Here we go – time to begin at the beginning.
And the beginning is the problem – in the sense of, ‘what is the problem, what is the issue that Jesus dealt with and Paul proclaimed?’
The answer is obvious – sin! Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners! But, it’s also true to say that the problem can be defined more precisely. And one of the ways it gets defined more precisely is in terms of sin as ‘works righteousness’.
What is that? It’s a shorthand way of referring to the default ‘religious’ position – namely, that right relationship between a person and God is established and continued on the basis of their moral and religious performance, their works. We see this all around us – in one form or another, it is the essence of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and vaguely secular Deism. Hundreds of millions of people have their lives dominated by, and enslaved by, works righteousness. The opposite of works righteousness is grace.
The question is, should Judaism – and in particular, the Pharisees whom Jesus denounced and the Judaisers who Paul battled – be on that list?
Actually, there’s pretty strong agreement that the religion of the Old Testament itself is not a religion of works righteousness, but rather of grace. God saved Israel not because she was more numerous etc than the other nations, but because he loved her. He loved her because he loved her – that’s how grace is. And after he saved her, brought her into the Promised land, then he gave his Torah, his instruction, to show her how to live as his graced, saved people.
But, by the time it got to the first century, that had all changed. There had been an ‘inter-testamental fall’. In the time of Jesus and then Paul, the Pharisees and the Judaisers had fallen into a religion of works righteousness. They had come to view their religious performance – as defined by the law, which is not the civil law, but God’s law, his Torah, or nomos in Greek – as the basis for a right relationship with God. Three issues in particular emerge as important – circumcision, sabbath and food laws. Doing these things especially, legalism, doing the law, keeping the law, the works of the law – this is how the New Testament speaks of this works righteousness approach, which leads to justification by works of the law, which Jesus preach against and which Paul opposed with justification by faith.
The Old Perspective on Paul (OPP) holds that this is the only way that the NT speaks of the law, keeping the law, works of the law, etc – negatively, as an attempt at works righteousness. And we see something of this in the NT – the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, and Rom 4.4. But the OPP makes a stronger claim than that some references to law, keeping the law etc are about legalistic works righteousness – it is that all such references are only about works righteousness.
This has a very important implication (which provides a test as to whether the OPP does justice to the NT material) – namely, if the OPP is true, and every mention of law, works of the law, being of the law, keeping the law is referring to works righteousness, then the NT could never speak positively of works of the law, the law, etc, nor of people who are doing law, keeping the law etc.
But the thing is, the NT does from time to time speak positively (ie as right with God) of people who as a matter of conscience were keeping the law of God. Zechariah and Elizabeth “were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly” (Lk 1.6) This doesn’t mean they were sinlessly perfect – the commandments included the sacrifices they would have offered for their sins – but it must mean that their observance was not an attempt at works righteousness, or how could they be endorsed by Luke! Similarly, in Rom 4.16, Paul affirms that the promise of God comes “not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is father of us all”, having just said in v. 12 “he is the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had”. If being “of the law” was by definition an attempt at works righteousness (as the OPP holds) then Paul could not have written ‘only’, thereby including those ‘of the law’ in the promises of God, as long as they had the faith of Abraham, he would have to have said, ‘not to those who are of the law’. (In fact, I remember vividly a talk by a dear friend on Romans 4, who was convinced of the OPP who when he read out v. 16, actually left out the ‘only’ because it couldn’t fit with what he was saying. I don’t think he did it deliberately, he just filtered it out!).
In other words, the OPP can’t handle the Biblical evidence. It’s more complicated than it supposes.
Now, the NPP is in a sense, the mirror image of the OPP – it says that references to law keeping, being of the law, etc are never about works righteousness.
My point is, both of those perspectives are simplistic, and fail to read the Biblical material carefully enough. Each instance of references to the law need to be understood in their context, not by dumping a preconceived theological grid on them.
But you ask, how can keeping the law not be works righteousness? Well, actually, when you think about it, it’s not that hard to understand. It’s perfectly possible that some 1st century Jews didn’t work on the sabbath, didn’t eat pork, didn’t fail to get their sons circumcised on the 8th day, in much the same way as I don’t commit adultery – is that some kind of attempt at works righteousness on my part? No, of course not. Is it therefore optional for me as a Christian? Again, no, of course not, it is the fruit of the Spirit in a person’s life – faithfulness.
