Taking Paul’s statement that, if you “obey the law” (2:25) to mean living a sinless life, is an interpretation without any justification in the Bible. Abraham was a sinful man and yet he is described as obeying God’s law (26:5), albeit in a pre-Sinai context. Likewise, the Psalmist kept the law (Psalm 119:55, 56). Hezekiah kept the law (2 Kings 18:3-6). Zacharias and Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (Luke 1:6). On the face of it, it is entirely Biblical to state that believers “keep” or “obey” the law, despite the fact that they are also sinners. What modern Evangelical readers want from Paul is an argument that such keeping of the law isn’t really sufficient. There is still sin involved in human behavior that falls short of God’s perfect moral nature. But again, Paul shows no concern for making such an argument. The issue is not the sins that all people commit individually; rather the issue is cultural apostasy and degradation into the most flagrant of perverse sins and the construction of rationalizations to justify such sins (Romans 1:32). If the idea that Paul means sinless perfect obedience when he says “if you obey the law,” cannot be justified, neither can the idea that “he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law” refers to an entirely hypothetical person who cannot exist because no one can live a sinless life since the fall of Adam. On this latter point, one can easily find many Bible stories of Gentiles regarded as covenant members and Jews cast out as covenant breakers. For example, though it takes place before Sinai, Genesis 38 gives us an example of a Gentile who was more faithful to the Abrahamic Covenant that Abraham’s own circumcised seed: “Then Judah identified them and said, ‘She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.’ And he did not know her again.”
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:07:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015