The promise to Abraham: faith versus works, promise versus law.
I belong to wicked mankind,
to the company of unjust flesh.
My iniquities, rebellions, and sins,
together with the perversity of my heart,
belong to the company of worms
and to those who walk in darkness.
For mankind has no way,
and man is unable to establish his steps
since justification is with God
and perfection of way is out of His hand.
All things come to pass by His knowledge;
He establishes all things by His design
and without Him nothing is done.
As for me,
if I stumble, the mercies of God
shall be my eternal salvation.
If I stagger because of the sin of flesh,
my justification shall be
by the righteousness of God which endures for ever.
When my distress is unleashed
He will deliver my soul from the Pit
and will direct my steps to the way.
He will draw me near by His grace,
and by His mercy will He bring my justification.
He will judge me in the righteousness of His truth
and in the greatness of His goodness
He will pardon all my sins.
Through His righteousness he will cleanse me
of the uncleanness of man
and of the sins of the children of men,
that I may confess to God His righteousness,
and His majesty to the Most High.
Observation about the created order cannot be exercised properly apart from the written Word of the living God.
The pattern for cosmic renewal is established, and by it God’s original creation intentions are reaffirmed. By his righteousness, an Adam figure has delivered a remnant, whose purpose is to fulfill God’s original intentions for creation.
Noah’s family has inherited the prediluvian, Adamic evil heart.
The biggest word in the chapter, one of the greatest in the Old Testament! Here is the first instance of the use of the word “believe” in the Scriptures.
Perhaps the most marvelous thing about this word is the clearness with which it rules out all efforts and attainments of man as contributory factors in the justification. Work righteousness is completely eliminated, a fact which again human reason might never have discerned but for divine exposition as granted to inspired men (Rom. 4:1ff.; Gal.3:1ff.).
But the only factor that counts in this transaction is faith, and even faith only in so far as it grasps God’s promise, not faith as an achievement of man. H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1942), 476,477
God does not begin with working upon the inward psychical states of the patriarchs, as though they were subjects for reform—an unbiblical attitude which is, unfortunately, characteristic of too much of modern religion. He begins with giving them promises. The keynote is not what Abraham has to do for God, but what God will do for Abraham. Then, in response to this, the subjective frame of mind that changes the inner and outer life is cultivated
God does not deal, nor has he ever dealt, with us otherwise than through a word of promise, as I have said. We in turn cannot deal with God otherwise than through faith in the Word of his promise.
Martin Luther, Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. William R. Russell and Timothy F. Lull, Third Edition. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 214.
Finally, the word refers to Christ and the preaching of Christ’s death and resurrection in a manner that creates faith in listeners
Broadly speaking, faith bears a two-fold significance in Scriptural teaching and experience: it is, firstly, dependence on the supernatural power and grace of God; and secondly, the state or act of projection into a higher, spiritual world
Faith and a desire for more faith frequently go hand in hand. The reason is that through faith we lay hold upon God, and in grasping the infinite object, the utter inadequacy of each single act of appropriation immediately reveals itself in the very act. It is the same in the Gospel: ‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief’ [Mark 9:24].
Religious belief exists not in its last analysis on what we can prove to be so, but on the fact of God having declared it to be so. Faith, therefore, begins with and ends in the trust—rest in God.
And this personal relatedness of his faith to God imparted a strongly God-centered character to Abraham’s piety. It is emphasized in the narrative that the patriarch’s supreme blessedness consisted in the possession of God Himself: ‘Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield, thy exceeding great reward’ [Gen. 15:1]. For this treasure he could cheerfully renounce all other gifts.
But this faith attached itself not merely to God in general; it was strong enough to bear the strain of trusting in the supernatural self-communication and action of God. It related specifically to the divine omnipotence and saving grace.
Salvation requires at all times more than God’s general providence exerted in our behalf. It implies supernaturalism, not as a curious, marvelous self-demonstration of God, but as the very core of true religiousness.
On the basis of this part, as well as of other parts of Scripture in general, it is quite proper to maintain that a belief entertained and a life conducted on the basis of a relation to God through nature alone does not yield the Biblical religion at all. It is not merely a partial, it is a different thing.
In Abraham’s case this meant negatively, for securing God and the promises, a renouncing of all his own purely human resources. He expected nothing from himself. And positively he expected everything from the supernatural interposition of God.
Paul with his penetrating doctrinal genius has given us a striking description of this supernaturalism of Abraham’s faith, both on its negative and on its positive side, in Rom. 4:17–23 [cp, Heb. 11:17–19]. (Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2003), 83- 85.)
When God speaks we must accept the truth at his word. When God acts, we must see the fact that he acts in these acts themselves.
The escape from Egypt is a faith event. It is the crucial event of the whole Hebrew tradition. It is also the source of all the biblical language about salvation and liberation, including the theology of the Cross. Its importance for Christians, as well as for Jews, cannot be exaggerated.
Since its importance is chiefly theological, we should begin not with its historicity but with its theology. To take this approach is not to imply that the actual historical facts, if they can indeed be verified, should be ignored, but to recognize that in the eyes of Hebrew faith the escape from Egypt happened just as it is recorded in the Torah. From this point certain themes emerge:
The escape from Egypt is the responsibility and initiative of the God of the Hebrews. In this event, Yahweh keeps his promises to the patriarchs, creates a people for himself, and punishes Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt.
All Hebrew ancestry leads up to it, and all subsequent Hebrew history flows from it.
The Hebrews do not fight in their own cause; they are not allowed to do so. They do little physically to help themselves and nothing by way of aggression or even self-defense. God does the fighting, and nature is his ally—water, fire, cloud, the plagues, the whole cosmic panoply.
This signals the beginning of a theology of nonviolence that reaches its culmination in the Old Testament in the Servant Songs of Isaiah 40–55 and that dominates all other theologies of human action when it reaches the New Testament. God will fight for his people, not they for themselves. Eventually that fight will culminate in the Cross of Christ. (G. W. Ashby, Go out and Meet God: A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, International Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Edinburgh: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Handsel Press, 1998), 62–64.)
Justification is always and everywhere in Scripture a declaration of God, not on the basis of an actually existing condition of our being righteous, but on the basis of a gracious imputation of God that is contradicted by our condition.
Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., trans. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., vol. 4 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–2016), 22.
The objective action of God was for the patriarchs interlinked with the three great promises. These were first, the chosen family would be made into a great nation; secondly, that the land of Canaan would be their possession; thirdly, that they were to become a blessing for all people
Next to the objectivity of these three things promised, we notice as the third important feature of the revelation, that it emphasizes most strongly, both in word and act, the absolute monergism of the divine power in accomplishing the things promised; otherwise expressed, the strict supernaturalism of the procedure towards fulfilling the promises.
