Tag: righteousness

Understanding Daniel’s 70 “Weeks” Prophecy (pt. 3)

Understanding Daniel’s 70 “Weeks” Prophecy (pt. 3)

We continue our look at the great prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27. Read the rest of the series.

As we march onward in our study of Daniel 9:24-27, we’ve arrived at Daniel 9:26. What happens after the 69th “seven”? That is, after Daniel 9:25? There is still one “seven” left, and a lot of stuff still to be fulfilled from the six-item list Gabriel revealed in Daniel 9:24. As the prophecy goes on, in Daniel 9:26, two key events happen:

  1. The Messiah will be “cut off,” and
  2. “the people of the prince who is to come” will destroy Jerusalem and its temple.

Let’s look at these one at a time.

Messiah and the “gap” between “weeks” 69 and 70

Then after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined (Daniel 9:26).

When will the Messiah be “cut off and have nothing”? What does it mean? Considering the bible’s whole story, it seems to suggest Messiah’s death:

He was despised and abandoned by men, A man of great pain and familiar with sickness; And like one from whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we had no regard for Him … By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off from the land of the living, for the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due? (Isaiah 53:3, 8).

Jesus was despised, rejected, and abandoned—he had nothing. Then he was “cut off”—the Romans executed him. According to Daniel 9:26, this will occur “after the sixty-two weeks …” Remember, there are two sets of “sevens” in Daniel 9:25—(a) seven “sevens,” and then (b) 62 “sevens. The Messiah’s death happens after this second set—the 62 “sevens,” like this:

So, while the phrasing is awkward, it seems that the Messiah’s death will happen after the 62 “sevens,” which means after the 69 “sevens.”[1] However, because the 70th “seven” will not begin until Daniel 9:27 (“And he will confirm a covenant with the many for one week …”) it seems there is a “gap” of time here between the 69th and 70th “seven.” If there is no gap, then the 70th “seven” happens immediately—the Messiah dies during the 70th “seven,” because it happened after the 69th “seven.

Figure 2. In which “week” does Daniel 9:26 and Messiah’s death occur?

Evidence suggests there is a gap between “weeks” 69 and 70 because of this chain of logic:

  • Because the evidence for the first 69 “sevens” suggests each “seven” is a set of seven years, we are obligated to see the 70th “seven” as also being a set of seven years.
  • Because Messiah was “cut off” after the 69th “seven,” we might assume this happened during the 70th “seven.”
  • If true, then Jesus was “cut off” at his crucifixion in ≈ A.D. 30.

But …

  • This would mean all six tasks in Daniel 9:24 (“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city …”) must take place within seven years of Messiah being “cut off” (A.D. 37-ish)—which must be the case if the 70th “seven” truly followed right on the heels of the 69th.

In other words, if there is no gap between the 69th and 70th seven, then …

  • Because each “seven” is seven years,
  • and the 70th “seven” begins with Jesus’ death in ≈ A.D. 30 (when he is “cut off”),
  • then the 70th “seven” would have ended in ≈ A.D. 37,
  • and so all six promises from Daniel 9:24 would have to be fulfilled by A.D. 37.

That did not happen! So, there must be a gap between the 69th and 70th “seven.” Bible-believing interpreters who do not account for this gap are left with an impossible dating problem. So, they are generally forced to take one of two options:

  • Option 1: Push the entire thing backwards and make the sinister figure at Daniel 9:27 the wicked Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes IV, who ruled in the early 2nd century B.C. (read about him in 1 Maccabees 1).[2]
  • Option 2: Make the mysterious ruler at Daniel 9:27 be Jesus and wrap the entire prophecy up with Jesus’ ascension to heaven.

Neither of these make the best sense of a straightforward reading of the bible. The “gap” between the 69th and 70th “seven” seems to be the best solution. If true, then the 70th “seven” doesn’t begin until the events of Daniel 9:27, which is yet future. I can’t yet make a full case for the “gap theory” of the 70th “seven” until we wrestle with Daniel 9:27, and that must wait for the next article.

The mystery prince

We now turn to the second event from Daniel 9:26:

Then after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined (Daniel 9:26).

The word translated as “prince” means leader, ruler, or a male sovereign other thanthe ruling king (i.e., “the prince”). This means that some ruler will come along one day, whose people will destroy Jerusalem and the temple the Jewish people just re-constructed in Daniel 9:25—the tale told to us in the books of Haggai, Ezra, and Nehemiah.

Well, this makes identification pretty simple—who destroyed Jerusalem (“the city and its sanctuary”) and when did they destroy it?

Daniel says it was “the people of the prince who is to come” (Dan 9:26) who will destroy Jerusalem and its sanctuary. Because the Roman army later destroyed this very city and that very temple in A.D. 70 (some ≈ 600 years after Daniel wrote this prophecy), this means our “prince” in Daniel 9:26 is somehow connected to the Roman empire—which Daniel 7 suggested will exist in three phases.[3]

  • Phase 1: The old Roman Empire under whose jurisdiction Jesus and Pontius Pilate lived (Dan 7:23).
  • Phase 2: Sometime after Jesus’ day, a splintered remnant that has divided into various pieces (the “10 horns” of the scary fourth beast, Dan 7:23-24).
  • Phase 3: A very powerful king who will arise from among the splintered bits of Phase 2 (Dan 7:24-26).

History tells that a Roman general (and later emperor) named Titus Vespasianus destroyed Jerusalem during the First Jewish War,[4] when the Roman empire was still intact in its original form (Phase 1, above). This will be a nasty finish to a brutal war. Gabriel tells Daniel: “… its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined” (Dan 9:26). Now, on the other side of this event, we know that God brought this judgment on his people in A.D. 70 because they rejected the Messiah and Savior whom he sent to rescue them.

The Roman (and Jewish) writer Josephus tells us what happened to Jerusalem when the Romans destroyed it. He knows, because he was there that day.

There was no one left for the soldiers to kill or plunder, not a soul on which to vent their fury; for mercy would never have made them keep their hands off anyone if action was possible. So Caesar now ordered them to raze the whole City and Sanctuary to the ground … [a]ll the rest of the fortifications encircling the City were so completely leveled with the ground that no one visiting the spot would believe it had once been inhabited. This then was the end to which the mad folly of revolutionaries brought Jerusalem, a magnificent city renowned to the ends of the earth.[5]

Josephus tells of one Jewish woman named Mary, driven mad by hunger, who killed her infant son, roasted him, ate one half of him and saved the rest for later[6] (cp. Deut 28:53-57). The temple itself was destroyed by fire in a frenzy of rage by Roman legionnaires who ignored their commander’s orders.

All the prisoners taken from beginning to end of the war totalled 97,000; those who perished in the long siege 1,100,000 … No destruction ever wrought by God or man approached the wholesale carnage of this war.[7]

This must be very hard to hear and understand. We wonder what Daniel thought when he heard this news!

