This continued on in to Jesus’ day, with the Pharisees acting as the upholders and enforcers of these things. By then, the three basic covenant requirements of avoiding idolatry, keeping the Sabbaths, and reverencing the sanctuary, together with circumcision---with idolatry having been effectively dealt with and practically non-existent among the Jews---had morphed into the keeping of kosher laws, purity laws, and the keeping of Sabbath. These were the things that were looked to as the marks of God’s covenant, and that which delineated God’s covenant people. Without a doubt, we can insist that these things were being held to because of a belief in the power and promises of God, as they desperately hoped to achieve God’s promised blessings, according to His covenant. Collectively, these covenantal standards came to be known as the “works of the law.”
For the Jews in Jesus’ day, and quite obviously on in to Paul’s day since it was something with which he was still dealing, maintaining these marks of covenant status was important. It was what made them God’s covenant people. It was what demonstrated their righteousness, or their justification, or their right standing before God, as people of His covenant. Though justification was a crucial matter, Paul makes it clear, following from what he knew of the words of Jesus in which He made Himself the basis for justification, that even though “we are Jews by birth… we know that no one is justified by the works of the law” (Galatians 2:15a,16a). “No one,” Paul says, “not even the people to whom God gave strict covenant requirements at Sinai through Moses, has a positive covenant standing conferred upon them by being circumcised, keeping kosher laws, purity laws, and keeping Sabbath.” Paul himself would claim to have kept these things perfectly, but in futility, as he would come to realize that these things did nothing to secure justification.
Was covenant now irrelevant? Were covenant markers now of no value? Absolutely not! As we have already said, if one is justified, or is going to experience justification, then one must be adhering to the marks and requirements of the covenant that have been put in place by God Himself. The issue at hand, for Paul, as he addressed both his countrymen and his Gentile brothers in Christ, was that, just as had been done before, God had shifted the terms of His covenant. The new and final covenant marker had been put in place, though belief in the power of God and His faithfulness to fulfill the promises of the covenant were still going to be paramount. Now, unlike before, when the Levitical requirements concerning idolatry, sanctuary, and Sabbath did serve as the mark of belief in God and His covenant, and adherence did secure the promised blessings (with disobedience bringing cursing), “no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ” (2:16a). This faithfulness of Jesus Christ is most definitely the power of God, represented in Jesus Christ.
We have to understand that the performance of the works of the law are somewhat distant from the idea of doing good works as a means of achieving God’s saving justification and thereby earning heaven. For the Jews, that simply was not an issue, and is actually foreign to the Jewish way of thinking. That is significant, because Jesus, Paul, and all of the disciples were first century Jews, living in the midst of second temple Judaism, under Roman domination, and therefore, still under God’s cursing, according to the law. The Jews were not looking to escape from this earth so as to enjoy a blissful existence apart from the world. That was the realms and hope of pagan religion. Rather, they were looking for the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth, when God would embody His messiah, and bring about the vindication, salvation, and deliverance of His covenant people, together with the restoration of all things and the physical resurrection of the righteous dead (those that died in positive covenant standing). This would occur through His setting up His kingdom, as Israel’s King, Who would be the King of all the earth, with all peoples coming to bow before Him, as was clearly pictured and pointed to throughout the Psalms and the writings of the Hebrew prophets.
The establishment of this kingdom would involve the overthrow of the Romans (the enemy of God’s people), and their being driven from the land, whereby the promised land would be returned to God’s people, and His people would live free from foreign dominion. Among other things, this would signify God’s blessing returning to His people. By the people’s estimation, with this conception being reinforced by the leaders of the people, maintaining the covenant markers---according to what they understood from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, couple with an understanding of the history of their people when they rejected their God by rejecting His covenant markers and thus demonstrating a disbelieving faithlessness---is the thing that would secure God’s blessing. With these works of the law, they would maintain a positive covenant standing with God, so they would be justified, and in a position to enjoy His covenant blessings of land and kingdom and prosperity, according to what He had promised. So the works of the law were, in fact, rooted in a profound belief in the righteousness (covenant faithfulness) and power of God.
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