Abraham was not permitted to do anything through his own strength or resources to realize what the promise set before him.
Abraham was not allowed to acquire any possession in the land of promise. Yet he was rich and might easily have done so. But God Himself intended to fulfil this promise also without the co-operation of the patriarch; and Abraham seems to have had some apprehension of this, for he explains his refusal to accept any of the spoils from the king of Sodom by the fear lest the latter should say, ‘I have made Abram rich’ [Gen. 14:21–23].(Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2003), 80,81.)
The often repeated description of the land as ‘flowing with milk and honey’ reveals that the land which the Israelites are about to enter is a new paradise (see Deut. 6:3; 11:9–12; 26:9, 15; 27:3; 31:20; cf. Exod. 3:8, 17; 13:5; 33:3; Lev. 20:24; Num. 13:27; 14:8; 16:13–14;).
This is a theological rather than an agricultural point; Israel’s land is so good because it is the long-awaited gift of God in fulfilment of his promise. The promise of land guarantees the restoration of intimacy with God in terms which recall the description of Eden.
Jesus draws explicitly on a promise of land from Psalm. 37 (Matt. 5:5). A similar idea, this time couched in terms of inheritance, appears in Matthew 25:34. Gary Burge has argued that the imagery in John. 15, and Jesus’ injunctions to ‘abide in me’, point to the fulfilment of the land motif in the OT in the person of Jesus himself (G. M. Burge, ‘Territorial Religion, Johannine Christology, and the Vineyard in John 15’, in J. B. Green and M. Turner (eds.), Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ [Carlisle and Grand Rapids, 1994], pp. 384–396).
It is not only Jesus who uses such ideas. Paul’s understanding of the church as a community of both Jews and Gentiles is based on his reading of the OT teaching on land. He too draws on the inheritance theme, in Colossians 1:13–14, in explaining the nature of salvation in Christ, as does Peter in 1 Peter 1:3–5.
The inheritance in Christ is no doubt different from the land received and lost by Israel, but it is greater, not less, than that land.
J. G. Millar, “Land,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, electronic ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 623,627.
The theology of land, then, provides a basis for the NT doctrine of adoption; It was as God’s sons that the people of Israel received their inheritance. The link is most explicit in Romans 8:14–25, which also links the theology of the land with the theology of creation. Both the creation mandate to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28), and the theology of the land in the OT find their ultimate fulfillment in the new creation brought together under Christ.
This is an important point. The flow of redemptive history as traced through the biblical covenants reaches its telos in Christ.
What our Lord has inaugurated does not go back to the types and patterns of old; it transforms and fulfills them.
This is especially crucial to note in regard to the land. When it comes to the future, dispensational theology, at least on the land issue, tends to go backward in redemptive history instead of forward. But as Robertson states well, in the new creation
“The old covenant’s promise of land finds its new covenant realization.”
Rather, the entire New Testament announces that in Jesus, the last Adam and true Israel, our inheritance is nothing less than the new creation, which has already arrived in the dawning of the new covenant in individual Christians (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:8–10) and in the church (Eph. 2:11–21) and will yet be consummated when Christ returns and ushers in the new creation in its fullness (Rev.21: 21–22).
This makes perfect sense if we place the entire land discussion in the flow of redemptive history as viewed through the biblical covenants. Christ, who is Lord over the whole world, inherits as a result of his work the entire world.
“He is the Messiah of Israel, but his rule also extends far beyond the borders of the original promised land (e.g., Phil. 2:10; cf. 1 Cor. 3:22–23; Eph. 1:10).”
The gulf of sin separates creation from redemption. The relationship also exhibits harmony. Redemption is not against creation. It is against sin. Furthermore, there is progress and advancement. Creation was “very good.” Redemption is superior to very good.
The restoration achieved in redemption is not retrogressive. It doesn’t take man back to pre-fall Eden. It produces something better than Eden. God restores sinless hearts, but not pre-fall innocence. The end result of redemption is greater than original creation minus sin. In sum, the relation between creation and redemption displays harmony and improvement. (Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, Second Edition. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 677,836,837.)
William Farel: “We are restored to a state more noble than what was ever before the sin of Adam in Paradise; not that which is terrestrial, but celestial; not to a life corporeal, corruptible, and that can be lost, but spiritual, without corruption, and which can never be lost.” In Dennison Jr., ed., Reformed Confessions, 1:57.(Curt Daniel, The History and Theology of Calvinism (Darlington, Co Durham: EP Books, 2019), 263–268.)
It was God’s plan for extending his redemptive designs to all believers, from all nations. In extending his grace to Abraham, God was establishing the beginnings of the church, the community of grace.
Beyond the benefits of grace accorded to individuals such as Abraham, David, the prophets, and later the apostles by virtue of their call, loomed the potential of their contributions to the fulfillment of the covenant of God on behalf of the community of those who share the faith of Abraham, the church.
In the gracious dealings of God with Israel, with its patriarchs and its leaders, God was laying the basis for his outreach of grace to the church universal. God’s gracious interventions in the old covenant were intended to manifest the ultimacy of the church in his redemptive purposes. In the exercise of their ministries, the prophets of the old covenant knew that they were serving not themselves but the church (1 Pt 1:10–12). (Gilbert Bilezikian, “Grace,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 899.)
Covenant theology saw redemptive history in terms of one overarching covenant of grace—with the various biblical covenants as administrations of the one covenant,The church “replaces” Old Testament Israel, inheriting her promises of land and rest from enemies as the spiritual blessings of peace, forgiveness of sins, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and eternity in heaven.
(Russell D. Moore, “Personal and Cosmic Eschatology,” in A Theology for the Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2014),689)
The Bible, by contrast, is a unity because it is the record of a progressive revelation of the will of God for humankind’s salvation. The Bible is, in short, a “gospel” in the fullest sense of the word.
A precursor to Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith occurs in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector (Luke 18:9–14). The Pharisee boasted of his own righteousness, (Lk.10:29,16:15) sought by punctilious observance of the law (Luke 18:11–12). All his religious endeavors, however, failed to make him acceptable to God Isaiah 65:5 KJV. The tax-collector, in striking contrast, acknowledged his inability to make himself right with God with the honest plea, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).
The aorist verb hilaskomai (“be merciful”) suggests that the idea of propitiation lies in the background of justification. Jesus concluded the story by saying, “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified [dedikaiōmenos] before God” (Luke 18:14).