The point of all this is: if according to the context, we need to read the opponents of Jesus and Paul differently (not as legalists, works righteousness people), then that will effect how we understand that Jesus and Paul saying. Second, I hope it doesn’t need to be said that just because I think sometimes a NT passage isn’t talking about works righteousness, that means I hold the view that works righteousness is possible – that just doesn’t follow at all. Of course I don’t hold works righteousness! And third, if works righteousness is not the problem (at least possibly not the problem – the context will determine that) then what was the problem?
We’ll look at that on Friday.
PS. Not sure about ‘KPP’ – not my idea, but keeps the title short.
PPS. Fat books have been written about this topic (and every one we will look at). A blog post is a summary of an outline of a sketch, nothing more.
PPPS. I’m going to be a little tighter than normal about comments. Keen to hear from you and to push the issues around, but ask you to keep them short, and really tightly on the point.
Hi Andrew, thanks for this. A few questions came to mind.
1. You write that “The Old Perspective on Paul (OPP) holds that this is the only way that the NT speaks of the law, keeping the law, works of the law, etc – negatively, as an attempt at works righteousness.”
Can you give examples of whom you are thinking of here as OPP? And perhaps, of older Reformed theologians, of whom you are not thinking?
(By the way, how do we do emphasis and quoting here? Is it the [square brackets] like on Sydneyanglicans, or the brackets around code?)
2. A clarification. You say, “if according to the context, we need to read the opponents of Jesus and Paul differently (not as legalists, works righteousness people)…”. Are you saying here that sometimes (as indicated by context) their opponents/hearers were legalists (e.g. your examples of Luke 18:9-14, Rom 4:4) and sometimes the context reveals they were something else, e.g. Jewish exclusivists etc?
3. How does this relate to the so called ‘third use” of the law that many (but not all) Reformed and other Protestant theologians have commended?
Sandy,
thanks for joining in.
1. not sure I feel confident to give examples, in that I’m not familiar enough with people’s work.
(Sorry, don’t know how to do the emphasis and quoting)
2. Well, so far I haven’t said what they are – but will on Friday. But yes, sometimes not legalists – would you agree with my understanding of Lk 1 and Rom 4.16, that they are examples of law observance that cannot be understood as legalism?
3. Third use – quite right to go there, but we’ll get to it under the Christian life.
Andrew, Nice sketch. Perhaps a little thing to take further (in comments, at least), is Sanders (and others) claim that our OPP is the result of superimposing Reformation debates onto our reading of Paul. I suspect he is both right and wrong about that.
Perhaps also we need to specifically deal with the theological (existential?) anxiety we feel when we ‘lose’ some of our proof-texts, or at least have to nuance them. This applies in all sorts of debates – texts we previously had piegonholed end up not to be about what we first thought – but that doesn’t mean the necessary abandonment of our core convictions, just a better alignment of the convictions with the biblical evidence. Avoiding wild pendulum swinging is hard in these debates – i.e. we used to think that, but now we think the complete opposite.
Of course, all of the above ignores how much we might gain from realising that Paul’s discussion of law and grace may have more dimensions than just the specific debates of Catholic vs. Protestant soteriology. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.
Mark,
the Reformation would be an interesting track to go down, but I’m going to refrain here, since that’s a whole complicated sphere of interpretation in its own right!
And your comments about anxiety are very stimulating – partly a personality issue I would guess – the difference between early adopters and late adopters?!
Enjoying the series, Andrew! Doesn’t it strike you as funny that a writer as careful and imaginative as Paul would fail to disambiguate between two senses of the word Law? It strike me as odd that he would use the same term to refer to those who are relating to God badly (works righteousness), and those who are relating to God excellenty (faithful living). The nuances must have been much clearer to his first readers – perhaps unclouded by competing theological grids?
Tim,
or maybe just that people who were law observers were themselves complicated?
But I take your point.
(One of the complicating features of the discussion is that actually there are plenty of examples of Reformed thinkers. from Calvin on, who are not ‘OPP’ as you have described it here. In trying to prove the ‘Newness’ of the NPP, there has been not a little caricature of what went before it. And much confusion has resulted!)
Mike,
you bet! Which is why I’m keen not to get into that contested field!
[…] leave a comment » Loving the developments over at Katay’s blog. […]
Hey I’m really excited to read what you’re saying 🙂
I wonder though, if it would be better to explore what “Paul means” by the ‘law’ rather than diving straight into “what the NT means? Paul and the author of Luke’s infancy narrative could (in fact almost certainly do) understand the term in very different ways.
Karl,
I’m sure it would be an interesting study to tease out the different aspects of Lukan and Pauline theology.