  • Daniel asks for assurance from God that he will set everything right (Dan 9:3-19)
  • God sends the angel Gabriel to say that he will make it right (Dan 9:20-23).
  • In fact, things will be set so right that the six-item list at Daniel 9:24 shows us paradise restored.
  • This shakes out with (a) Jerusalem being rebuilt, and then (b) Messiah the prince arriving on the scene (Dan 9:25). This will take 69 “sevens” to happen, but it’ll happen.

Everything sounds great. But then, after the 62nd “seven” (i.e., 69 “sevens” in total):

  • The Messiah will be cut off and have nothing (Dan 9:26).
  • Jerusalem and its (as yet) un-rebuilt temple will be totally destroyed (Dan 9:26)!

This is a shock. What can it mean? Why will it happen? Why this bizarre reversal? Who is this mysterious prince who is to come? At this rate, Daniel may be thinking, the glorious six-item promise list from Daniel 9:24 seems far, far away. Clearly this is a one step forward, two steps back kind of thing. What is the endgame, here?

Evidence suggests there will be a long series of events after Messiah’s arrival at his baptism at Daniel 9:25 (the end of the first 69 “sevens”), and before the 70th “seven” begins in Daniel 9:27.

  • At least one of those events will be Messiah’s seeming abandonment (“have nothing”), and his execution by Roman soldiers (“be cut off”).
  • Another event will be the destruction of the rebuilt temple and the city of Jerusalem by the people of the Roman ruler who will come on the scene (Dan 9:26)—the general Titus, who indeed razed the city in A.D. 70.
  • This “intermission” seems to best explain the “gap” between the 69th and 70th unit of seven years in the prophecy.

Nevertheless, in our next article on Daniel 9:27, the angel Gabriel tells us how God plans to make good on his six-item list of promises.

[1] John Gill: “To be reckoned from the end of the seven weeks, or 49 years, which, added to them, make 483 years” (Exposition of the Old Testament, 6:346). Stephen Miller writes: “After the reconstruction of Jerusalem in the first seven sevens (forty-nine years), another ‘sixty-two sevens’ (434 years) would pass” (Stephen R. Miller, Daniel, vol. 18, in New American Commentary (Nashville: B&H, 1994), 267).

[2] This is why Moses Stuart, an outstanding American bible scholar from the early 19th century, remarks: “The third period (one week) of course begins with the same excision of an anointed one, and continues seven years, during which a foreign prince shall come, and lay waste the city and sanctuary of Jerusalem, and cause the offerings to cease for three and a half years, after which utter destruction shall come upon him, vs. 26, 27” (Daniel, 274; emphasis added). Stuart does not consider the possibility of a gap between the 69th and 70th “seven.”

[3] Young, Daniel, 147-50. He is excellent, here.

[4] See this video for free background.

[5] Josephus, The Jewish War, trans. G.A. Williamson, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin, 1969), 7:1 (361). Chrysostom suggests, “And let not any man suppose this to have been spoken hyperbolically; but let him study the writings of Josephus, and learn the truth of the sayings. For neither can any one say, that the man being a believer, in order to establish Christ’s words, hath exaggerated the tragical history,” (“Homily 76,” in NPNF 1.10, 457).

[6] Josephus, The Jewish War, 6:199-219 (341-342). 

[7] Josephus, The Jewish War, 6:420f. See ch(s). 13-21 (i.e., 3:422 – 6:429).

Understanding Daniel’s 70 “Weeks” Prophecy (pt. 1)

Understanding Daniel’s 70 “Weeks” Prophecy (pt. 1)

This is the first of three articles about the great prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27. This prophecy is very complicated and very important. One writer called it “the key to prophetic revelation.”[1] Many good Christians disagree about how to interpret it. This bible study will not exhaustively defend its interpretation at every point against all comers. Instead, it makes a positive case for its own position and seeks to be straightforward and understandable to ordinary people.

This bible study takes a literal, futurist view[2]—meaning (a) we should interpret the passage according to the natural, ordinary manner of language in proper context (e.g., poetry is poetry, narrative is narrative, figurative language is figurative, etc.), and (b) its fulfillment lies in the future—not the past.

Prayer answered (Daniel 9:1-23)

This prophecy happens because Daniel prays to God for help. This is a beautiful prayer. Christians should study it. But it isn’t our focus here, so we won’t stay here for long.

The Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom of Judah in 586 B.C., after a lengthy period of national and spiritual decline. The Babylonians took many Jewish people far away to the east (2 Kgs 25:11). Daniel was one of them. But that was a long time ago. He’s now an old man. He’s spent his best years as a civil servant in the Babylonian and Persian bureaucracies, trapped in an exile he doesn’t want. Daniel knows God swore that he would punish Israel for 70 years before he brings his people back to the promised land (Jer 25:11-12; 29:10). These 70 years have just about come and gone.

… I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. So I gave my attention to the Lord God, to seek Him by prayer and pleading, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes (Daniel 9:2-3).

The angel Gabriel arrives on the scene with God’s reply: “so pay attention to the message and gain understanding of the vision” (Dan 9:23). This bit is especially important—Gabriel is answering Daniel’s question about when God will bringIsrael back to the promised land. Daniel wants to know when God will make good on his “70 years promise.” He begs God: “for Your sake, Lord, let Your face shine on Your desolate sanctuary …” (Dan 9:17).

Well, Gabriel has come with God’s answer. This brings us to the famous prophecy. It summarizes the entire scope of living history–the sum of God’s plan to set everything right that’s wrong in this world.

The sum of the whole thing (Daniel 9:24)

Gabriel says:

Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the wrongdoing, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place (Daniel 9:24).

The most obvious question is about these seventy “weeks.” What does this mean?

It’s complicated.

We won’t get there until the next section—sorry! But, for now I’ll say that the word means “sevens,” which is a vague time indicator. Its meaning depends on what’s happening in the passage. Your bible may translate it as “weeks” to help you out, but that’s not necessarily the most helpful gloss.

Whatever these 70 “sevens” are—and we’ll figure that out soon enough—clearly God will accomplish a bunch of things by the time they’re fulfilled. There are three bad things that God will fix, and three good things that will happen. Gabriel says these events are directed towards “your people and your holy city” (Dan 9:24).

Sometimes, God speaks directly to certain people, while at the same time speaking also to other people far in the future—sometimes in a deeper and more meaningful way. We usually only see this in light of revelation that comes later in the bible’s story. For example:

  1. God told his rebellious people he would spare them from the poisonous serpents if they looked upon the image of a bronze serpent on a pole and truly believed this act would rescue them (Num 21:4-9). So far, so simple.
  2. But, in a deeper way, this command foreshadowed that God’s people will be spared from the poisonous serpent—“the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan” (Rev 12:9)—if they “looked upon” Jesus on his cross and truly believed this would rescue them (Jn 3:14-15).

Some of that is going on here. Yes, Gabriel speaks of the Jewish people (“your people and your holy city,” Dan 9:24), but the true reference is bigger than that.[3] Anyone who trusts in Jesus as his savior is a child of Abraham and an heir according to that covenant promise (Gal 3:26-29). After all, considering the bible’s whole story, God’s holy city is called the “new Jerusalem” (Rev 21:2; cp. Rev 21:1-4).

