From Modern Reformation Magazine, (May / June 1997 Issue, Vol. 6.3) by Michael Horton. I’m glad he republished this!

• Unlike the Supper instituted by Christ, this new practice [private “communion” by oneself] is private rather than public, subjective rather than objective, and does not even require the specific material elements commanded by Christ! Evidently the spiritual and moral effects are all that matter.
• Not only did the Reformers oppose Rome’s meritocracy; they fiercely opposed the opposite tendency to subjectivize the Sacraments by making them mere signs or tokens to evoke piety. For this, too, would only lead the struggling believer to look for help within himself. From the mid-sixteenth-century confessions to the Westminster Confession of 1647, the entire confessional testimony of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches defends the objective character of the Sacraments as means of grace.
• Making use of the Sacraments is not like turning on a faucet to drink water, but like being given a gift. It is not a moral quality within us that makes the Sacraments effective (as in Rome), but the objective promise, received in faith through the mighty working of the Holy Spirit. This phrase, “received in faith,” does not mean that faith makes the Sacraments effective any more than that faith itself justifies. We know that it is God who justifies us, on the basis of Christ’s righteousness and not our faith, and the same is true of the Sacraments. Sacraments remain Sacraments, just as Christ remains Christ and the Word would be true if nobody ever accepted it as such. But the reality they exhibit and confer must be embraced.
• The Scots Confession of 1560 declares, “And so we utterly condemn the vanity of those who affirm the sacraments to be nothing else than naked and bare signs. No, we assuredly believe that by Baptism we are engrafted into Christ Jesus, to be made partakers of his righteousness, by which our sins are covered and remitted, and also that in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls” (Ch. 21). “The Holy Spirit creates [faith] in our hearts by the preaching of the holy Gospel and confirms it by the use of the holy Sacraments” (Heidelberg, Q.65). The Second Helvetic Confession reminds us that what is given in the Sacraments is not merely “a bare and naked sign,” but Christ himself, with all of his saving benefits. It warns against the “sects,” who “despise the visible aspect of the sacraments,” exclusively concerned with the invisible (Ch. 19). The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England repeat their sister churches in affirming this point (Art. 25). “The sacraments become effectual means of salvation,” according to the Westminster Larger Catechism, “not by any power in themselves or any virtue derived from the piety or intention of him by whom they are administered; only by the working of the Holy Ghost, and the blessing of Christ by whom they are instituted” (Q.161).
• Moving to our day, most Reformed theologians have upheld the confessions. Princeton’s A. A. Hodge wrote, “Christ uses these sacraments, not only to represent and seal, but also actually to apply, the benefits of his redemption to believers.” Furthermore, according to Hodge, while they are not Sacraments, the church ought to retain as ordinances confirmation, absolution, marriage, and ordination.
• It is important to realize that the Calvinistic Baptists hail not from Anabaptism, but from English Puritanism. Unlike the various “sects” of the so-called Radical Reformation, the Baptists were in other respects committed to the magisterial Reformation, but separated from their Reformed churches over the issue of infant Baptism. What is odd about our day is that the more radical elements of Anabaptism, rather than even the more moderate views of the Baptists, show up occasionally in our churches. It is, therefore, astonishing that so many who go by the name “Reformed” in our day seem to deny, at least in the practical treatment of these Sacraments, the efficacy of these means of grace.
• In many conservative Reformed and Presbyterian circles, it is as if the prescribed forms for Baptism and the Supper were too high in their sacramental theology, so the minister feels compelled to counter its strong “means of grace” emphasis. In this way, the Sacraments die the death of a thousand qualifications. The same is true when we read the biblical passages referring to Baptism as “the washing of regeneration” or to the Supper as “the communion of the body and blood of Christ.” Why must we apologize for these passages and attempt to explain them away? Our confessions do not do this. Our liturgical forms (if we still use them) do not do this, but we feel compelled to diminish them these days.
• We hear quasi-gnostic sentiments even in Reformed circles these days, such as the “real baptism” that is spiritual, as opposed to “merely being sprinkled with water,” or the “real communion” with Christ in moments of private devotion. How can we truly affirm the union of earthly and heavenly realities in the Incarnation? Or how can we regard the Word of God as a means of salvation if it is but ink and paper or human speech? A subtle Docetism (the ancient gnostic heresy that denied Christ’s true humanity) lurks behind our reticence to see these common earthly elements as signs that are linked to the things they signify. Surely the Sacraments can remind us of grace, help us to appreciate grace, and exhort us to walk in grace, but do they actually give us the grace promised in the Gospel? The Reformed and Presbyterian confessions answer “yes” without hesitation: A Sacrament not only consists of the signs (water, bread and wine), but of the things signified (new birth, forgiveness, life everlasting).
• And yet, the experience of Reformed and Presbyterian churches in the odd world of American revivalism has challenged the confessional perspective. In The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant (Yale, 1940), L. B. Schenck noted, “The disproportionate reliance upon revivals as the only hope of the church…amounted to a practical subversion of Presbyterian doctrine, an overshadowing of God’s covenantal promise.” As Richard Muller has carefully shown in his Calvin Theological Journal article, “How Many Points?”, our system has been reduced to a pale reflection of its former self.

