Brian Rosner on Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God

This lecture is the first, overview lecture, in Brian Rosner's Annual Moore College Lecture series for 2011.

Brian starts by saying 'what was I thinking?' This is indeed a complex study. Critical to our understanding of the early church - Paul's scraps with the churches and the false apostles. The charge of Acts 21:28 - this man teaches against our law. Paul's view of the law plays a big part in understanding how Christianity splits off from Judaism.

It is critical to: his view of salvation, salvation-history, the church, anthropology, Israel etc. There's a lot at stake here. Walter Kaiser: 'how does (evangelical theology) relate to God's gospel of grace'?
Accusations of all kinds fly around. No aspect of Paul's thought is so disputed?

Why? Either people think the free gift of salvation has been compromised, OR the basis for Christian obedience? Lawlessness, or, legalism?

Matched by complexity. The scholars agree: it is complex (see Witherington, Hagner, Carson, Dunn, Raisanen, Wright).

So: what was he thinking?
Study of Paul is dense with thickets of secondary literature. The debates rage about various cruces of interpretation. Hasn't everyone been here before? Acres and acres of cultivated fields. Well entrenched positions! An equivalent of the battle of the Somme...perhaps?

Brian hopes to circumvent the problem! But what IS the problem? Paul seems to contradict himself. In some parts Paul is positively approving the law. In others: he critiques it ('an enslaving power'). Eph 2:15 'Christ has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances'. Ie, the WHOLE THING. Echo of Dt 6:1? 'Abolished' seems pretty unambiguous. The law has been set aside in its entirety. BUT - he also says, in Eph 6:1-2: 'Children obey your parents - the first commandment with a promise'. He cites this law approvingly... 1 Cor 7:19 'Circumcision is nothing - but keeping God's commandments matters'. Is this a 'Pauline paradox'? Sheer contradiction?

Are we to keep them - observe, retain?

Some kind of synthesis is what all scholars search for. But this leads to various divergent views according to how they resolve this tension.
1) Lutherans: Paul abolished the law. The law is a counterpoint to the gospel. The law plays no role in the Christian life.
2) Reformed: After beings saved, we must follow the moral law.
3) New Perspective: Paul's opposition to the law is on account of its ethnocentricism.

Yikes (says Brian). [exegetical method: Yikes. Hmm. Aha! Or Yeah right!]

Titus says 'avoid quarrels about the law!' :-)

You need to do three things:
1) Look at all the evidence. Most scholars talk about Romans and Galatians. nomos occurs there more than anywhere. BUT this is too narrow. It cuts Paul off at the knees. We should consider what he DOES with the law as well as what he says about it. And what he DOESN'T say about the law ought to be added on. The later Paulines are considered non-Pauline, and so we often get a truncated view of Paul and the law. Shame.

2) A Biblical-Theological investigation. Difficult theological issues need biblical-theological responses. Not to deny the usefulness of Systematics or Ethics. But work with the text as much as you can. What terms does Paul use? We lose sight of the Jewish context. It can be helpful to compare Paul with the non-canonical Jewish stuff.

3) Treat the law as a UNITY. What are we talking about? The lexicon defines nomos three ways. Most treatments take 'law' as legal system. Ie law as 'commandments'. See Rom 9:4 - Moses giving the law. Gal 3:17 etc. Parts of the Pentateuch readily fit this description of laws. BUT Brian wants to take 'law' not merely as 'laws'. Narrative dominates Gen, Ex, Numbers (1st half), Deut etc. Laws are embedded in a narrative. Law denotes the Pentateuch together - as a literary whole. We see this approach in the NT itself. Paul (Brian thinks) deals with the law as a unity. He is happy to appeal to law as narrative - see Gal 4:21, 'what the law says' (ie Sarah and Hagar).

So Rosner has a hermeneutical solution: the law should be treated as a WHAT. He cites Hays, Carson, Hagner, Bruce and himself in support. Hagner says the law negatively is as commandments, positively as Scripture.

Paul is negative about the law AS law, but positive about the law as prophecy and wisdom. (3 categories)

The key word is 'as' = in the capacity of, from the perspective of ...

Jews in Paul's day treated the law as a unity in just this way.

So: what does Paul do with the law AS law? We could get stuck if we just went to Romans and Galatians. Loads of negative material is there. But how absolute is his rejection? It seems pretty absolute.

Paul quotes Lev 18:5: 'the one who does these things will live by them'. In the New Perspective it means 'those who do these things will live in accordance with them when they live in the land'.
Brian wants to understand it as 'will have life because of them'. He cites contemporary Jewish literature - Qumran docs; Psalms of Solomon; etc. You will get life if you live according to the Jewish law'. Paul pits this way over and against a different way = the way of faith: 'but the righteousness that comes by faith'... Gal 3, for example. What Paul has in mind is eternal life. Therefore, Lev 18:5 is law qua law: a failed path to life. Paul quotes it in the opposite way to contemporary Jews. It is all about doing, therefore it is a disaster!

1 Tim 1:8-10 - a neglected text because it is seen as unPauline: 'the law is good if anyone uses it lawfully... not laid down for the righteous but for the lawless'. That is, when it is used lawfully it isn't for believers but unbelievers. This verse is translated 'lawfully' as 'legitimately' or 'properly'. In Philo and Josephus it is 'according to the laws'... The law was thus not set up to bind the righteous.

Now, an argument from silence...important not to exaggerate this. BUT - how might a Jew like Paul have been expected to relate to the law? We know from his own writings that he expected Jews to obey the law etc. But he never says that Christians should keep the law... he does say 'fulfill' the law, but that's different. He is not real big on the law as something Christians should obey.

Where does Paul get this view of the law from?
1) from his Calling and conversion. See Martin Hengel. It presented a soteriological alternative. Was the law life, or some other option?

2) from some prophetic texts. Jer 31:31-33, Ez 36:22-32, Dan 9:9-16a, 18b. The 'gracequake' of the new covenant.

So - Paul's postive stance? Prophecy and Wisdom.

See the prophetic character of the Pentateuch. See Gary Millar and Sailhammer. In Dt, there are some pessimistic elements that point beyond the book. The new covenant is anticipated in Deuteronomy - see 4:30. Paul as a minister of the new covenant can read it this way. See Acts 28:23 - he testifies to the koG from the LAW of Moses and the prophets. Rom 3:21-22 - the prophecy predicted by the law and prophets. He puts law and prophecy together. The law now functions as testimony, witness and promise.

The law as wisdom. Wisdom is indeed a key motif in Paul's letters. Moses makes you WISE (Dt 4:6). The torah psalms, Ps 19 and 119 - label law as wisdom. What does reading the law as wisdom look like? It's an approach to the law which notes the character of God and the moral framework stiched into the creation. The laws have an appeal to the moral reality all about us.

See Tithing: the practice of tithing is found in the OT. Does Paul recommend it for Christians? Despite having many opportunities to do so, he doesn't. But in 2 Cor 9, he says something very different. Does this mean he considers it irrelevant? No - he recommends deliberate managed giving... the laws are there to teach us, to make us wise.

Stealing - in Rom 2, he accuses his Jewish opponents of transgressing the law against stealing. But he tells Christians not merely not to steal but exhorts them to get a job! It functions as admonition, instruction and so on.

SO - Paul's letters present both negative critique and positive approval of the law. Brian offers a hermeneutical solution. Not a radical one, admittedly. We don't think we are under it as Christians, but we do think it is valuable... and it points to Christ of course! It is possible to dispute some details and still go with Brian's thesis.