First, Gabriel lists three bad things that God will fix by the end of these 70 “sevens.”

  1. God will “finish[4] the transgression.” Rebellion and transgression will end. The only time in history that rebellion against God will stop is in the new paradise to come—in the better tomorrow: “there will no longer be any curse” (Rev 22:3).
  2. He will “make an end of sin.” Again, the only time in human history when God’s people will never sin is the eternity in paradise, where “the first things have passed away” (Rev 21:4).
  3. There will be made an “atonement for guilt.” In the old covenant, God did provide a way for believers to receive atonement (see Lev 4:27-31). In Leviticus 4:31, the bible says: “So the priest shall make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven.” But Christ’s atonement is different and better. According to Hebrews 10:2, the old covenant sacrifices “can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually every year, make those who approach perfect.” This is why Christ is the better priest, who gives his people a better reconciliation: “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb 10:14).

Next, Gabriel tells us three good things God will accomplish by the end of these 70 “sevens.”

  1. He will “bring in everlasting righteousness.” This is a righteousness that will never end. The only time when everlasting righteousness will be here on the earth is in the new tomorrow, in paradise (see Rev 22:1-4).
  2. God will “seal up vision and prophecy.” This most likely means there will no longer be any need for God to speak to his people by way of visions or prophecy, because he will reveal himself to us all personally—like he did with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (Gen 3:8). This is when “the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them …” (Rev 21:3). 
  3. He will “anoint the Most Holy Place.” This is the satisfaction Jesus makes to God because of our sins and crimes–the personal and legal reconciliation that sets us right with him.

There are two ways to understand what “anoint a most holy” means.

  • The phrase means “holy of holies” or “a very holy thing/place/person.”
  • We’re tempted to think “holy of holies = inner chamber of the temple,” but this is not necessarily correct. The phrase just means “a really, really holy thing.” The context must tell you what this “very holy thing” is in this passage—a person (Jesus Christ) or a place (the Millennial temple)?

Because the passage is about everything wrong in this world being finally fixed at the end of the age, Gabriel is likely referring to Jesus here[5]—God will anoint a most holy person as king at his resurrection and ascension (Acts 13:22-23; cp. Ps 2:6-7). Further, in light of the bible’s whole story, Jesus literally is the new and better temple.

  • In Matthew 12:6, Jesus said that, in himself, something greater than the temple was here.
  • The apostle John says in his vision of the new Jerusalem that he sees no temple, “for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev 22:22).
  • The psalmist gives us a prophecy of a king God will enthrone over creation: “I have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain” (Ps 2:6). The apostle Paul explains that this passage refers to Jesus at his resurrection and ascension back to heaven (read Acts 13:32-33).

But some faithful Christian interpreters believe these six events refer to the new covenant era—to the time after Jesus’ ascension when the new covenant has launched. They say this isn’t about the last things at all—it’s all in effect right now. They believe this “everlasting righteousness” is about the righteousness from God (Rom 1:17) which he now offers to everyone who believes in Jesus.[6] To “finish the wrongdoing” and “make an end of sin” refers to Christ’s atonement for his people, etc.[7]

This is probably not right—there is surely no everlasting righteousness in our hearts, in our minds, or in this world. This world is awash in sin and temptation—the apostle Paul calls it “this present evil age” (Gal 1:4). This suggests the six great events are not yet fully accomplished. Believers (and this world) await the experiential transformation to match the legal pardon we already have (Rom 8:18-25).

So, it seems better to interpret these six momentous events as fulfilled when Jesus returns here from heaven to establish his kingdom—the “second coming.” Together, they tell us that God will fix everything that’s wrong in this world. No more transgressions, no more sin, a perfect atonement that brings personal and legal reconciliation with God, everlasting righteousness on earth as it is in heaven, no more need for vision and prophecy because all God’s people will see him as he is, and Christ anointed and ruling as king over his creation.

That’s why this prophecy matters.

How does all this good stuff shake out? We turn to that in Daniel 9:25-27, in our next two articles.

[1] John Walvoord, Daniel: The Key to Prophetic Revelation (Chicago: Moody, 1971; reprint, 1989).

[2] A free, scholarly resource that sketches my viewpoint is from Stephen R. Miller, “Interpreting Daniel’s Seventy Weeks: Dismal Swamp or Blessed Hope?” Available here.

[3] “… for all the people of God; who also were Daniel’s people and city in a spiritual sense, to which he belonged” (John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 6 (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1810), 343).

[4] A very few English translations and commentators believe the phrase should be translated “restraining the transgression” (ISV translation and Edward J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 198). But this is almost surely incorrect.

[5] One more strike against this “very holy thing” being the Millennial Temple is that Gabriel calls the temple “the holy place” (וְהַקֹּ֜דֶשׁ) at Dan 9:26, in contrast to the more generic phrase “a most holy thing” (קֹ֥דֶשׁ קָֽדָשִֽׁים) at Dan 9:24. H.C. Leupold is especially good here (Exposition of Daniel (Colombus: Wartburg: 1949; reprint; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969), 416), as is Young (Daniel, 201). 

[6] “This righteousness, or the Messiah who accomplishes it, was the treasure above all treasures that was most eagerly longed for by the Old Testament saints” (Leupold, Daniel, 414).

[7]  Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 6:344.

What is the New Perspective(s) on Paul?

What is the New Perspective(s) on Paul?

The “New Perspective on Paul” (“NPP”) is a re-calibration of the traditional Protestant understanding of “justification.” NPP has now been a force in New Testament and Pauline scholarship for nearly three generations. This article aims to present a positive statement of NPP. It is a summary, not a critique—so there will be no critical interaction.

First, we briefly sum up the traditional Protestant understanding of “justification.” Next, we survey five aspects of the NPP that differ from the traditional framework.

The Traditional Protestant Understanding of Justification

In light of the New Testament revelation, “justification is God’s declarative act by which, on the basis of the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning death, he pronounces believers to have fulfilled all of the requirements of the law that pertain to them.”[1] The person “has been restored to a state of righteousness on the basis of belief and trust in the work of Christ rather than on the basis of one’s own accomplishment.”[2]

God reckons or imputes Christ’s righteousness to the believer as a judicial declaration—communicating His righteousness to us “by some wonderous way,” transfusing its power into us.[3] For God to “justify” someone means “to acquit from the charge of guilt.”[4] This He does “not as a creditor and a private person, but as a ruler and Judge giving sentence concerning us at his bar.”[5]

One Baptist catechism explains that God “does freely endow me the righteousness of Christ, that I come not at any time into judgment.”[6] Millard Erickson writes: “it is not an actual infusing of holiness into the individual. It is a matter of declaring the person righteous, as a judge does in acquitting the accused.”[7] Union with Christ makes this possible in what Francis Turretin styled a “mystical … communion of grace by mediation. By this, having been made by God a surety for us and given to us for a head, he can communicate to us his righteousness and all his benefits.”[8]

The Baptist, 1833 New Hampshire Confession explains that justification:[9]

  1. Includes the pardon of sin, and the promise of eternal life on principles of righteousness;
  2. that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer’s blood;
  3. by virtue of which faith his perfect righteousness is freely imputed to us of God;
  4. that it brings us into a state of most blessed peace and favor with God, and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity.