The perfect passive participle of dikaioō is an intensive perfect, indicating the existing state of being declared in the right. The tax-collector pled no works of his own but cried out to Jesus for salvation. By virtue of his honest and humble trust, God forgave the man’s sins and set him in a right relationship with himself. Bruce A. Demarest, The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation, Foundations of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1997), 366.
Faith brings nothing of our own to God, but receives what God spontaneously offers us. Hence it is that faith, however imperfect, nevertheless possesses a perfect righteousness, because it has respect to nothing but the gratuitous goodness of God. John Calvin
Elliot Ritzema, 300 Quotations for Preachers from the Reformation, Pastorum Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2013).
For Paul the gospel is absolutely central because it is the power that reveals the righteousness of God. It is the manifestation of the exalted Christ on earth (Käsemann, Romans, 289).
For Paul it was a fact of the utmost significance that this unconditional covenant was ratified centuries before the Mosaic covenant at Sinai (see Gal. 3:15–18). The principle of salvation by grace (implicit in the promise to Abraham) preceded, and was never superseded by, the covenant of law.
The principle of sovereign grace is never denied, God must fulfil His covenant undertakings; it is men individually who may cut themselves off from the covenant blessings. What God has required in all ages, so that His saving purpose may be fulfilled in men, has already been stated in our chapter (Gen.15:6). Genesis 15:1ff has the gospel in a nutshell. Robert P. Gordon, “Preaching from the Patriarchs: Background to the Exposition of Genesis 15,” Themelios 1, no. 1 (1975): 23.
Paul argues that the period “under a pedagogue” came to an end with the “revelation” of “the [promised] faith” in the coming of Jesus as “the offspring” of Abraham (Gal.3:23–25), who brought “a new creation” into being (Gal.6:15). With the arrival of “the offspring” of Abraham, the blessing was given to those who “believed” (Gal.3:6–14): that is, they were liberated from “the present evil age” (Gal.1:4), and they were given the Spirit to guide their lives (Gal.3:2, 3, 5, 14; 4:6, 29; 5:16–18, 22–23, 25; 6:1, 8). David J. Lull, “‘The Law Was Our Pedagogue’: A Study in Galatians 3:19–25,” Journal of Biblical Literature 105 (1986): 482.
The law, for Lutheranism, can never become the ultimate norm for Christian living but instead must always lead to Christ, who alone is righteous.
Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2017), 385.
“The righteousness of God is manifested apart from law.” This distinguishes the righteousness of God from the righteousness of the law; for the righteousness of faith comes from grace apart from law. The phrase “apart from law” cannot mean anything else but that Christian righteousness exists apart from the works of the law, in the sense that works of law are utterly useless and ineffective for obtaining it, as he says immediately below:
“We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law” [Rom. 3:28], and as he has said above: “No human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law” [Rom. 3:20]. Martin Luther, Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. William R. Russell and Timothy F. Lull, Third Edition. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 151.
The character of Isaac as ‘the son of promise’ (Rom.9:8; Gal.4:22ff) and the election of Jacob (Rom. 9:13) are a part of the same general theme: faith versus works, promise versus law.
E. Earle Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003), 119.
In insisting that Genesis is a book of promise rather than law, Paul cannot appeal to any neutral criteria that might vindicate his own interpretation of the divine-human relationship as rendered in scripture, over against the alternative ones.
It is simply that, for Paul but not for the other interpreters, God in Christ has acted definitively and decisively for the world’s salvation—a divine act that seems to him to correspond closely to the unconditional promise, which, according to Genesis, preceded the law given at Mount Sinai. If and only if this claim is true, Abraham must ‘give glory to God’, and cannot retain any ‘grounds for boasting’ before God (cf. Rom. 4:2, 20).
When Paul reads of Abraham’s supreme act of faithfulness, he is less inclined than other readers of Genesis to celebrate this act or to ascribe to Abraham grounds for boasting before God (cf. Rom. 4:2). For Paul, scripture is not a collection of inspiring tales about heroes and heroines of obedience and piety. He does not approach his readers with the proposal, ‘Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations’ (Sir. 44:1).
Scripture consists simply of ‘the words of God’ (Rom. 3:2 NIV. cf. Dt. 4:8; Ps. 147:19; Ac. 7:38). So concerned is Paul to praise only the work of God, announced in promise and gospel and realized in the raising of Jesus, that even Abraham at Mount Moriah is seen not as a heroic or tragic figure in his own right, but as an image of the God who is who he is supremely and definitively in the death of Jesus.
Who was it who ‘did not spare his own son’? In truth, it was not Abraham but God. And God did not give up his own son as just one of a number of more or less striking divine actions, but in such a way as himself to be identified by this action. God is ‘the one who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all’ (Rom. 8:32): the agent is identified by the action and cannot be identified apart from it.
In Romans 8:32, the roles of Abraham and Isaac are taken by God and Jesus. This may be compared with the martyrological rendering of the Genesis story in 4 Maccabees, where the Abraham role is taken by the mother of the martyrs (4 Macc.14:20; 15:26–8), the Isaac role by her sons (4 Macc.9:21–2; 13:12; 16:20).
That the passage from James is responsive to Paul is persistently denied by many commentators (e.g. L. T. Johnson, The Letter of James (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 249; P. Davids, The Epistle of James: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982), 130–2). Yet it is hard to read James 2:24 as anything other than an attempt to refute the Pauline thesis of righteousness by faith, as summarized in Romans 3:28.
To claim that ‘the writer is on Paul’s side in this verse’, and that followers of James here seek ‘to rehabilitate the authentic notes of Pauline sola gratia sola fide’ (R. P. Martin, James (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1988), 96) is to allow an a priori conception of canonical unity to override exegetical integrity.
It should also be noted that the question, ‘Was not Abraham our father justified by works …?’ (Jas. 2:21) recalls Romans 4:1–2, where the question is raised whether ‘Abraham our forefather’ was ‘justified by works’; the phrase ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη is common to both passages. In both cases, Abraham’s potentially justifying ‘works’ are his acts of obedience and faithfulness: the claim that ‘neither the works which James cites nor the justification which results are related to Paul’ (Davids, James, 127) cannot be substantiated.
Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, Second Edition., The Cornerstones Series (London; New York; New Delhi; Sydney; Oxford: Bloomsbury T&T Clark: An Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2016).215–216
The “Scripture” would not be “fulfilled,” as James says it was, but contradicted by any interpretation which makes man’s works justify him before God: for that Scripture makes no mention of works at all, but says that Abraham’s belief was counted to him for righteousness. Gen.15:6 (Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 489.)
The Judaistic dependence on works was objectionable not merely because it rested on a great untruth, but even more because it subverted the normal relation between God and man. It meant something quite different from the mere general principle that good moral conduct is rewarded and evil conduct punished, and consequently the desire for reward and the fear of punishment are allowed to enter as motives in shaping conduct.
