The End of the Law

Jason C. Meyer

• Publisher: B&H Academic
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780805448429
• eBook ISBN: 9781433668609
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Commonly understood as the first theologian of the Christian faith, Paul set forth the categories by which we describe our relationship with Christ. Did he understand the new covenant Jesus announced at the Last Supper primarily as a replacement of the old Mosaic covenant God made with Israel, or as a renewal and completion of the old? Jason Meyer surveys the various differences that have been argued between the two covenants in The End of the Law, carefully and inductively perfoming a semantic, grammatical, and contextual analysis of all the Pauline texts dealing with covenant concepts.

Book seven of the New American Commentary Studies in Bible & Theology series, an extension of the long-respected New American Commentary.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Our understanding of how the old and new covenants relate largely determines our understanding of how the Old and New Testaments relate. I frame the issue this way to highlight the importance of the covenants. Our grasp of the character of the two covenants will have a wide-ranging impact on our grasp of the content of revelation given under those covenants.

All the attention that E. P. Sanders has generated concerning Paul and the law has not produced a corresponding interest in analyzing Paul's understanding of the Mosaic covenant. Pauline scholars continue to treat the Mosaic law in abstraction from its historical nexus in the Mosaic covenant.¹ Therefore, certain fundamental questions suffer from scholarly neglect. For example, what is "new" about the new covenant? Surprisingly few Pauline studies directly address this question although many vexing Pauline problems stem from a failure to answer it correctly. Even more Pauline scholars have ignored the related question, what is "old" about the old covenant? This study seeks to tackle this long-standing problem. Many legitimate questions will necessarily remain unanswered concerning this topic because of the immense scope of the covenant concept. The central question of this study concerns the character of the Mosaic covenant.²

What is the character of the Mosaic covenant in the theology of Paul? I will advance the following thesis: Paul conceives of the Mosaic (old) covenant as fundamentally non-eschatological in contrast to the eschatological nature of the new covenant. Paul declares that the Mosaic covenant is now old because it belongs to the old age, whereas the new covenant is new because it belongs to the new eschatological age. This distinction has determinative effects. The old age is transitory and impotent, and therefore the Mosaic covenant is both transitory and ineffectual. The new covenant is both eternal and effectual because it belongs to the new age and partakes of the power of the new age, the Holy Spirit.

Another way to state the difference is as follows. As the eschatological covenant, the new covenant consists of what one could call "eschatological intervention," while the old covenant does not. God intervenes through His Spirit in the new eschatological age in order to create what He calls for in the new covenant. The Mosaic covenant lacked this power to produce what it demanded. One could illustrate this point in the following poem:

To run and work the law commands,

Yet gives me neither feet nor hands;

But better news the gospel brings:

It bids me fly and gives me wings.³

Before examining the merits of this thesis, we should quickly review the history of research and the relevant discussions to date. Few scholars have directly addressed Paul's conception of the character of the Mosaic covenant. Therefore, the reader must begin with general trajectories of thought concerning continuity and discontinuity in Paul and then move to specific attempts to understand the Mosaic covenant in Paul.⁴

The Clash between Continuity and Discontinuity

James D. G. Dunn⁵ helpfully orients the reader to two dominant perspectives in Pauline scholarship concerning the newness of Paul's gospel: the "salvation history" (heilsgeschichtlich) and apocalyptic⁶ approaches. The first perspective states that Paul's gospel relates to the Old Testament as a renewed expression of God's Old Testament promises to Israel so that the new covenant fulfills the old covenant. The second perspective suggests that Paul advocated a clear and decisive break between the old and the new covenants so that the new covenant eschatologically "invades" the old one. Therefore, the first approach emphasizes continuity between Paul and the Old Testament, while the second focuses on discontinuity.