However, my purpose is a little more specific – just to establish that on a couple of occasions, observance of the Jewish law didn’t imply legalistic works righteousness.
Hi Andrew, thanks. It’s quite helpful to insist that we need to read a Bible passage carefully to discern what it’s actually saying its own context, and not to bring in our prior categories and definitions (as you’ve called, them, “OPP” and “NPP”) too quickly.
I think Sandy has an important point, though. It’d be good to spell out a little more what kinds of people you’re including under the umbrella of “OPP”. By using the word “old”, you’ve dug a little hole for yourself. By itself, “OPP” is a very sweeping phrase, and theoretically people may think you’re referring to “everybody from the early church fathers to Ed Sanders”, or “every protestant from Luther and Calvin to Ed Sanders”, or “everybody who doesn’t understand Ed Sanders yet”.
Here’s one possibility for more precisely defining “OPP”: Rudolf Bultmann + the many people and ideas and preaching methods that have been (directly or indirectly) influenced by his interpretation of Paul.
I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that when scholarly NPP authors refer to older perspectives on Paul, more often than not they’re talking about certain 20th (and to a lesser extent, 19th) century German Lutheran theologians, especially Bultmann (they sometimes bring Martin Luther himself in to the definition, but usually with only the briefest of references and often with caricature). I reckon your summary of the OPP most closely matches Bultmann’s understanding of the law. As Michael pointed out, it’s certainly not a summary of Calvin or many other reformed thinkers.
One way of thinking about the NPP is that it’s an influential late 20th century English-speaking scholarly reaction (NPP) to influential early 20th century German-speaking scholarly tendency (OPP). I know that’s a mouthful, and a bit of a generalisation, but it I think it kind of works.
Hey, sorry if that last comment was too long. Here’s a summary: maybe “OPP” should be “early-to-mid 20th century Lutheran PP”.
Lionel,
very happy to leave the history to you (to avoid digging any holes).
What I would like to ask is whether you agree with what I’ve suggested about Lk 1.6 and Rom 4.16, and the implications that has?
Hi Andrew – the hole I saw you digging isn’t only a historical issue. The problem when you call this thing “the OPP” is that you’re making it sound like the overwhelming mainstream Protestant and/or evangelical perspective on Paul prior to the NPP. But there have been many Protestants and evangelicals, past and present, who don’t fit into this very rigid Bible-reading framework that you call the “OPP”. A lot of the inadequacies in this so-called “OPP” can be addressed through re-engaging with other “old” perspectives (e.g. Calvin). Calling it the “OPP” makes it sound like we’re all in a big mess and in dire need of a NPP antithesis followed by your own even newer synthesis to fix us up. I’m not suggesting that this is what you’re trying to say; that’s just the way it comes across.
– Luke 1:6, yep I think it makes perfect sense to conclude that “their observance was not an attempt at works righteousness”. No problems there.
– Romans 4:16, yep, I’m quite happy to agree that being a person “of/from the law” is definitely not the same as someone who “by definition” is conducting “an attempt at works righteousness”. Just out of interest, I picked up the commentary by Cranfield (1975), and he certainly doesn’t think this is what the phrase means either.
– As for the implications; I agree with you that anyone who sees every reference to the law or keeping the law as a reference to legalistic works righteousness (i.e. anybody who fits into that thing you’ve called the OPP) is just plain wrong.
Yes, I’d like to see some agreement on those verses before we go on, too. Lionel? Sandy?
It would be fair to say that, in addition to the academic theology in the 20th century, the ‘OPP’ was characteristic of a type of popular preaching/piety in the evangelical movement, too.
This in part explains the ‘heat’ in the issue among evangelicals – who perhaps should know their own tradition a bit better!
Michael,
[On your point about reaching agreement on those verses, see my reply to Andrew]
Yes, you’re dead right. When I referred to the “many people and ideas and preaching methods that have been (directly or indirectly) influenced by [Bultmann’s] interpretation of Paul” I was thinking in part about some kinds of popular evangelical preaching and piety. I was particularly thinking of Andrew’s friend. Thanks for clarifying.
I don’t think I’m yet convinced that Luke 1 has any relevance to our view of Paul, but leaving that aside – how do you cope with Rom 4:15 being so close in context? The law brings wrath (v. 15), and the promise is guaranteed to those who adhere to the law (v. 16)?
Has Paul’s understanding of law done a 180 degree turn in the space of a sentence?
Karl,
great observation – I’ll make a suggestion on Friday about this.
OK but the suspense is killing me 🙂