John Calvin explains that “being sanctified by his Spirit, we aspire to integrity and purity of life.”[10] In other words, good works are the fruit of salvation. Thomas Oden summarizes: “Justification’s nature is God’s pardon, its condition is faith, its ground is the righteousness of God, and its fruits are good works.”[11]

A Survey of Five Aspects of the New Perspective(s) on Paul

There is no single “new perspective,” and it is a mistake to assume that (say) N.T. Wright and James D.G. Dunn speak with one voice on NPP. What unites the new perspective isn’t so much a single consensus on Paul, but more a shared understanding of first-century Judaism.[12] “There is no such thing as the new perspective … There is only a disparate family of perspectives, some with more, some with less family likeness, and with fierce squabbles and sibling rivalries going on inside.”[13]

The NPP is not “new” because it displaces the “old” perspective. “Rather, it is ‘new’ because the dimension of Paul’s teaching that it highlights has been largely lost to sight in more contemporary expositions … The ‘new perspective’ simply asks whether all the factors that make up Paul’s doctrine have been adequately appreciated and articulated in the traditional reformulations of the doctrine.”[14] Dunn explains that the new perspective “is not opposed to the classic Reformed doctrine of justification. It simply observes that a social and ethnic dimension was part of the doctrine from its first formulation …”[15]

We will survey the NPP by looking at five related issues:[16]

  1. The new perspective on Paul arises from a new perspective on Judaism.
  2. The significance of Paul’s mission is the context for his teaching on justification.
  3. What does Paul mean when he writes about justification by faith in Christ Jesus and not works of the law?
  4. What does “justification” mean?
  5. What is the relationship between works and salvation?

The new perspective on Paul arises from a new perspective on Judaism

Judaism was not a religion of works-righteousness, but of grace. The Reformed (or “Lutheran”) perspective errs by reading the Protestant-Catholic divide back into Paul’s polemics in Galatians and Romans. “The degeneracy of a Catholicism that offered forgiveness of sins by the buying of indulgences mirrored for Luther the degeneracy of a Judaism that taught justification by works.”[17]

The NPP objects to this framework. Instead, it sees a “symbiotic relationship implicit in Israel’s religion (and Judaism) between divine initiative and human response.”[18] Israel’s obedience to the law was not about amassing good works to wipe away sin—it was simply a response to God’s covenant faithfulness.

E.P. Sanders coined the term “covenantal nomism” to describe this ethos and said it was “the view that one’s place in God’s plan is established on the basis of the covenant and that the covenant requires as the proper response of man his obedience to its commandments, while providing means of atonement for transgression.”[19]

The “righteousness of God” was saving righteousness, not judgment. Luther came to realize this, but Dunn writes that “it wasn’t a new insight for the bulk of Second Temple Judaism; it was rather an axiom that was fundamental to Judaism itself.”[20] Dunn asks whether “traditional Christian antipathy to Judaism has skewed and distorted its portrayal of the Judaism against which Paul reacted?”[21]

So, it is a mistake to read Paul as if he were reacting against crude legalism. Indeed, Paul’s “zeal for God” (Phil 3:6) was “not simply zeal to be the best that he could be,” but a zeal to attack Jews who were violating these boundary markers and thus being unfaithful to the covenant they did not realize was now obsolete.[22] Paul did not attack legalism—he attacked a now-outmoded Jewish nationalism.

The significance of Paul’s mission is the context for his teaching on justification

Paul’s great burden was to proclaim that God’s community included both Jew and Gentile—and this was unacceptable to the Judaism of his day. The Torah taught the Israelites to be different, to be set apart. Dunn says, “no passage makes this clearer than Lev 20.22-26,” which reads (in part): “You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you,” (Lev 20:23).

So, Dunn argues, this “set-apartness” ethic is what motivated the agitators we read about in Galatians. It is this clash which is “evidently the theological rationale behind Peter’s ‘separation’ from the Gentiles of Antioch.”[23]

Judaism was not missionary minded. Why should it? Judaism was primarily an ethnic religion, the religion of the residents of Judea, that is, Judeans. So it was natural for Second Temple Jews to think of Judaism as only for Jews, and for non-Jews who became Jews. This was where Christianity, initially a Jewish sect, broke the established mold. It became an evangelistic sect, a missionary movement, something untoward, unheard of within Judaism.[24]

Even Jewish Christians found it difficult to fathom the Gospel going to Gentiles (see Peter at Cornelius’ home in Acts 10:27-29, 44-48). This conflict—the “who is a child of God and therefore what is required to become one?” question—drove his teaching on justification. “The social dimension of the doctrine of justification was as integral to its initial formulation as any other … A doctrine of justification by faith that does not give prominence to Paul’s concern to bring Jew and Gentile together is not true to Paul’s doctrine.”[25]

For the new perspective, the concern that Paul’s concept of justification by faith addresses is not a universal human self-righteousness instantiated in a Pelagian-like, works driven Judaism. Rather, it is a problem specific to the setting of the early church, where a dominant (Jewish) majority was attempting to force the Gentile minority into adopting the Torah-based symbols of the (Jewish) people of God in order to gain access to the (Jewish) Messiah Jesus. As such, Paul’s teaching on justification is nothing like the “center” of his theology—let alone the “article by which the Church stands or falls.”[26]

What does Paul mean when he writes about “justification by faith” in Christ Jesus and not “works of the law”?

“But, if Judaism was essentially a religion of grace, then why did Paul reject it?”[27] That is the question! To what was Paul objecting when he railed against “works of the law?”

Well, because Judaism was a religion of grace, this means legalism is not the true issue, and we are mis-reading Paul if we think it is. Because the “works of the law” are not about legalism, they must be about something else—but what? Well, the cultural wall against which Paul kept hitting his head was about whether Gentiles could come into God’s family, and what this “coming in” looked like.

The Jewish agitators believed the “coming in” meant observing certain Jewish “boundary markers” like circumcision, the Sabbath, and the laws about cleanness and uncleanness—that is, becoming Jews. God gave them to keep His people separate from the world. Dunn explains “works of the law” also included “the distinctively Jewish way of life”[28]—a sort of sociological identity to which the boundary markers pointed.

But Jesus has now come and fulfilled these good but temporary boundary markers. They no longer tag someone as “in” or “out” of the covenant—faith in Christ and indwelling of the Spirit is now the boundary marker. This is the dividing line. This is what Paul meant when he spoke against “works of the law.”

Paul taught and defended the principle of justification by faith (alone) because he saw that fundamental gospel principle to be threatened by Jewish believers maintaining that as believers in Messiah Jesus, they had a continuing obligation to maintain their separateness to God, a holiness that depended on their being distinct from other nations, an obligation, in other words, to maintain the law’s requirement of separation from non-Jews … For Paul, the truth of the gospel was demonstrated by the breaking down of the boundary markers and the wall that divided Jew from Gentile, a conviction that remained the central part of his mission precisely because it was such a fundamental expression of, and test case for, the gospel. This is the missing dimension of Paul’s doctrine of justification that the new perspective has brought back to the center of the stage where Paul himself placed it.[29]

What does “justification” mean?

Dunn explains that “justification by faith” means trusting in Jesus alone for salvation, and not relying on obsolete Jewish boundary markers as covenant preconditions for God’s acceptance (i.e., “works of the law”). Jesus is enough. According to Dunn, Paul’s target is not grace v. legalism, but grace v. outmoded nationalism.

N.T. Wright explains that righteousness is not a changed moral character, but a new declared status—acquittal.[30] The true scene is the lawcourt, not a medical clinic.[31]

It is the status of the person which is transformed by the action of “justification,” not the character. It is in this sense that “justification” “makes” someone “righteous,” just as the officiant at a wedding service might be said to “make” the couple husband and wife-a change of status, accompanied (it is hoped) by a steady transformation formation of the heart, but a real change of status even if both parties are entering the union out of pure convenience.[32]

He breaks decisively with the traditional perspective by saying that “righteousness” is not a substance which can imputed or reckoned to a believer.[33] This is dangerously close to the Roman Catholic concept of righteousness as an infusion of grace.[34] No, Wright argues, God is not “a distant bank manager, scrutinizing credit and debit sheets.”[35] Christ has not amassed a “treasury of merit” that God dispenses to believers.[36]

But “righteousness as declared status from God” is not the whole story. Wright sets his NPP framework by insisting we read all of scripture through a “God’s single plan through Israel for the world” lens. This means “righteousness” is more than acquittal, because this declared status takes place in a particular context. It is “absolutely central for Paul” that one understand “the story of Israel, and of the whole world, as a single continuous narrative which, having reached its climax in Jesus the Messiah, was now developing in the fresh ways which God the Creator, the Lord of history, had always intended.”[37]

For Wright, this is the hinge upon which everything turns. “Paul’s view of God’s purpose is that God, the creator, called Abraham so that through his family he, God, could rescue the world from its plight.”[38] He sums up this “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” hinge as “covenant.”[39]

This is the prism through which we must understand (a) the nature of the law and the believing life, (b) what “works of the law” meant to Paul, and (c) the apostle’s relentless focus on the Jew + Gentile family of God.

In Paul’s day, Wright notes, Jews were not sitting around wondering what they must do to get to heaven when they die. No—they were waiting for God to act just as He said He would (i.e., to show covenant faithfulness), because they counted on being part of His single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world.[40] They were in “exile,” and waiting for a Savior who would be faithful to God’s promises to them.[41]

The Gospel is not simply about us and our salvation. It is about God’s plan. “God is not circling around us. We are circling around him.”[42] We are making a mistake, Wright says, if we make justification the focus of the Gospel. The steering wheel on a car is surely important (critical, even!), but it is not the whole vehicle.[43] In the same way, justification is one vital component of a larger whole—God’s “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” plan.

God had a single plan all along through which he intended to rescue the world and the human race, and that this single plan was centered upon the call of Israel, a call which Paul saw coming to fruition in Israel’s representative, the Messiah. Read Paul like this, and you can keep all the jigsaw pieces on the table.[44]

Because the Christian story hinges upon this covenant, Wright interprets the “righteousness of God” as God’s covenant faithfulness to do what He promised for Abraham. This faithfulness consisted of three aspects: (a) eschatology—God’s “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” unfolding in time, and (b) lawcourt, and (c) covenant.

Paul believed, in short, that what Israel had longed for God to do for it and for the world, God had done for Jesus, bringing him through death and into the life of the age to come. Eschatology: the new world had been inaugurated! Covenant: God’s promises to Abraham had been fulfilled! Lawcourt: Jesus had been vindicated-and so all those who belonged to Jesus were vindicated as well! And these, for Paul, were not three, but one. Welcome to Paul’s doctrine of justification, rooted in the single scriptural narrative as he read it, reaching out to the waiting world.[45]

What is the relationship between works and salvation?

Paul declares that it is “the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:13), and that God will repay each person for what he has done (Rom 2:6). Jesus is the judge at the law-court, and “possession of Torah, as we just saw, will not be enough; it will be doing it that counts …”[46]

Wright says traditional interpretations of these passages have “swept aside” the implications of Paul’s words. Judgment is—somehow, someway—based on works. It is “a central statement of something [Paul] normally took for granted. It is base line stuff.”[47]

This “judgment” is not a reward ceremony for believers where some will get prizes and others will not. No, it is an actual judgment at which everyone (including but not limited to Christians justified by faith) must present themselves and be assessed.[48] To critics who are alarmed at Wright’s insistence on this point, he replies: “I did not write Romans 2; Paul did.”[49] Indeed, “those texts about final judgment according to works sit there stubbornly, and won’t go away.”[50]

Christians are to “do” things to please God. Joyfully, out of love. To those who accuse him of teaching believers to put their trust in something other than Jesus, Wright declares: “I want to plead guilty …”[51]

The key, Wright argues, is the Holy Spirit who sets us free from slavery and for responsibility—“being able at last to choose, to exercise moral muscle, knowing both that one is doing it oneself and that the Spirit is at work within, that God himself is doing that which I too am doing.”[52] The believer “by persistence in doing good” seeks glory and honor and immortality (Rom 2:7). It is not a matter of earning the final verdict or ever arriving at perfection. “They are seeking it, not earning it.”[53]

This seeking is by means of Spirit-filled living that is a bit of a synergistic paradox—“from one point of view the Spirit is at work, producing these fruits (Galatians 5:22-23), and from another other point of view the person concerned is making the free choices, the increasingly free (because increasingly less constrained by the sinful habits of mind and body) decisions to live a genuinely, fully human life which brings pleasure—of course it does!—to the God in whose image we human beings were made.”[54]

This is the kind of life which leads to a positive final verdict.[55]

The present verdict gives the assurance that the future verdict will match it; the Spirit gives the power through which that future verdict, when given, will be seen to be in accordance with the life that the believer has then lived.[56]    

Both Sanders and Dunn are more to the point and suggest Christianity is kinda, sorta a new flavor of covenantal nomism. Dunn writes that the Torah was both the way of life and the way to life, that we cannot play the two emphases off against one another, and that “NT teaching has the same or at least a very similar inter-relationship.”[57]

As Israel’s status before God was rooted in God’s covenant initiative, so for Paul, Christians’ status before God is rooted in the grace manifested in and through Christ. And as Israel’s continuation within that covenant relationship depended in substantial measure on Israel’s obedience of the covenant law, so for Paul the Christians’ continuation to the end depends on their continuing in faith and on living out their faith through love.[58]

The difference is that the New Covenant believer has the Spirit, and so the Christian must walk by the Spirit and “to fulfill the requirements of the law.”[59] Sanders sees Paul as more transforming old categories than dressing them in new clothes. The apostle uses “participationist transfers terms” to describe his doctrine of salvation:

The heart of Paul’s thought is not that one ratifies and agrees to a covenant offered by God, becoming a member of a group with a covenantal relation with God and remaining in it on the condition of proper behaviour; but that one dies with Christ, obtaining new life and the initial transformation which leads to the resurrection and ultimate transformation, that one is a member of the body of Christ and one Spirit with him, and that one remains so unless one breaks the participatory union by forming another.[60]

If you break the union (by defecting and not repenting), then you are out—“good deeds are the condition of remaining ‘in’, but they do not earn salvation.”[61]

What does it matter?