In reality it amounted to this:
that the Judaistic spirit made itself the end and God the means, gave to itself the glory and to God the part of subserving the interests of this human glory by His moral government;
that it led the creature to regard itself as the active and God as the merely passive factor in the determination of eternal destiny; perhaps also that it conceived of God as by nature bound to reward man.
It is this profoundly sinful specifically Jewish καυχᾶσθαι-glorying, against which the religious spirit of Paul rises in protest, and which makes him so uncompromising in his repudiation of the legal system. Inspired by such motives, it becomes to him the absolute antithesis to the very idea of religion.
Wishing to contrast the Gospel of grace with this specific embodiment of the forensic principle, he is willing to stake the entire comparison on the one point, Which of the two schemes offers a more effectual safeguard against the cultivation of such detestable pride.
“Where then is the glorying? It is excluded. By what manner of law? Of works? Nay: but by a law of faith. We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law” (Rom. 3:27, 28).
With this in mind he reasons that Abraham cannot have had to glory toward God, not merely because the Scripture bears witness to the contrary, but also because it would have made God the debtor of a boastful man.
Similarly in Rom. 10:3 it is the inveterate Jewish pride which will not subject itself to the divine grace, because the latter collides with the love of self, to which Paul ascribes the historic failure of Judaism to attain the true ideal of righteousness.
In view of all this it would not be wrong to say, that the cause of the irreligiousness of the system of legalism was, in Paul’s view, precisely the same as the cause of its impracticableness, viz., the σάρξ-flesh.
Paul had yet to learn that the entire spirit in which he strove to fulfill the law, both inwardly and outwardly, the fundamental motive which inspired his pursuit of righteousness, were radically wrong,
because issuing from the flesh, the sinful determination of human nature which makes self instead of God supreme.
There is no evidence that Paul made this discovery before the grace of God supernaturally illumined him at his conversion.
On the contrary, he himself declares that he had to die unto the law before he could begin to live unto God,
Geerhardus Vos, The Collected Articles of Geerhardus Vos (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2013).
Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29 NLT) but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her. Lk. 10:42
Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ Mt 9:13
For I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Hos. 6:6 NKJV
Religion has ever tended to wither away into Judaism, into Rabbinism, into scholasticism, into ecclesiasticism, into Romanism, into sectarianism, into dead schemes of dogmatic belief, into dead routines of elaborate ceremonial, into dead exclusiveness of party narrowness, into dead theories of scriptural inspiration, into dead formulae of Church parties, into the dead performance of dead works, or the dead assent to dead phrases.
Now it was just this fatal tendency of human supineness against which Paul had to contend. Judaic Christians—apparently one man in particular—had come from Jerusalem to his fickle and ignorant Galatians with the hard, ready-made Biblical dogma
“Unless ye be circumcised, and keep the whole law, ye cannot be saved.”
They wanted to substitute external badges for inward faith; legal bondage for Christian freedom; observance of practices for holiness of heart. They were striving to put the new, rich, fermenting wine of Christianity into their old and bursting wine-skins of Levitism. In their hands, Christianity would have decayed into exclusiveness, self-congratulation, contempt of others, insistence upon the outward, indifference to the essential—a Christianity of the outward platter, a Christianity of the whitened grave.
The Gospel did not mean that the Gentiles were to be converted into Jews. The essence of the Gospel, the liberty which Christ had given, the redemption for which He had died was at stake. The fate of the battle—of the battle of spirituality against historic tradition—hung apparently upon his single arm. He alone was the Apostle of the Gentiles.
To him alone had it been granted to see the full bearings of this question. A new faith must not be choked at its birth by the past prejudices of its nominal adherents. The hour had come when concession was no longer possible. It was necessary to prove once and for ever the falsity of the position that a man could not become a perfect Christian without becoming a partial Jew. (F. W. Farrar, The Messages of the Books: Being Discourses and Notes on the Books of the New Testament (London: Macmillan and Co., 1884), 255–256.)
Since for Jews he was the classic example of faith, frequently discussed in the language of Gen 15:6, the contacts are not surprising. James’s understanding of Abraham and Gen 15:6 is fully in line with Jewish tradition,(1 Maccabees 2:52;4 Maccabees 16:20ff.) while Paul’s is innovatory.(change something established by introducing new methods, ideas, creative)
He must have been well aware that the dominant reading of Gen 15:6 was as a reference to Abraham’s faithfulness, as in 1 Macc. 2:52—“Was not Abraham found faithful when tested, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness?” And in Jas 2:21–24, similarly, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” is regarded as fulfilled in Abraham’s faithfulness in offering his son Isaac on the altar. That individuals were “reckoned righteous” by virtue of their acts of devotion to God was the normal understanding of the phrase It was precisely against this reading of Gen 15:6 that Paul had to argue in Rom. 4:1ff.
James D. G. Dunn, “What’s Right about the Old Perspective on Paul,” in Studies in the Pauline Epistles: Essays in Honor of Douglas J. Moo, ed. Matthew S. Harmon and Jay E. Smith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 221–222.
While Paul shared a great deal with the Jewish community in which he was raised, and especially with the Pharisees, whose methods of interpretation he clearly knew and often employed, and while he shared a great deal with other Christian interpreters who understood the Old Testament in light of their belief that Jesus is the Christ, he nevertheless put his own unique stamp on his understanding of the “Scripture” of his day, and in the process dramatically influenced the subsequent history of Christian biblical interpretation. For example, his new understanding of the role and significance of the law in the history of God’s people was especially powerful and strongly challenged his Jewish-Christian contemporaries.
Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson, “Introduction Andn Overview,” in A History of Biblical Interpretation: The Ancient Period, ed. Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 7–8.
Paul himself had not emphasized any consensus with other apostles: agreement with the Jerusalem pillar apostles, James, Peter, and John, was for him a recognition of his own mission (Galatians 2:6ff.). It is precisely these three apostles who dominate the collection of catholic letters, with the addition of Jude, the brother of the Lord. He is introduced in Jude 1 as the brother of James, and thus subordinated to him.
The augmentation of the collection of Pauline letters by the catholic letters was intended to represent the consensus of the apostles and counter the preponderance of the Pauline letters. Gal. 2:6,11–13 (Gerd Theissen, The New Testament: A Literary History, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 127.)
