospel of Grace and to resist the Judiazers who sought to divide these new believers. As Thomas D. Lea and David Alan Black state, “He [Paul] insisted that those Jews who again introduced law-keeping as essential to salvation were erecting the structure of human achievement.”[6] Paul, after his divine encounter on the Damascus Road, believed that “to return to law-keeping after such a life-transforming discovery would be a declaration that Christ had died for no purpose.”[7] Paul does not mince words “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (Gal 2:21).
In recognition of Paul’s theology concerning the “works of the law,” the modern believer is not required after faith to add on the Jewish identity markers that bring them back into the bondage of separation. This bondage, as Paul declares, would nullify and void the transference of righteousness that Jesus Christ accomplished through His death, burial, and resurrection. The believer can be confident that the work that Christ accomplished is enough to justify and sanctify until the completion of this eschatological age.
Bibliography
Lea, Thomas D., and David Alan Black. The New Testament: Its Background and Message. 2nd ed. Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003.
Longenecker, Bruce W., and Todd D. Still. Thinking through Paul: An Introduction to His Life, Letters, and Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014.
Stacy, Robert Wayne, “The Theological Metanarrative of Paul’s Thoughts,” course video.
[1] Robert Wayne Stacy, “The Theological Metanarrative of Paul’s Thoughts,” course video.
[2] Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages referenced employ the English Standard Version.
[3] Bruce W. Longenecker and Todd D. Still, Thinking through Paul: An Introduction to His Life, Letters, and Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 326.
[4] Ibid, 327.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Thomas D. Lea and David Alan Black, The New Testament: Its Background and Message, 2nd ed. (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003), 373.
[7] Ibid.
Restored 