This matters because the NPP will interpret Galatians and Romans quite differently.

  • Judaism is a religion of grace, forgiveness, and atonement—not of legalism.
  • This means Paul is not fighting against legalists. Luther and the Reformers are wrong on this point. So is every major creed and confession the Protestant world has produced in the past 400 years. Like people staring up at the sun and assuming it orbits the earth, the traditional perspective sees but does not understand.[62]
  • Paul’s real problem is a mis-guided Jewish nationalism its agitators do not realize is now obsolete.
  • So, the “works of the law” Paul rails against are not legalist impulses but Jewish “identity markers.” Being a covenant member means an obligation to be set apart and to “live Jewishly.” The agitators do not realize this is now superseded in union with Christ. So, in this context, “justification by faith” means observing Jesus and the indwelling of the Spirit as the new boundary markers.
  • The traditional understanding of “justification” is wrong. It may mean observing these new boundary markers instead of the old (Dunn). Or, according to Wright, it might mean “covenant faithfulness,” in that God is bringing His “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” to fruition (eschatology), on the basis of His declaration that Jesus acquits His people of their legal guilt (lawcourt), because He made promises to Abraham He intends to fulfill (covenant).

This alternative grid produces quite different interpretations of seemingly “obvious” passages. For example, the apostle Paul writes this about ethnic Jewish people:

For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:2-3).

According to N.T. Wright, this “zeal … not based on knowledge” refers to the mistaken impression that Israel was not the center of the world. God intended to work not just for them, but through them for a greater plan for the world. As far as “establishing their own righteousness” goes, Paul means that “they have not recognized the nature, shape and purpose of their own controlling narrative … and have supposed that it was a story about themselves rather than about the Creator and the cosmos, with themselves playing the crucial, linchpin role.”[63]

In other words, these passages are about misguided Jewish nationalism, not legalism. Christians (especially pastors) should be familiar with the broad outlines of this newer interpretive grid. Pondering these challenges will both sharpen dull edges in our own understanding and strengthen convictions in the face of alternative challenges. It might even change some minds—the Spirit still has more to teach His church!

[1] Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), p. 884.

[2] Millard Erickson, The Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology, revised ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), s.v. “justification by faith,” p. 108

[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (reprint; Peabody: Hendriksen, 2012), 3.11.23 

[4] Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.3.

[5] Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, vol. 2 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992–1997), 16.3.2.

[6] Hercules Collins, An Orthodox Catechism: Being the Sum of Christian Religion, Contained in the Law and Gospel, ed(s). Machael Haykin and G. Stephen Weaver, Jr. (Palmdale: RBAP, 2014), A55.

[7] Erickson, Christian Theology, p. 884.

[8] Turretin, Institutes, 16.3.5.

[9] 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith, Art. V, quoted in Phillip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. 3 (New York: Harper & Bros., 1882), pp. 743-744.

[10] Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.1.

[11] Thomas Oden, Classical Christianity: A Systematic Theology (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2009), p. 584.

[12] James K. Bielby and Paul R. Eddy, “Justification in Contemporary Debate,” in Justification: Five Views (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011), p. 57.

[13] N.T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), loc. 233-234.

[14] James D. G. Dunn, “New Perspective View,” in Justification: Five Views, pp. 176, 177.

[15] Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul: Whence, what and whither?” in The New Perspective on Paul, revised ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005),p. 36.

[16] Three of these issues are from Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 177.

[17] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 180.

[18] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 181.

[19] E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 40th anniversary ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), p. 75.

[20] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 182.

[21] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” pp. 182-183.

[22] Dunn, “Whence, what and whither?” pp. 12-13.  

[23] Dunn, “Whence, what and whither?” pp. 30-31.

[24] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” pp. 186-187.

[25] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” pp. 189.

[26] Bielby and Eddy, “Justification in Contemporary Debate,” in Justification: Five Views, p. 60.

[27] Bielby and Eddy, “Justification in Contemporary Debate,” in Justification: Five Views, p. 58.

[28] Dunn, “Whence, what and whither?,” in New Perspective, pp. 27-28.  

[29] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 195.

[30] Wright, Justification, loc. 987.

[31] Wright, Justification, loc. 994.

[32] Wright, Justification, loc. 1002-1005.

[33] “If ‘imputed righteousness’ is so utterly central, so nerve-janglingly vital, so standing-and-falling-church and-falling-church important as John Piper makes out, isn’t it strange that Paul never actually came straight out and said it?” (Wright, Justification, loc. 453-454).

[34] Wright, Justification, loc. 1938.

[35] Wright, Justification, loc. 2216.

[36] Wright, Justification, loc. 2747-2748. “We note in particular that the ‘obedience’ of Christ is not designed to amass a treasury of merit which can then be ‘reckoned’ to the believer, as in some Reformed schemes of thought …”

[37] Wright, Justification, loc. 307-309.

[38] Wright, Justification, loc. 1041-1042.

[39] Wright, Justification, loc. 649f.

[40] Wright, Justification, loc. 546f.

[41] “[M]any first-century Jews thought of themselves as living in a continuing narrative stretching from earliest times, through ancient prophecies, and on toward a climactic moment of deliverance which might come at any moment … this continuing narrative was currently seen, on the basis of Daniel 9, as a long passage through a state of continuing ‘exile’ … The very same attribute of God because of which God was right to punish Israel with the curse of exile—i.e., his righteousness—can now be appealed to for covenantal restoration the other side of punishment,” (Wright, Justification, loc. 601-602, 609, 653-655).

In his Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013; Kindle ed.), Wright helpfully explains: “… the covenant, YHWH’s choice of Israel as his people, was aimed not simply at Israel itself, but at the wider and larger purposes which this God intended to fulfil through Israel. Israel is God’s servant; and the point of having a servant is not that the servant becomes one’s best friend, though that may happen too, but in order that, through the work of the servant, one may get things done. And what YHWH wants done, it seems, is for his glory to extend throughout the earth, for all nations to see and hear who he is and what he has done …

The particular calling of Israel, according to these passages, would seem to be that through Israel the creator God will bring his sovereign rule to bear on the world. Israel’s specialness would consist of this nation being ‘holy,’ separate from the others, but not merely for its own sake; rather, for the sake of the larger entity, the rest of the world,” (pp. 804-805, emphases in original).

