Below is my submission to the last part of question 2 of 3, all due Thursday by 11:59pm. This one made me cringe. Mostly, because it's questioning "the law" and I (zip it, those of you who will suddenly let out a "Nah...Really?") immediately realized that I HATE TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO. When I respect you, when I've known you for a while, when we are officially friends - I will welcome your kind advice with open arms instead of an iron clad fist. But lead with telling me what to do and it's all over. Once, in the midst of my dating debacles, I remember receiving a text which read, "Such and such and address, 7:30, dress to impress!" It took me all of half a nanosecond to realize he was an idiot and I am a (sometimes) bitch who has had her fill of idiots. So, I text Chels:
Can you believe this? I am seriously vacillating between showing up in sweats or showing up in a leather dress and 5" heels. What do you think?
What the f*k does vacillating mean?
And there you have it. Our covenant relationship.
----------------------------
2C. Paul clarifies the effects of original sin
and the issue of whether or not individuals are recipients of the law by
stating that “All who sin apart from the law will perish apart from the law,
and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law” (Rom. 2:12-13).
Regardless of ethnicity, Paul is establishing that all men stand condemned before God – whether they have the law or
not. Once he discusses the Gentiles who
are not in possession of the law but
who keep the requirement of the law,
the idea of “heart circumcision” is introduced (2:25). By keeping the requirement of the law, the
Gentiles are showing that the law is “written on their hearts” (2:15), i.e.
that they too have the essence of God’s legal requirements already ingrained
and as such, are just as much without excuse as the Jews who possess the law. A basic sense of “moral” custom is the take
away here, whereas Paul also denotes deeds prescribed by the Mosaic Law to
define “works of the Law” (2:15; 3:20; 3:27; 3:28; cf. Gal. 2:16, 3:2, 3:5,
3:10).
What is distinctive about the
phrase “the works of the Law” is the complexity surrounding how those works are done, or if they even are.
Meaning, what is Paul's exact point and end goal here?
His claim in 3:20 that “no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight
by the works of the law” is seemingly a big deal, and one that must be explored
further. In the quest of further
exploration, Blackwell tells us that consulting the only other Jewish text
outside the Pauline corpus – 4QMMT, or the six Dead Sea Scrolls found beside
Qumran (4Q394-4Q399) – is smart discovery work.[1] When combining the Scrolls, the single text restored essentially states
that some works of the law are
beneficial to the recipients and it will be reckoned to them as righteousness
when they do what is upright and good in God’s presence, for the good of
themselves and Israel (SC 26-32, summarized).
One way to reconcile the text’s
“works of the law” is to view it as a summary for the instructions found in its
interpretative comments section which deals with some of the commandments in
the Torah – specifically twenty-four different commandments that also include
the community’s (recipients) own view about how these rules of behavior are to
be applied. However, another way to understand “the works
of the law” may be in its reference to observing
the Torah, whereby the focus is not on the application of behavior according to
the Torah, but rather on the individual human agent obeying what the Torah
commands.[2]
While the distinctions are
ambiguous at best and mind-boggling at worst, the bottom line seems to be that
by “the works of the law,” Paul meant it as a reference to the works required
by the law grounded in the overall
purpose of the letter, which is to motivate the readers to do certain things – the “works of the
law” are to be observed[3]. And…be observed.
This matters in so far as how
whatever needs to be done in observing the works of the law equates to
righteousness. Because ambiguity again
reigns with regard to Paul’s sense of linking righteousness with something
(i.e. faith, etc.), he draws on a modification of a scriptural claim found in
Ps. 143:2: “for no one living is
righteous before you” to serve his purpose of defining this as best we may
understand. In comparison with God, no
one is righteous and by the attachment of “by the works of the law,” Paul
shifts the focus so the declaration accentuates the means by which a person
cannot become righteous before God.
All this to say (I think) - while
the law is an absolute, a guideline, a clear message from God, “doing” the law
won’t make you righteous before God; if they (we) are to be righteous
(referring to a mode of relationship to the Law set in contrast to faith in
Christ), we cannot use “works” in the sense of striving for self-achievement
apart from God. Observance of the Mosaic
Law was more a response to a gracious God in order to demonstrate the
individual’s covenant relationship.
The same holds true today for
those of us not under Mosaic Law – we should want to observe certain “rules” or
“laws” in response to our love of someone with whom we are in
relationship. But not everyone who does something for us will we enter into relationship. Relationships are a
matter of the heart (2:15), and none is more profound in meaning yet simple at its
core than what Paul is teaching here.
An outpouring of love and observance of the law is shown in
response to how we feel about God. Once we know – absolutely know with
unwavering certainty – how we feel about Him, then our actions align and those
resultant works which we do are in response
to that unbreakable, solid bond demonstrating to all that we believe in a covenant relationship. A love stated but followed up with inaction
is fooling no one, least of all God who knows all.
[1]
Blackwell, Ben C., Goodrich, John K., Maston, Jason. Reading Romans in Context, Paul and Second Temple Judaism. Pgs
52-53. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015.
[2]
Blackwell, Ben C., Goodrich, John K., Maston, Jason. Reading Romans in Context, Paul and Second Temple Judaism. Page 54.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015.
[3]
Blackwell, Ben C., Goodrich, John K., Maston, Jason. Reading Romans in Context, Paul and Second Temple Judaism. Page 54.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment