27 Where then the boasting? It was excluded. Through what law? Of works? No,
but through a law of faith.
28 For we reckon a person to be justified by faith apart from works of law.
29 Or is God (the God) of Jews only? Not also of the Gentiles? Yes, and the
Gentiles also,
30 if indeed God is one, who will justify circumcision from faith and
uncircumcision through faith.
31 Do we then make the law of no effect through the faith? Let it not be! But
we make (the) law stand.
My translation
Submitted by andrew on Sat, 21/04/2007 - 12:47.
Since it is faith that will determine the survival of the people of God on the day of wrath, two conclusions ensue: one is that under these conditions the Jews can no longer lay claim to a unique and inviolable relationship with YHWH; the second is that justification has become as accessible to Gentiles as it is to Jews – Israel’s God is, after all, the God of all humankind. Moreover, through the stance of faith at the present moment the objective of the law is upheld.
27-28 If it is on the basis of faith that God’s people will be justified on the day of wrath, the Jews have no special grounds for boasting. We have to remind ourselves of the question that fundamentally drives Paul’s argument at this point: On what basis will people escape ‘destruction’ when the foreseen eschatological crisis descends first upon Torah-defined Israel and then on the Greek-Roman world? The law will not justify at that moment because the eschatological crisis is itself an outworking of the law: the law cannot simultaneously condemn and justify. So if a person is to be justified at all, it must be by faith apart from works of law.
29-30 Paul makes the inference from the shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 (‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one’) that the God of Israel is God also of the Gentiles. The belief in one God is straightforward, but the inference from it that Gentiles should also be justified – and therefore included in the covenant people – is harder to understand. Paul does not offer an explanation at this juncture, he merely asserts that God will justify Jews from faith and Gentiles through faith.
31 The justification of both Jews and Gentiles on the basis of faith does not mean that the law has become irrelevant or ineffectual. On the contrary, it is precisely through the act of faith or faithfulness that the law is made to stand. Two texts provide a suggestive interpretive background to the phrase we make the law stand (nomon histanomen). In 2 Kings 23:24 LXX Josiah ‘makes the words of the law stand’ by removing the sorcerers and idols from Judah and Jerusalem. In 1 Maccabees 14:29 Simon and his brothers resist Israel’s enemies so that the ‘sanctuary and the law might be made to stand’. This would suggest that Paul is not interested in maintaining the law in the abstract sense or as a matter of principle. His point would be that by means of the action or stance of faith at this time of eschatological crisis the integrity of the covenant relationship is maintained in the face of both internal religious and moral corruption and external pressures to apostatize.
27 Where then the boasting? It was excluded. Through what law? Of works? No, but through a law of faith.
28 For we reckon a person to be justified by faith apart from works of law.
29 Or is God (the God) of Jews only? Not also of the Gentiles? Yes, and the Gentiles also,
30 if indeed God is one, who will justify circumcision from faith and uncircumcision through faith.
31 Do we then make the law of no effect through the faith? Let it not be! But we make (the) law stand.
Since it is faith that will determine the survival of the people of God on the day of wrath, two conclusions ensue: one is that under these conditions the Jews can no longer lay claim to a unique and inviolable relationship with YHWH; the second is that justification has become as accessible to Gentiles as it is to Jews – Israel’s God is, after all, the God of all humankind. Moreover, through the stance of faith at the present moment the objective of the law is upheld.
27-28 If it is on the basis of faith that God’s people will be justified on the day of wrath, the Jews have no special grounds for boasting. We have to remind ourselves of the question that fundamentally drives Paul’s argument at this point: On what basis will people escape ‘destruction’ when the foreseen eschatological crisis descends first upon Torah-defined Israel and then on the Greek-Roman world? The law will not justify at that moment because the eschatological crisis is itself an outworking of the law: the law cannot simultaneously condemn and justify. So if a person is to be justified at all, it must be by faith apart from works of law.
29-30 Paul makes the inference from the shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 (‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one’) that the God of Israel is God also of the Gentiles. The belief in one God is straightforward, but the inference from it that Gentiles should also be justified – and therefore included in the covenant people – is harder to understand. Paul does not offer an explanation at this juncture, he merely asserts that God will justify Jews from faith and Gentiles through faith.
31 The justification of both Jews and Gentiles on the basis of faith does not mean that the law has become irrelevant or ineffectual. On the contrary, it is precisely through the act of faith or faithfulness that the law is made to stand. Two texts provide a suggestive interpretive background to the phrase we make the law stand (nomon histanomen). In 2 Kings 23:24 LXX Josiah ‘makes the words of the law stand’ by removing the sorcerers and idols from Judah and Jerusalem. In 1 Maccabees 14:29 Simon and his brothers resist Israel’s enemies so that the ‘sanctuary and the law might be made to stand’. This would suggest that Paul is not interested in maintaining the law in the abstract sense or as a matter of principle. His point would be that by means of the action or stance of faith at this time of eschatological crisis the integrity of the covenant relationship is maintained in the face of both internal religious and moral corruption and external pressures to apostatize.