Dunn correctly identifies the reactionary nature of these two perspectives.⁷ The "New Perspective on Paul" and its emphasis on the continuity between Paul and his Jewish heritage arose as a reaction against the "Lutheran" antithesis between law and gospel, and its corresponding antithesis between Judaism and Christianity.⁸ The "apocalyptic" approach to Paul reacted against treatments that tended to downplay the eschatological nature of Paul's gospel.⁹

This book is not the place to examine each perspective in a comprehensive fashion. The main goal of this summary is to show that these opposing poles of thought in Pauline studies continue to clash as each perspective wins prominent proponents who forcefully advocate one approach over against the other.¹⁰

However, some scholars detect a false dichotomy in the way the debate has materialized: salvation history or apocalyptic. James D. G. Dunn¹¹ and D. A. Carson¹² both argue against an either-or approach. They advocate a balanced approach that integrates both salvation history and apocalyptic into the overall structure of Pauline thought.¹³ This study understands Paul along similar lines and attempts to build on this balanced approach.

The influential work of E. P. Sanders in particular has led to a more intense fixation on issues of continuity and discontinuity, and thus this brief history of interpretation must now move from general interpretive frameworks to a more specific focus on the "Sanders revolution" with respect to grace and works in Paul.

E. P. Sanders

The paradigm shifting work of E. P. Sanders¹⁴ has dominated the Pauline landscape not so much by securing a consensus, but by setting the agenda for subsequent Pauline studies, which many call "post-Sanders."¹⁵ Sanders argued that Second Temple Judaism was a religion of grace, not legalism. He coined the term covenantal nomism to express this "pattern of religion."¹⁶ One obeyed the law as a response to grace already given; one did not obey the law in order to enter the covenant (getting in), but as an obedient expression of covenantal life already begun (staying in). The Sinai covenant was gracious from beginning¹⁷ to end in this system of thought.¹⁸

Despite Sanders's widespread influence, this study will suggest that Sanders's "covenantal nomism" fails to explain fully the differences between the "old" and "new" covenants because of a faulty understanding of grace. Specifically, I agree that the structure of grace is the same, but I sharply disagree with Sanders over the nature of grace.¹⁹

The State of the Post-Sanders Discussion

Many of those who followed in Sanders's wake²⁰ adopted his understanding of Judaism, but not his view of Paul. In other words, they agreed with Sanders's assessment of Paul's context (i.e., the Judaism to which Paul responded) but not Paul's content (i.e., Paul's response to Judaism). Sanders argued that Paul attacked Jewish legalism, but only because he misunderstood the Judaism of his day. New Perspective adherents assert that Paul understood Second Temple Judaism, and therefore he did not attack Jewish legalism, but Jewish exclusivism.

Responses to Sanders and the New Perspective have followed four different tracks. First, some scholars responded exegetically by contesting the New Perspective reading of Paul's epistles.²¹ Second, scholars have reevaluated the Judaism of Paul's day and begun to question Sanders's one-sided reading of Second Temple Judaism.²² Some scholars then combined both of these elements in contesting the New Perspective.²³ Fourth, some studies now call the New Perspective's reading of Luther into question.²⁴

Paul, Second Temple Judaism, and Grace

One of the most extensive effects of Sanders's work concerns his understanding of grace.²⁵ He argued that Paul and Palestinian Judaism share an almost synonymous perspective with regard to grace and works.²⁶ Scholars like K. L. Yinger²⁷ would concur with Sanders's assessment of Judaism and Paul. They are no more "synergistic" or "monergistic" than the other.

This perspective has not gone unchallenged. Stephen Westerholm objects to some of the contradictory ways that the New Perspective establishes its case. First, he recites the common charge that "Lutheran" interpreters of Paul are guilty of imposing "Lutheran" categories on the texts of Judaism that are foreign to their ethos. Second, he cites the conclusions of scholars like James D. G. Dunn who make the claim that first-century Jews turn out to be good Protestant "champions of grace."²⁸ Sanders "explicitly and repeatedly" makes the same point: Judaism never held grace and works in any kind of opposition. Therefore, Westerholm rightly asks how Judaism can then preach Protestant doctrine (salvation by grace, not works) when they did not hold grace and works in contrast like the Protestant doctrine they supposedly preach?²⁹

Simon J. Gathercole also stands as a prominent voice in the attempt to demonstrate the differences with respect to Paul and Judaism. Gathercole affirms continuity between the two in that they "share an elective grace and also assign a determinative role to works at final judgment."³⁰ However, he detects a note of discontinuity in the substantial difference between the synergism of Judaism and the monergism of Paul.³¹ The work of Timo Laato³² and Timo Eskola³³ bring similar claims to bear concerning the anthropological dimensions of the differences between Paul and Judaism. They hold that because Paul's appraisal of human nature is much more pessimistic than that of Judaism, Paul stresses predestination and grace, while Judaism expresses synergistic sympathies because of their "higher view" of human nature.

