Justified By Faithfulness (part 5)

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 as evidenced by the subject matter of his letters, maintaining these marks of covenant status was important.  For a large number, these marks are what made them their God’s covenant people.  It was what demonstrated their righteousness, or their justification, or their right standing before their God, as people of His covenant.  Though justification was a crucial matter, Paul makes it clear, apparently following from what he knew of the words of Jesus in which He made belief in Himself as Messiah (Lord/King) 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).   

Bearing in mind what was being referenced when Paul writes about the works of the law, “No one,” the Apostle effectively 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.”  When it came to the issue of right covenant standing (justification), these were no longer relevant factors.  Paul himself would claim to have kept these things perfectly, but in futility in relation to the obligations of covenant, 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 has already been 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 the Creator 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, the God of covenant 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, through belief in Jesus as His representative, 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 the Creator 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, it would seem, is the power of the Creator God, represented in Jesus the Christ.

It must be understood that the performance of the works of the law are actually set at a great distance from the idea of doing good works as a means of achieving the Creator God’s saving justification and thereby earning a place in heaven upon death.  For the Jews of that era (and any era), as has come to be learned, that simply was not an issue, and is actually foreign to the Jewish way of thinking.  Good works were the manifestation of the Creator God’s blessing.  Good works were what would naturally flow from positive covenant status. 

Keeping the law would not have been considered to be good works.  Good works would have been the response to the realization of being a member of the covenant people of the Creator God, which was achieved by adhering to the works of the law.  In addition to that, heaven, as it is routinely imagined as a place of unending bliss, and achieving heaven, was not the ultimate goal of the Jew.  These realizations are terribly significant, because Jesus, Paul, and all of the disciples and so many of the earliest believers in Jesus as Messiah were first century Jews, living in the midst of second temple Judaism, under Roman domination, and therefore, still under their God’s cursing, according to the law.