Brian Rosner on Paul and the Law (2)

Paul's Repudiation of the Law - "Not under law" Intro


Infamously, Paul the apostle to the Gentiles makes pretty strong comments about the law. ... against the law even.

Is he an apostate Jew? Certainly that was the accusation. The Ebionites, for example, regarded Paul as such.

Scholarly opinion is divided. Segal argues that Paul would have been judged a renegade by contemporary Jews. Barclay and Gaston agree.

Dunn on the other hand contends that Paul saw himself as apostle for Israel, apostle of Israel.

So how do we interpret Paul's claims over against the reactions that he provoked? Either way: his relationship to the law of Moses is set in a sharply polemical setting.

Paul is pretty consistently polemical against the law. See Luther and Westerholm.

Hays notes that the law stands as defining the identity of God's elect, the Jews. But what then of the inclusion of the Gentiles?

SO: Paul’s Insistence that Believers are “not under the law”

Paul uses the term 'under the law' some eleven times in eight verses spread over Galatians, Romans and 1 Corinthians. Have to be careful of a totality transfer of course. There is evidence that this is Paul's coinage.
1 - Jews are those who are under the law. It isn't pejorative: ie, subject to the demands of the Mosaic law.
2- Gentiles are not and were never 'under the law'....
3- but 'under the law' can mean 'under the penalty and power of sin'; something from which Jews and Gentiles need to be released, and to which grace is favourably contrasted.

1. See 1 Cor 9. Paul says he isn't 'under the law', though he 'became as one under the law'.
Paul was happy enough to observe the law to prevent others from stumbling. It has a neutral sense.

Rom 6:14: you are not under law but under grace...

2. Gentiles not under the law. Rom 2:14. 1 Cor 9 and Gal 4 - outside the law/not under the law. But why do Gentiles have to be freed from the dominion of the law if they weren't under it in the first place? Is Paul simply inconsistent? (see Westerholm and Raisenen).
Three possible resolutions:
1- writing from an exclusively Jewish perspective? Unlikely.
2 - (I missed it)
3 - is Paul fudging? Unclear about the plight of the Gentiles?

Rosner's theorem: Rom 6:14 doesn't actually say that the Gentiles were formerly under the law. Saying they are not under law doesn't mean they previously were. Brian carefully expounds Paul's argument from Rom 5 to Rom 7 and shows that 'under the law' is the alternative that has been put to the Gentile believers (not they ever were 'under the law').

3. 'under the law' can mean under the power of sin.

The law is an enslaving power - see Galatians 3.
Outside of the “under the law” references, Paul uses ὑπὸ with the accusative seven times in Galatians and Romans in ways that move the reader to take “under the law” quite negatively. As well as being “under the law” people are “under the control of” or “under obligation to” a number of things to their distinct disadvantage:

· “all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse” (Gal. 3:10)

· “the scripture has imprisoned all things under sin” (Gal. 3:22).

· “now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian” (Gal. 3:25).

· “but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; while we were minors, we were under the elemental spirits of the world” (Gal. 4:2-3).

· “we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin” (Rom. 3:9).

· “we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin” (Rom. 7:14).

The only time Paul uses ὑπὸ with the accusative in Galatians and Romans not in reference to what humans are subject to is in Romans 16:20, where the connotation is still that of an oppressive (if more advantageous) control: “The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet.”

What about Leviticus 18:5? An important text for us to know whether the New Perspective has the whole story. 'Whoever does the works of the law will live by them'. ... The NPP says that in the new age, the identity badges of the law of Moses no longer apply. That is, the law had a sociological function. Brian thinks that this is reductionistic. It isn't the whole story. His negation of the law goes deeper. His polemic is concerned with alternatives paths to life, not merely just boundary markers. Grace and faith are opposed to works and the law. Excluding the later Paulines doesn't help.

When Paul reads Lev 18:5 with the salvation historical paradigm in mind, he also has in mind that we are saved by faith.

Paul and his own conversion and commissioning:

Hengel:

“For Paul, the encounter with the Resurrected One near Damascus set before him the question of the law or Christ in the form of a soteriological alternative. For Judaism of that time the Torah was in manifold expression the essence of salvation, and could be identified with the fundamental religious metaphor, ‘life.’” (Martin Hengel)

See Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel..

SO: in what sense are we not under the law?

Rom 2:29 - contrast between 'letter' and 'Spirit'. Also in Rom 7:6 and 2 Cor 3:6. 'Letter' singular refers to the law of Moses as written document.. see Fitzmeyer: it's the old dispensation of the written code. Hmmm. 2 Cor 3 = refers to the law written on tablets of stone. Opposed to the 'spirit' and linked to 'circumcision'.

Christians are not under the law as letter, commandments, book, decrees or covenant. To recall our discussion of 1 Timothy 1:8-10, the law (νόμος) used lawfully (νομίμως), or as some commentators put, “as law,” is not for the righteous (believers), but to condemn the lawless (ἄνομος).