Oddly, Paul seems to have regarded James as an apostle but not one of the Twelve: “But I did not see any of the apostles, except James, the Lord’s brother."(Gal.1:19) It is also possible that Paul does not accord to him the status of an apostle at all, but simply states that he did not see the Twelve. The only person he saw was James, thus excluding him from apostles (Howard, “Was James an Apostle?” 63–64). Walter Schmithals argues that Paul is being intentionally ambiguous stating something like,
“I saw none of the apostles—unless you count James as an apostle” (Schmithals, The Office of an Apostle, 65).
Viktor Roudkovski, “James, Brother of Jesus,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
In light of this, it seems that 2 Peter is addressed to a congregation or congregations in the region where Paul established churches. This was an area originally evangelized by Paul, and he wrote three letters that are addressed to the churches in that region: Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians. (Ruth Anne Reese, 2 Peter and Jude, The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 122–123. )
There is clearly evidence that the author of 2 Peter expects his readers to be aware of some epistles that Paul wrote to them (2 Pet.3:15), and he urges them to pay attention to these letters since they provide similar exhortations as the epistle of 2 Peter.
So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. (2 Peter 3:15–16) Peter probably is alluding to Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith
Paul himself frequently refers to the “grace (χάρις) given to” him (Rom. 12:3; 15:15; Gal. 2:9; 1 Cor. 3:10; Eph. 3:2, 7; cf. Col. 1:25), i.e. his apostolic commission, the divine enabling by which he receives and understands the revelation of God’s purpose in the gospel (Eph. 3:2–10), and by which he speaks and writes with the authority of one who conveys God’s message (Rom. 12:3; 15:15–16).
Second Peter’s reference to his charismatic wisdom implies no more and no less than this. The choice of the word σοφία (“wisdom”), rather than the general term χάρις (“grace”), is appropriate in a reference to Paul’s teaching in his letters (cf. 1 Cor. 2:6–13).
It was with God-given insight into the truth of the gospel, the charisma of wisdom, that Paul wrote his letters.
Conti rightly points out the parallel between this description of Paul’s inspiration and the account of the inspiration of the OT prophets (2 Pet. 1:20-21). Like them, Paul did not speak out of his own wisdom, but in accordance with the wisdom given him by God.
It is this that accounts for the treatment of Paul’s letters, alongside the OT writings, as “scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:16). Their inspiration gives them normative authority, though not yet canonical status (Richard J. Bauckham, 2 Peter, Jude, vol. 50, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1983), 329.)
Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power. Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, Eph. 3:7–9 cf.. Acts 11:17, Acts 11:19
Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:1. The basic picture of God’s assembled people in the OT is that of Sinai—they assemble around his word. Paul seems to see his letters functioning in the same way, as the Christians assemble (or are ‘in church’) to hear them read.(R. C. Lucas and Christopher Green, The Message of 2 Peter & Jude: The Promise of His Coming, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995).
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!
Am I now seeking human approval or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ. Gal. 1:6–10
It may, however, be asked, Whence is this obscurity, for the Scripture shines to us like a lamp, and guides our steps? To this I reply, that it is nothing to be wondered at, if Peter ascribed obscurity to the mysteries of Christ’s kingdom, and especially if we consider how hidden they are to the perception of the flesh.
However, the mode of teaching which God has adopted, has been so regulated, that all who refuse not to follow the Holy Spirit as their guide, find in the Scripture a clear light. At the same time, many are blind who stumble at mid-day; others are proud, who, wandering through devious paths, and flying over the roughest places, rush headlong into ruin. (John Calvin and John Owen, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 425.)
“Many have endeavored and labored to reconcile the Epistle of James with Paul. Philip Melancthon refers to it in his ‘Apology,’ but not with earnestness; for ‘faith justifies’ and ‘faith does not justify’ are plain contradictions. Whoever can reconcile them, on him I will put my cap, and allow him to call me a fool.” (H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., James, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), xiv.)
Luther summarizes the objection like this: James “calls the law a ‘law of liberty’ though Paul calls it a law of slavery, of wrath, of death, and of sin.”
Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2000), 32.
The reformers took an interest in canonical issues, especially as they concerned the books that had been disputed in the ancient church. Like Luther, however, they emphasized that the authority of Scripture rests not on the church’s authority but on the self-evident, internal witness of the Holy Spirit.
Harry Gamble, “The Formation of the New Testament Canon and Its Significance for the History of Biblical Interpretation,” in A History of Biblical Interpretation: The Ancient Period, ed. Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 422.
Luther’s low estimation of the Epistle of James (‘I refuse him a place among the writers of the true canon of my Bible’ (Dillenberger 1969: 36; Luther 1974: 2455)), whether justified or not, is an example of using scripture against scripture: i.e. of judging a biblical book against a principle taken from the Bible which is regarded as having paramount authority (in Luther’s case, whether the prominence of Christ is emphasized or not).
John William Rogerson, “Historical Criticism and the Authority of the Bible,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies, ed. J. W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu, Oxford Handbooks (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 855.
One attempt to resolve this apparent contradiction is the explanation: we are justified by faith before God; but before men we are justified by works.
But this explanation contradicts the narrative of Genesis 22:1ff. When Abraham climbed Mount Moriah, there were no men there, except himself and Isaac; and Isaac did not know he was going to be sacrificed until he was actually laid on the altar (Gen 22:7–8).
Even Abraham’s servants were told to stay at the foot of the mountain; and further that Abraham and Isaac were going to the top of the mountain to worship, and both would return (Gen.22:5). It is doubtful whether even Sarah knew of the intended sacrifice of her son; and there is no record that the local Philistines were aware of it.
There were, therefore, no men there before whom Abraham could be justified by his works in offering up Isaac.
The work, then, by which Abraham was justified, was a work which demonstrated that his faith was in God alone. God had originally made the promises, and those promises, on God’s own insistence, were vested in Isaac, not in Ishmael. If God was now demanding that he sacrifice Isaac, Abraham would sacrifice him. But God couldn’t lie or break his promises. God would have to, and God would, raise Isaac from the dead, that’s all. Hebrews 11:17–19, Rom.4:21
(He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.-(I.e., of resurrection, figuratively, pointing to the future) New American Standard Bible (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 2020), Heb. 11:19.
In a figure: Though Abraham was stopped before the actual slaying of his son, Isaac was as good as dead in Abraham’s mind (cf. Gen. 22:10–12). Thus, Isaac serves as a type (Gr. parabolē) of a literal resurrection. This incident prefigured the resurrection of Abraham’s ultimate Seed, Jesus Christ. King James Version Study Bible)
Now Abraham was a wealthy nomad, a sheikh. If God had asked him to give away his herds to the poor, and Abraham had done so, that would certainly have been a good work. It would also have satisfied James’ demand that faith must not content itself with mere words but show its reality by works (Jas 2:14–17).
