Later and finally, in
summing up his message, Paul would write, “I do not set aside God’s grace,
because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for
nothing!” (2:21) In Paul’s estimation, and quite rightly it would seem,
the grace of the Creator God was paramount in the justification transaction.
From first to last, when it came to covenant, to blessing and cursing, and to
resurrection and newness of life, all would be rooted in the grace of the God of
Israel. This grace was extended because
of His faithfulness to His plans for this world and His creation.
The works of the law,
as Paul would apparently come to realize and understand, were just far too
man-centered. When they were considered against the backdrop of the
all-powerful Creator God, these covenant markers were terribly insufficient to
carry out and communicate the weight of His glory and of His intentions for His
image-bearers and the creation. Beyond that, Paul would seem to conclude,
if righteousness (justification and the completion of the Creator God’s
covenant faithfulness) could come through human effort to hold to a few meager
works of the law, then truly, the Christ did not need to die.
Paul would find it
impossible to brook an agreement with this position. He would encourage
people, when it came to these issues, to hold to that to wish they wished to
hold, while also insisting that it was presumptuous, and perhaps even a denial
of the grace of the covenant God, upon which the covenant people relied, to
impose these standards on others. In the face of the obvious and overwhelming
power of the God that was put on display through the Resurrection, as that
event served to show forth Jesus as the Messiah---therefore demonstrating that the
God of the covenant had indeed faithfully poured out His promised blessings on
all those that wished to enter in to those blessings through a belief in Jesus
as Messiah in a way that would bring glory to God---it had come to be the case
that the works of the law (covenant markers) were no longer needed or useful in
identifying the people of the sovereign God of the cosmos.
Belief in Jesus, and
in His faithfulness to His covenant obligations, was now the order of the day,
just as belief in the faithfulness of the Creator God had always been
necessary, with that faith-based belief always demonstrated by a covenant
marker. The covenant marker, since the time of Moses, had been the works
of the law (though morphed over time). Now
though, the covenant marker, as has been said, was belief in Jesus. This
belief, as one is obliged to never forget, is set forth as being a gift of
faith---a faith that somehow comes from a faithful God.
A faithful,
outworking believing in Jesus, and in the covenant God that was at work in and
through Jesus to reveal Himself and His nature, is now all that mattered.
This had become the basis for all service. This was the basis for
worship. This was the basis for giving. Yes, Paul would say, that
belief in the covenant God is what would and did deliver from cursing.
That is what would bring exile to an end. That is what brought
blessing. In the Christ, the Creator God had entered into history and
produced its climactic event. He had indeed been faithful. Because
of the faithful service of a faithful Man, justification (entrance upon the
covenant so as to secure its blessings, escaping exile, and experiencing
salvation) for all was now available. This justification was not to be
found in a man’s faithfulness to a specific
set of covenant markers and that which divided man from man, but it was to be
found in the Creator God’s faithfulness to His work, and that which united a globally
sourced people to Him.
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