As the covenant
people, responsible for bringing the blessings of the Creator God to bear in
and for all of the creation, the Jews were not looking to escape from this
earth so as to enjoy a blissful existence apart from the world. As Greek
thought, such desires were more at home in the realm and hopes of pagan
religion. Rather, they were looking for the establishment of the kingdom
of heaven on earth (the overlap of their God’s realm of existence with the
realm of existence created for divine image-bearers), when the Creator God
would embody His messiah and bring about the vindication, salvation, and
deliverance of His covenant people, doing this together with the restoration of
all things and the physical resurrection of the righteous dead (those that died
in a state of positive covenant standing).
As popularly (though
not exclusively) imagined, this would occur through the messiah’s setting up of
His kingdom, as Israel’s King, Who would be the King of all the earth (the
Creator God becoming King), with all peoples coming to bow before Him, as was pictured
and to which seemed to be pointed throughout the Psalms and the writings of the
Hebrew prophets.
The establishment of
this kingdom, as was held to by a large number of people in the time of Jesus
and Paul, would involve the overthrow of the Romans (the perceived enemy of
God’s people, though they really only stood for the greater enemy to which was
pointed by popular apocalyptic literature---think Daniel and Revelation), and
their being driven from the land. In
this, the promised land would be returned to the Creator God’s people, and those
people would finally live free from any and all types of foreign dominion (be
it world powers or that which animated them---evil and death).
Among other things,
this would signify the blessing of the covenant God finally returning to His
people. By the people’s estimation, with this widely held conception
being reinforced by the leaders of the people, maintaining the covenant
markers---according to was to be understood from Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
coupled 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 their God’s
blessing.
Thus, with a
steadfast adherence to these works of the law, the presume covenant people
would maintain a positive covenant standing with their God. Accordingly, 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 to them. So the works of the law and
the keeping of the works of the law were, in fact, rooted in a profound belief
in the righteousness (covenant faithfulness) and power of God. Yes, faith stood behind adherence to the
covenant markers. This had always been
the case.
By and large, prior
to his well-documented “conversion,” this had been the Apostle Paul’s
position. H had been a Pharisee of Pharisees, by his own testimony.
He had been zealous for the law. He had been zealous for these works of
the law---looking to them as that which signaled one’s justification before the
Creator God (righteous standing/positive covenant status). This was rooted in His belief in the
faithfulness of his God. He called himself a Hebrew of Hebrews. He
held vociferously to these covenant markers and persecuted, attempting to
destroy and stamp out the movement that, beginning with Jesus, was actively
encouraging the Creator God’s very own covenant people to set these markers aside.
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