Nonetheless, it would not have demonstrated that his faith was in God alone, in quite the same way, and to the same extent, as his offering up of Isaac did.
By God’s own leading he stood, an old man on the top of a mountain, with his son in whom all the promises and all his hopes had been vested, now bound on the altar, and with the knife raised in his own hand about—at God’s own demand—to slay his son, and be left, as far as he knew, with nothing, with no hope for the future, nothing but God and his promises and his faith in those promises. Romans 4:18–25
But, in this changing world there is no greater security to be found than, bereft of all hope in all else, to be left with nothing but God and faith in him and his promises. That is eternal security.
And it dawned on Abraham that this substitute for Isaac was God’s provision, the provision in fact of the very God who had set him the test in the first place (Gen.22:1). And it was this that he called attention to when he named the place so that future generations might know the significance of what happened there. For he did not call it ‘the place of my triumphant faith’, or any such thing that would commemorate his spiritual attainment.
He called it ‘Jehovah Jireh’, ‘the LORD will provide’(Gen. 22:14, Hebrew “will see for himself.” The construction means “to look out for; to see to it; to provide.” God will provide is the central theme of the passage and the turning point in the story.
Note Paul’s allusion to the story in Rom 8:32 (“how shall he not freely give us all things?”) The NET Bible, Second Edition. (Denmark: Thomas Nelson, 2019).),
a promise based on his experience of God’s provision of a substitute for his son, Isaac. Let all who are subsequently tested by God lay hold of this promise (cf. 1 Cor 10:13,1 Cor. 1:9. Dt. 7:9. Psa.36:5. 89:33. Isa. 11:5. 25:1. 49:7. Jer.29:11. Lam.3:23. Hos.2:20. 1 Th. 5:24. 2 Th. 3:3. 2 Tim. 2:11-13. Heb. 6:18. 10:23. 11:11. 1 Pet. 4:19. 1 Joh.1:9. Re 19:11). (Jerome H. Smith, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:(Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson, 1992), 1336.)
David Gooding, The Riches of Divine Wisdom: The New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament, Myrtlefield Expositions (Coleraine, Northern Ireland: Myrtlefield House, 2013), 330–340.
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.
But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice Phil. 1:15–18
In Ac. 21:24 James says that if Paul performs the vow everyone will know that the accusations against him (that he teaches Jews to abandon Moses, etc., as in Ac. 21:21) are false, and ‘that you too are behaving as a law-observant Jew should’. What should have been the response from one who believed that the gospel was ‘for the Jew first’? ‘Do this and we will know you are loyal to Torah; don’t do it and everyone will believe you have torn up the scriptures!’
Faced with that loaded and dangerous alternative, Paul would unhesitatingly choose the former, since everything he believed was predicated on the assumption that the law and the prophets were fulfilled in the Messiah. Let those who have never faced tricky and potentially life-threatening political/religious situations, abounding in distorted questions and false alternatives, refrain from casting the first stone.
N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, vol. 4, Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013).
Sadly, in the end the strategy fails, for in the events that follow, nothing indicates that Paul’s Jerusalem relief fund was accepted, and no one in the Jerusalem Christian community comes to his rescue in the confrontation that continues to unfold. The Jerusalem church, so robustly present in the early chapters of Acts and now grown to “many thousands,” disappears from view during the final seven chapters.
Dennis Hamm, “The Acts of the Apostles,” in New Testament, ed. Daniel Durken, The New Collegeville Bible Commentary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009), 422.
Besides, God had not yet fully shown that the law was abolished, as has already been remarked: he tolerated it till the time that the iniquity of the Jews was filled up; and then, by the destruction of Jerusalem, he swept every rite and ceremony of the Jewish law away, with the besom (broom) of destruction.(Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible with a Commentary and Critical Notes, New Edition., vol. 5 (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife Corporation, 2014), 860.)
No wonder then that in AD 64 (earlier according to some) God had the Epistle to the Hebrews written and put into circulation, calling on Christian Jews everywhere to abandon the temple system of worship, which had now become the center and expression of impenitent determined rejection of the Lord Jesus. Six years later the temple was destroyed, and the Sadducean priestly class faded away; but not before their guilt had been established beyond excuse. (Heb. 8:13, 10:36–39)
David Gooding, True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and Defending the Gospel, Myrtlefield Expositions (Coleraine, Northern Ireland: Myrtlefield House, 2013), 443.
To understand Paul’s view of freedom, we must recognize that he was so free that, unless a theological issue was at stake, he could willingly surrender his freedom in order to facilitate the spread of the gospel. This is seen most clearly in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23.
Although free, Paul voluntarily became a slave to the weaknesses of others … [He] would have no problem urging Gentile believers that they should keep the decree when they were in the presence of Jews, for truly free persons are only free when they can surrender their freedom out of love for the weak. For Paul this could even involve taking a Jewish vow, if it helped in his ministry among the Jews (Acts 18:18; 21:26).
The men of the church learned [thereby] not to use their freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love to “be servants of one another” (Gal. 5:13). Thus Christianity was safeguarded against a reimposition of the Law; the very real danger that Christianity might degenerate into a Judaic sect (and so perish with Judaism) was averted.
Robert L. Reymond, Paul, Missionary Theologian (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2000), 150,151.
For the present question is not, whether believers ought to keep the law as far as they can, (which is beyond all doubt,) but whether they can obtain righteousness by works, which is impossible. But since God promises life to the doers of the law, why does Paul affirm that they are not righteous?
The reply to this objection is easy. There are none righteous by the works of the law, because there are none who do those works. We admit that the doers of the law, if there were any such, are righteous; but since that is a conditional agreement, all are excluded from life, because no man performs that righteousness which he ought. Gal.3:10
We must bear in memory what I have already stated, that to do the law is not to obey it in part, but to fulfil everything which belongs to righteousness; James 2:10 and all are at the greatest distance from such perfection. Romans 3:10
John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 91.
Considered as fruits of our sanctification, and as evidences of our ‘qualified you for a share of the inheritance of the saints in light, (Col.1:12)’ they cannot be too highly commended; but considered as the ground of our Justification, or as forming any part of our TITLE to that inheritance (Acts 20:32; Eph.1:13–14), they are to be utterly rejected, and treated as ‘dung Phil.3:4–9’ and ‘filthy rags Isaiah 64:6' with reference to that end; for they cannot be regarded as such, without dishonour to the redeeming work of Christ.
James Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification: An Outline of Its History in the Church and of Its Exposition from Scripture. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1867), 361-364
Sanctification, because of its partial and progressive nature, can never serve as the ground for the believer’s certainty before the divine judgment. Justification alone is sufficient for this task because it alone is founded in the purity of Christ himself.