These wide-angle debates over continuity and discontinuity serve as a necessary background for the approaches whose lens provide a more narrow focus to the relation between the Mosaic and new covenants.

Five Approaches

This narrow lens focus will introduce the reader to some very nuanced discussions of how the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant relate. One way to group these discussions is through a categorical taxonomy. At the risk of oversimplification, this study can utilize the taxonomy of Walter C. Kaiser.³⁴ Kaiser labels five different ways interpreters relate the covenants: (1) replacement,³⁵ (2) super,³⁶ (3) dual,³⁷ (4) separate,³⁸ and (5) renewed.³⁹ It is helpful to order them according to their placement on the spectrum of continuity versus discontinuity. Positions two and five represent continuous positions, while one, three, and four fit the discontinuity perspective. This survey of scholarship will now further clarify these categories of thought in relation to Paul's own exposition of the Mosaic covenant. Some of the scholars mentioned do not consciously place themselves within one camp or the other, but it may help the reader to classify their thought according to the five categories.

Although few scholars comment on the character of the Israelite covenant in Paul's theology, theological approaches to the covenants continue to exercise determinative effects. Scott J. Hafemann falls into the "renewed" approach to the covenants. He has argued extensively for understanding the law/gospel or old/new covenant debates in terms of their respective functions rather than in terms of their content, structure, or purpose so that the "new" is a "renewal" of the "old."⁴⁰ The character of the old covenant mirrors that of the new covenant: they are coequal in grace and glory.⁴¹ The only difference concerns the fuller presence of the Spirit, which is owing to the respective places the covenants occupy in redemptive history. Therefore, he says, "The designation 'old' is not a pejorative evaluation of the character of the Sinai covenant, but a temporal and eschatological designation of its fulfillment."⁴²

James D. G. Dunn also adopts the "renewed" approach. He says that the new covenant and its variations (Isa 59:21; Ezek 36:26) are "renewals of the Sinai covenant or indeed as the promise of a more effective implementation of the earlier covenant by divine initiative."⁴³ Ellen Jühl Christiansen is similar in that she asserts that the new covenant is new as "that which brings the potential of the 'old' into existence by adding a new Christological and pneumatological dimension."⁴⁴

Adherents of covenant theology (i.e., the "super covenant" position) attempt to understand Paul's statements in a way that does not detract from the character of the Israelite covenant.⁴⁵ They emphasize the gracious nature of the Mosaic covenant when it is taken on its own terms. They also suggest that Paul's statements should be read polemically as his responses to legalistic misunderstandings concerning the Mosaic covenant.⁴⁶ Meredith Kline⁴⁷ and Mark Karlberg⁴⁸ take a different track within covenant theology. They understand the Israelite covenant as a covenant of works on the earthly level and a covenant of grace on the spiritual level.

Progressive Dispensationalists occupy the "replacement" camp in Kaiser's taxonomy.⁴⁹ They tend to emphasize discontinuity and "newness" with respect to the new covenant. Bruce...

Table of contents

• List of Abbreviations
• Series Preface
• Author Preface
• 1. Introduction
• 2. A Transhistorical Understanding
• 3. The Old and New Antithesis in Paul
• 4. Contexts of Contrast: 2 Corinthians 3-4
• 5. Contexts of Contrast: Galatians 3-4
• 6. Contexts of Contrast: Romans 9-11
• 7. The Mosaic Covenant on Old Testament Terms
• 8. Conclusion
• Bibliography