[42] Wright, Justification, loc. 163-164.

[43] Wright, Justification, loc. 948f.

[44] Wright, Justification, loc. 326-329.

[45] Wright, Justification, loc. 1131-1134.

[46] Wright, Justification, loc. 2163-2164.

[47] Wright, Justification, loc. 2183-2184.

[48] Wright, Justification, loc. 2174.

[49] Wright, Justification, loc. 2168.

[50] Wright, Justification, loc. 2200-2201.

[51] Wright, Justification, loc. 2220.

[52] Wright, Justification, loc. 2230-2232.

[53] Wright, Justification, loc. 2266.

[54] Wright, Justification, loc. 2267-2270.

[55] “Humans become genuinely human, genuinely free, when the Spirit is at work within them so that they choose to act, and choose to become people who more and more naturally act (that is the point of ‘virtue,’ as long as we realize it is now ‘second nature,’ not primary), in ways which reflect God’s image, which give him pleasure, which bring glory to his name, which do what the law had in mind all along. That is the life that leads to the final verdict, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’” (Wright, Justification, loc. 2279-2282).

[56] Wright, Justification, loc. 3058-3060.

[57] Dunn, “Whence, when and whither?,” pp. 74-75.  

[58] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” pp. 199-200.

[59] Dunn, “Whence, when and whither?,” pp. 84-85.  

[60] Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 513.

[61] Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 517.

[62] Wright, Justification, loc. 101-114.

[63] Wright, Justification, loc. 2966-2967.

Romans 10 and going the wrong way

Romans 10 and going the wrong way

Plenty of people are zealous for God, but their zeal is based on bad information. They actually don’t know God at all. This is Israel’s problem.

In Romans 9 to 11, the apostle Paul segues from his theological musings about salvation to a question no Christian can ignore—what about Israel? He spends most of Romans 9 defending God from accusations of failure (9:6-13), unjustness and cruelty (9:14-18), and unfairness (9:19-21). God dispenses mercy and hardness of heart as He sees fit (Rom 9:14, 18). The clay has no right to object to the potter’s decision (Rom 9:20-21).

These matter-of-fact observations from behind the divine curtain seem rather cold. But, Paul then pivots to emphasize personal responsibility. He sums the matter up (“what then shall we say?” Rom 9:30) by placing blame on Israel. They’re chasing after the Mosaic law as the means of righteousness, but haven’t reached that goal. Why not? Because they’re chasing righteousness not by means of faith, but as if by means of works (Rom 9:32).[1]

‌It seems the problem is about where to find truth—has God given us His message? If so, where is it? Or has He left us to figure it out on our own?

Passionate but clueless (vv. 10:1-4)

The tragedy is that Paul bears witness that the people of Israel do have passion for God, but it’s based on wrong ideas, wrong information (Rom 10:2).[2] Where do we get the right ideas? The right information? We get it from (a) the scriptures, by means of (b) the illumination and application of the Holy Spirit, while (c) in community with God’s people. Paul will spend much of Romans 10 demonstrating that the people of Israel have all the information they need—they just ignored it.

Paul explains that, because the people of Israel don’t know the special righteousness which God offers and are trying to set up their own righteousness, they haven’t submitted themselves to this one-of-a-kind righteousness from God (Rom 10:3).[3] God offers His own righteousness as a gift (Rom 1:17).[4] Instead, the people of Israel do what many of us do—they want to bring their resumes to God, instead.

We know how resumes work. We see a job posting. We’re interested. We scan the desired and required qualifications. We then tailor our resumes to show how we meet these requirements. We submit the application and hope for the interview. The resume is our credential which says, “I’m qualified! Pick me!” This is what the people of Israel are doing—they’re trying to set up their own righteousness, rather than accepting the special righteousness which God offers. So, they don’t submit to God’s righteousness, which would mean shredding their resumes and accepting His righteousness as a gift.

The people of Israel are mistakenly using the law as a vehicle for salvation, but that isn’t its job. The law has no power to grant life (Gal 3:21).[5] Instead, the law was a protective guardian for us until Christ arrived. Now that He’s arrived, we’re no longer under the protective guardian’s authority (Gal 3:24-25).[6]

This makes the people of Israel’s failure so frustrating. Christ is the very purpose of the law. The law shows us ourselves as if in a mirror, telling us that we need a permanent solution to our moral brokenness. The law points beyond itself to the One who will fix us, and that One is Christ. Because He is the purpose of the law, Christ brings righteousness to all who believe (Rom 10:4).[7]

Righteousness by … what? (vv. 10:5-13)

But, the path the people of Israel have chosen is to pervert the Mosaic law from a regulatory guardrail into a vehicle for salvation. They support this falsehood by a misinterpretation of texts like Leviticus 18:5—an error Paul refers to as “righteousness by means of the law” (Rom 10:5; cp. Gal 3:12).[8]

This error is absurd, because Israel has the right information. There is no mystery. They’re without excuse. Long ago, when Moses preached to the people on the east bank of the Jordan River, he begged them to love God, to serve Him from their heart, to stay faithful. At the end of his sermon, Moses said: “Now, what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach,” (Deut 30:11). Why not? Because they already have what they need (cp. 2 Pet 1:3). They don’t need to go to heaven to find the answer. They don’t need to cross oceans to search for a magic solution from an exotic land. “No, the word [perhaps better as “message,” see NLT] is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it,” (Deut 30:14).

All they have to do is trust and obey. Paul quotes Moses’ words and parallels them to Christ (Rom 10:6-8). The people of Israel ought to know this. Paul takes Moses’ “mouth + heart” equation and applies it to the new covenant: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” (Rom 10:9).

This is the way. Righteousness comes by means of faith, not works. Isaiah knew this—he said: “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame,” (Rom 10:11; quoting Isa 28:16 LXX).[9] The prophet Joel was on the same page: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” (Joel 2:32). It’s clear that the Old Covenant prophets didn’t believe righteousness came by means of works! Why, then, are the people of Israel so confused?

Talking to a wall (vv. 10:14-21)

A series of things must happen to tell people about God’s good news; (a) missionaries must be sent, (b) so people can hear, (c) so they can believe, (d) and then call out to Jesus for salvation (Rom 10:14-15). And yet, it’s clear that the people of Israel don’t believe, cannot hear the truth, and don’t want to understand.

Why not?

First, Paul writes, unbelief in Israel is nothing new. Even Isaiah asked, “Lord, who has believed our message?” (Rom 10:16, quoting Isa 53:1). So, to combat the disbelief which accompanies the Gospel, people need to actually hear, and that happens by means of the message about Christ (Rom 10:17).

So, have the people of Israel heard? Of course. Paul quotes a passage about how God reveals Himself even in creation itself—the voices of the heavens and the skies go out into all the earth as witnesses to His eternal power and divine nature (Rom 10:18, quoting Rom 19:4; cp. Rom 1:18). Paul seems to apply the concept to the Gospel, which is going out into all the world. It’s known—even notorious: “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also …” (Acts 17:6, RSV).