R. Lucas Stamps, “Faith Works: Properly Understanding the Relationship between Justification and Sanctification,” in The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. Matthew Barrett (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 523.
Since justification is a forensic and judicial declaration, it is not a process but “an instantaneous legal act of God. Grudem, Systematic Theology
no person can gain a standing with God through works because no one is able to perform works to the degree needed to secure such a standing. This human inability to meet the demands of God is what lies at the heart of Rom.3:1ff: On this point, at least, the Reformers understood Paul correctly
Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 217.
The condition of justification is faith, Ro 3:22; 4:11, 13; 9:30; Gal 2:16; 3:8, 24. Faith is the condition of justification, not because it is a merit or a satisfaction rendered to God by a sinner, but because it apprehends the merits of Christ’s atonement. Andrew George Voigt, Biblical Dogmatics (Columbia, SC: Lutheran Board of Publication, 1917), 167–168.
he alone is truly a believer who, convinced by a firm conviction that God is a kindly and well-disposed Father toward him, promises himself all things on the basis of his generosity; who, relying upon the promises of divine benevolence toward him, lays hold on an undoubted expectation of salvation.
You believe,” he says, “that there is a God.” [James 2:19. cp. Lk. 8:12] Obviously, if this faith contains nothing but a belief that there is a God, it is not strange if it does not justify! And when this is taken away from it, let us not think that anything is removed from Christian faith, whose nature is far otherwise. For in what way does true faith justify save when it binds us to Christ so that, made one with him, we may enjoy participation in his righteousness? It therefore justifies not because it grasps a knowledge of God’s essence but because it rests upon the assurance of his mercy.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 562,815
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight but the doers of the law who will be justified. Ro 2:13 (John 8:47, 9:25–28; Gal.4:21)
But whoever would derive life from the law, must do that which belongs to the law, not this or that commandment out of the law, but the whole law, and that, moreover, in the spirit and in the power of that love, which the law requires indeed, but does not give (Romans 8:2–3, 3:20: Acts 13:39, Gal.3:21, Heb.7:19).
He who is not aware, in reference to the law of God, that by his obedience he does not fulfil that law, that man, with all this pretended keeping of the commandments, has not as yet in true obedience executed on himself the sentence of the law
G. Chr. Adolph von Harless, System of Christian Ethics, ed. William Findlay, trans. A. M. Morrison, vol. XIX, Clark’s Foreign Theological Library, Fourth Series (Edinburgh, IN; London; Dublin, CA: T. and T. Clark; Hamilton and Co.; John Robertson and Co., 1868), 117.
For this reason he says, in chapter Rom.7:14, “The law is spiritual.” What does that mean? If the law were for the body, it could be satisfied with works. Because it is spiritual, however, no one can satisfy it—unless all that you do is done from the bottom of your heart (Ps.51:6;10). But such a heart is given only by God’s Spirit, who fashions a person after the law so that such a one acquires a heartfelt desire for the law (doing nothing henceforth out of fear and compulsion but out of a willing heart).
But the Holy Spirit is not given except in, with, and by faith in Jesus Christ, as St. Paul says in the introduction. Faith, moreover, comes only through God’s Word or gospel, which preaches Christ, saying that he is God’s Son and a man, and has died and risen again for our sakes, as he says in chapters (Rom.3:25, 4:25, and 10:9).
Although the works of a person always seem attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be mortal sins. Human works appear attractive outwardly, but within they are filthy, as Christ says concerning the Pharisees in Matthew 23:27. They appear to the doer and others good and beautiful, yet God does not judge according to appearances but searches “the minds and hearts” Ps. 7:9. For without grace and faith it is impossible to have a pure heart. Acts 15:9: “He cleansed their hearts by faith.”
Martin Luther, Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. William R. Russell and Timothy F. Lull, Third Edition. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 77-78,151.
I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness and shall not return, that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear [allegiance]. [Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:10, 11; Heb. 6:13.] Only in the Lord shall one say, I have righteousness (salvation and victory) and strength [to achieve]. To Him shall all come who were incensed against Him, and they shall be ashamed. [I Cor. 1:30, 31.] Is 45:23–24 The Amplified Bible.
The reason is that the wrath of God has been revealed, the end of self-justification and the law has come in the cross of Christ; Christ’s forgiveness alone, not the law, makes someone righteous—Jew or Gentile. No heart, no inner Jew or Gentile, was, is, or shall be found righteous—otherwise Christ died to no purpose.(Galatians 2:21)
God was found outside the law in the cross, making sinners righteous who have faith in Christ (Romans 3:26). Faith, not love, makes a person’s heart good. The law has no role to play in making anyone good because it cannot make faith and faith is everything when it comes to the heart. cf. Luke 8:15; Rom.10:5–11
The law is there so that what it demands cannot be done... This stands in direct opposition to reason that lives by a mere inference (without a shred of evidence): if there is an “ought” there must be a “can.” If God bothers to give a law, it must imply that I have the potential to fulfill it. Instead, Paul reveals that the presence of law does not imply can: ought reveals cannot.
What an offense! God tells you what to do, and gives the law so that you cannot do it. Just because you have the sense of “ought” in life does not imply any factual ability to do it. In fact law never implies anything—it confronts.
Law reveals that you do not, you will not, and you cannot. On the day when God judges, it is not potential that is judged; it is actual works. Now works do not make anyone good, but a good person does good works, thus what is judged is the person—specifically the heart—not works of law. Romans 7:15–21
Steven D. Paulson, Lutheran Theology, Doing Theology (London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2011), 80-84
Paul does not teach justification by faith in a vacuum. Faith does make one righteous both forensically and, increasingly, in actuality, because faith issues in the ἐν Χριστῷ relationship. For in Christ the law stands fulfilled; its goal (τέλος) is attained; and for all who have passed from ἐν Ἀδὰμ-in Adam to ἐν Χριστῷ-in Christ, Christ Himself is their ‘righteousness, and sanctification and redemption’ (1 Cor. 1:30).
E. Earle Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003), 119.
so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Ro 8:4 Legacy Standard Bible
the ἵνα clause of Rom.8:4 Here means both ‘in order that’ and ‘so that’ provides the purpose for Christ’s work: the fulfillment of the righteous requirement of the law in believers. As argued previously in reference to Rom 6:4 and Rom. 7:4, the purpose behind God’s actions will be manifested in results.
Thus, if God through Christ has condemned sin in order to see the righteous requirement of the law fulfilled in believers, this will certainly take place. Jonathan R. Pratt, “The Relationship between Justification and Spiritual Fruit in Romans 5–8,” Themelios 34, no. 2 (2009): 170.
As for me, if I stumble, God’s loving-kindness forever shall save me. If through sin of the flesh I fall, my justification will be by the righteousness of God which endures for all time. 1QS Col. xi:12
Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 134.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. Jn. 15:14–16
The servant’s servitude is analogous to Israel’s servitude in Egypt (note that “servant” and “slave” are the same word in Hebrew; the word also is used generally for an employee). But if the servant considers himself better off under his master (because like the LORD he is good to him), he can remain a servant. The master remembers that it is by the LORD’s grace that he himself is not a slave in Egypt.
It is evident that servant is intended to be an encouraging term here by its connection with the vocabulary of election. Israel, like Abraham, Moses, and David, has been especially chosen to serve God. That chosen servanthood extends in a straight line back through their ancestors to Abraham himself, the prototype of election (see 1 Chr. 16:13 and Ps.105:6).
my friend (lit. “my lover” or “my beloved”) suggests that election is not an austere, judicial act but is rooted and grounded in love, both the love of God for the chosen and the love of the chosen for God. Thus, as those particularly chosen to serve God, offspring of his unique friend (2 Chr. 20:7; Jas. 2:23), they have nothing to fear (John 15:14–15).
John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 90.
In John 15:14, Jesus says, “you are my friends if you do what I command you.” God calls Abraham “my friend” in Isa 41:8. The Hebrew word translated “my friend” is the singular form of the word translated “those who love me” in the second commandment Exodus 20:6 (Strong’s Hebrew #157)
Jesus makes the same point in the upper room, speaking not as a prophet, but as the lawgiver: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Keener comments that “Biblically literate Jewish hearers would immediately think of the associations between obeying God’s commandments and loving God (Exod. 20:6; Deut. 5:10; 7:9; 10:12; 11:1, 13, 22; 19:9; 30:16; Neh. 1:5; Dan. 9:4 …).”
According to the Pal. Tgs. of the Pentateuch, Israel heard the voice of the Word from Mt. Sinai make this connection between loving him and keeping his commandments.
Later they heard this same connection made by Moses in Deuteronomy,(Deuteronomy 5:24–27) since they requested that they hear from a person, not directly from the Word. And now the Word who has become flesh, a man like Moses, makes the same connection between loving him and keeping his commandments in the upper room, the new Sinai.
God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. 1 Jn. 4:9–12
In John 13:34, however, “as I have loved you” refers to the fact that the eternal Son of God laid aside his privileges of deity and took upon himself the form of a servant. In the context of John 13:1ff, Jesus has just graphically illustrated this to the disciples by laying aside his garments and washing their feet. So this commandment is new in the sense that it requires Christ’s followers to imitate not the heavenly Master who freed his people from Egypt, but the heavenly Servant who laid down his life for them and for their salvation.
John Ronning, The Jewish Targums and John’s Logos Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 165,167.
Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one that you have had since the beginning. The old command is the message you heard. At the same time, the command I am writing is new—it is true in Jesus and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.1 Jn. 2:7–8. Evangelical Heritage Version
And this is his command: to believe (Jn.6:29) in the name ((Ps.33:21; Isa.50:10; Jn.1:12; 3:18; 1Jn. 5:13.)) of his Son, Jesus Christ (Lk.24:47; Jn.1:12; 3:18; 20:31; 1 Cor.6:11; 1 Jn.5:13.), and to love one another as he commanded us (Jn. 13:34). 1 Jn. 3:23 NIV.
God wants us to have faith in his Son Jesus Christ and to love each other. This is also what Jesus taught us to do. If we obey God’s commandments, we will stay one in our hearts with him, and he will stay one with us. The Spirit that he has given us is proof that we are one with him. 1 Jn. 3:23–24. The Contemporary English Version
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” Jn. 6:35–40
He will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life, Romans 2:6–7
patiently:ὑπομονή, ῆς, ἡ [ὑπομένω]—1. ‘capacity for resolute continuance in a course of action’, endurance, perseverance, steadfastness Lk. 8:15; 21:19; Rom. 2:7; 15:4; 2 Cor 1:6; 1 Thess. 1:3; 2 Thess. 3:5; Tit. 2:2; Heb. 10:36; Jas. 1:3ff.; 5:11; Rev. 3:10.
Frederick William Danker and Kathryn Krug, “Ὑπομονή,” The Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 366.
For the believer, hope comes from God (Ps. 62:5; Sir. 17:24), “the expectation of the pious will not be disappointed” (Sir. 16:13; Ps. 9:18). This is not what we today call theological hope, but a constancy in desire that overcomes the trial of waiting, a soul attitude that must struggle to persevere, a waiting that is determined and victorious because it trusts in God.
Ceslas Spicq and James D. Ernest, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 418.
Not only is this plainly told us in our text; but St. Paul elsewhere says expressly, “Be not weary in well-doing; for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not.” St. John also inculcates the same salutary lesson, as our Lord also does in the parable of the Sower (Luke 8:15), both, in effect, saying, look to yourselves, that ye “lose not those things which ye have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward.”
That we must live altogether by faith in the Son of God, is certain; for it is from his fulness alone that we can receive any spiritual blessing: but still we must exert ourselves as much, as if salvation were the fruit and recompense of our own efforts alone. This matter is put in a just light by St. Paul, when he says, “Let us cast away every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” Heb. 12:1–2 cp. Colossians 1:11–12
Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae: Romans, vol. 15 (London: Holdsworth and Ball, 1833), 41.
1 Thess. 1:3; 2 Thess. 1:4—“We are proud of your endurance and of your faith during all your persecutions and in the tribulations that you bear”; 1 Tim. 6:11—“As for you, man of God, … pursue righteousness, piety, faith, love, constancy.…”; Titus 2:2—“Let the old men be … wholesome in faith, love, and endurance”; 2 Tim. 3:10—“You have followed me in teaching, in conduct, in plans, in faith, in patience, love, and constancy”.
Rom 5:4—“endurance produces character, character produces hope”; Rom. 8:25—“we hope for what we do not see, we wait with constancy”; Rom.15:4—“so that by constancy and the comfort of the Scriptures we may possess hope”; Heb. 10:36, (hypomonē-endurance, perseverance, steadfastness) allows one to obtain what God has promised; Rev. 2:19—“I know your works and your love and your faith and your service and your endurance.”
Ceslas Spicq and James D. Ernest, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).
For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what was promised. For yet
in a very little while,
the one who is coming will come and will not delay,
but my righteous one will live by faith.
My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.
But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost but among those who have faith and so preserve our souls. Heb. 10:36–39
Comments
Post a Comment