They’ve heard, but have they understood? Paul drives a stake into that dodge, too. They do understand about God—they just reject Him. He quotes from Moses, who recounted Israel’s history of rebellion and stubbornness. Moses predicted that, one day, God would turn from Israel to focus His love and grace on outsiders. This would provoke envy and anger among the people of Israel (Rom 10:19, quoting Deut 32:21). Those who didn’t seek God or ask for Him will somehow find their way to Him (Rom 10:20, quoting Isa 65:1).[10] The outsiders will become insiders, and the so-called “insiders” will be revealed to be clueless (see esp. Lk 13:28-30).

And yet,[11] to the people of Israel he says: “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people,” (Rom 10:21, quoting Isa 65:2). God stands there, saying “Here am I, here am I,” (Isa 65:1).

Going the wrong way

The problem Paul pinpointed was this: plenty of people (like Israel) are zealous for God, but their zeal is based on bad information. And so, they don’t know God at all.

‌Why has this happened?

Paul cites the Old Covenant scriptures nine times. He proves there is no excuse for resume-ism—for establishing our own righteousness, our own credentials to present to God. He’s already given us His message, which we can know by means of (a) the scriptures, (b) illumination from the Holy Spirit, and (c) learning from the Christian community. There’s no need to search or wonder. The message is known. It’s available. It’s written down. It’s here.

‌There are no “required and desired” qualifications. There is only accepting God’s gift. He offers to give you His righteousness—His Son’s resume—because your resume won’t ever be good enough. There is only (a) trusting in Jesus’ rescue message in your heart, and (b) confessing publicly that Jesus is Lord and King, and then (c) you’ll be saved.

‌Israel hasn’t yet done that—they’re going the wrong way—and that’s why they aren’t saved. The same goes for everyone else who isn’t yet one of God’s adopted children. But, just like the prophet Joel says, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

[1] Gk: Ἰσραὴλ δὲ διώκων (adjectival) νόμον δικαιοσύνης (gen. means) εἰς νόμον οὐκ ἔφθασεν. διὰ τί; ὅτι (insert an implied διώκων … δικαιοσύνης) οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως ἀλλʼ ὡς ἐξ ἔργων.

“But Israel, chasing after law as the means of righteousness, didn’t achieve that goal. Why not? Because they’re chasing righteousness not by means of faith, but as if by means of works.”

[2] Gk: μαρτυρῶ [LSJ, s.v., sense I.2; BDAG, s.v., sense 1] γὰρ αὐτοῖς [dat. ref.] ὅτι ζῆλον [dir. obj. ἔχουσιν] θεοῦ [obj. gen.] ἔχουσιν ἀλλʼ οὐ κατʼ [correspondence] ἐπίγνωσιν. “I’m bearing witness about them that they have passion for God, but it’s based on wrong ideas.”

[3] Gk: ἀγνοοῦντες [adverbial, causal] γὰρ [explanatory] τὴν [monadic] τοῦ θεοῦ [gen. source] δικαιοσύνην καὶ τὴν ἰδίαν [δικαιοσύνην] ζητοῦντες [adverbial, causal–paired with ἀγνοοῦντες] στῆσαι [BDAG, s.v., sense 3; anarthrous, complementary], τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ [monadic] τοῦ θεοῦ [gen. source] οὐχ ὑπετάγησαν [passive w/middle sense, constative].

“What I’m saying is that, because they don’t know the special righteousness which God offers and are trying to set up their own righteousness, they haven’t submitted themselves to this one-of-a-kind righteousness from God.”

[4] Gk: δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ [gen. source] ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ [means] πίστεως εἰς [purpose] πίστιν. “Because in the Gospel, righteousness from God has been revealed by means of faith so that people would believe.”

[5] Gk: εἰ γὰρ ἐδόθη νόμος ὁ δυνάμενος ζῳοποιῆσαι, ὄντως ἐκ νόμου ἂν ἦν⸄ ἡ δικαιοσύνη. “Because, if a law had been given [passive = given by God] that had the power [attributive participle, linked to “law”] to grant life, then certainly righteousness would have come by means of the law.”   

[6] Gk: ὥστε ὁ νόμος παιδαγωγὸς ἡμῶν γέγονεν εἰς Χριστόν, ἵνα ἐκ πίστεως δικαιωθῶμεν·ἐλθούσης δὲ τῆς πίστεως οὐκέτι ὑπὸ παιδαγωγόν ἐσμεν. “This means [inferential conjunction] the law was a protective guardian [predicate nominative] until Christ arrived, so that [purpose clause] we would be declared righteous by means of faith. But, now that [temporal, adverbial participle] this faith [i.e., Jesus—anaphoric article] has come, we are no longer under the protective guardian’s authority.”

[7] Gk: τέλος [pred. nom; BDAG s.v., sense 3] γὰρ νόμου Χριστὸς [obj. gen.] εἰς [result] δικαιοσύνην παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι [indirect obj.]. “Christ is the purpose of the law (cp. Gal 3:24). As a result, He brings righteousness to all who believe.”

[8] Gk: δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ [τοῦ] νόμου.

[9] Paul quotes from the LXX, which differs from the Hebrew. This is one of the passages that complicates a simplistic understanding of scriptural inerrancy.

[10] The context of Isaiah 65:1 supports that Israel is the nation that did not seek God, but Paul seems to re-purpose the verse for his own ends.

[11] The NIV’s “but” doesn’t seem quite right. Paul’s point is that, despite God’s pivot to the Gentiles en masse, He still holds out an invitation to Israel. So, something like “and yet” seems a better choice to render the conjunction here: πρὸς δὲ τὸν Ἰσραὴλ λέγει. But, to be sure, both options emphasize contrast.

Are You Blessed?

How blessed is the one whose rebellious acts are forgiven, whose sin is pardoned!

How blessed is the one whose wrongdoing the Lord does not punish, in whose spirit there is no deceit.

When I refused to confess my sin, my whole body wasted away, while I groaned in pain all day long. For day and night you tormented me; you tried to destroy me in the intense heat of summer.

Then I confessed my sin; I no longer covered up my wrongdoing. I said, “I will confess my rebellious acts to the Lord.” And then you forgave my sins.

For this reason every one of your faithful followers should pray to you while there is a window of opportunity. Certainly when the surging water rises, it will not reach them.

You are my hiding place; you protect me from distress. You surround me with shouts of joy from those celebrating deliverance.

I will instruct and teach you about how you should live. I will advise you as I look you in the eye. Do not be like an unintelligent horse or mule, which will not obey you unless they are controlled by a bridle and bit.

An evil person suffers much pain, but the Lord’s faithfulness overwhelms the one who trusts in him.

Rejoice in the Lord and be happy, you who are godly! Shout for joy, all you who are morally upright!

  • Psalm 32 (NET)