  Eugene Osterhaven states, “Thus the Reformed tradition, with most of the Christian church, believes it pleases God to use earthly materials–water, bread, and wine–in the reconciliation of the world to God.”

• But does Scripture teach this? The best way to answer that is to simply read the passages, where Baptism is called “remission of sins” (Acts 2:38), and those who believe and are baptized will be saved (Mk. 16:16). Paul announced, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). The Sacrament and faith were not separated in Paul’s mind, for apart from the latter the benefits of the former were not received although the Sacrament was performed.
• In Baptism we were buried and raised with Christ (Rom. 6:3-5). Far from viewing Baptism as a human work, Paul said “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by his grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Tit. 3:5-7).
• A. A. Hodge writes, “Men were exhorted to be baptized in order to wash away their sins. It is declared that men must be born of water and of the Spirit, and that baptism as well as faith is an essential condition of salvation. The effect of Baptism is declared to be purification (2 Kings 5:13, 14; Judith 12:7; Lk. 11:37-39).”
• We simply cannot say that we take a literal approach to the text while interpreting these clear passages as allegorical of a spiritual reality detached from the obvious reference to physical sacraments.
• Analogous to the relation between Christ’s human and divine natures united in one person, the earthly signs of water, bread and wine are united with the things signified: regeneration, forgiveness, and adoption. This “sacramental relation” is central to the Reformed understanding of these passages. It helps us to avoid either a ritualism that places the efficacy in the signs themselves and a spiritualism or rationalism that deprives the signs of their efficacy. So when we read that Baptism is “the remission of sins,” we embrace neither baptismal regeneration nor spiritualization. The sign is not the thing signified, but is so united by God’s Word and Spirit that the waters of Baptism can be said to be the washing of regeneration and the bread and wine can be said to be the body and blood of Christ. To say that Christ is not in the water, bread and wine is not to say that he is not in the Baptism and the Supper, since both Sacraments consist of signs and things signified.
• A Word and Sacrament orientation touches our senses, but also fastens us to the reality which they offer beyond themselves. The Word consecrates the Sacraments, not transubstantiating the substances of bread and wine into body and blood, but making these visible signs means of grace. Unlike our own clever substitutes, the Sacraments lead us beyond the signs to the Lamb. Calvin goes so far as to stress the relationship between the physical character of the elements and our own bodies, suggesting that God “testifies his benevolence and love toward us more expressly by the sacraments than he does by his word” (Institutes 4.14.6).
• The Sacraments do not give us something different from the Word; rather, both conspire to give us Christ. We have no trouble when Scripture tells us that “the Word of God is living and powerful” (Heb. 4:12), or that the Gospel is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 2:16). When we say that someone was converted by hearing a sermon, we are not attributing saving efficacy to language, or ink and paper in their own right. Rather, we are claiming (whether we realize it or not) that God has graciously taken up these human things and, by uniting them to the heavenly treasures, has made them effective himself. Precisely the same is true of the Sacraments.
• A Sacrament is distinct from other important spiritual disciplines not only because it is attached to a definite divine promise, but because it is God’s activity.
• Far from opposing Christian duties, the Sacraments make them possible. In such duties (prayer, talking to others about Christ, praise, discipline), we are the speakers and actors, but in Word and Sacrament, God is the one speaking and acting. There is a place for our response in grateful praise and obedience, but we can only be thankful after we have been given something and obedient after we are grateful. As the gracious indicative makes way for the imperative in the preached Word, the sacraments give and we bring nothing of ourselves but our cry for grace.
• This two-age model (“this present age” and “the age to come”) forms the horizon of the New Testament and our own Christian experience. Jesus presents this model (Mk. 10:30; Lk. 20:34), and it is found throughout the epistles. Hebrews 6 warns lapsed believers from committing apostasy by returning to Judaism and Gentile paganism. These are people who “were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come…” (Heb. 4-5). In the ancient Church, “enlightened” was a term for the baptized, while tasting of the heavenly gift most likely refers to Holy Communion. Through these means of grace, says the biblical writer, especially “the good word of God,” the members of the visible Church have actually tasted the powers of the age to come.

More on imputation of active obedience (a doctrine I affirm as an entailment of Christ’s representation of his people).

Two words: righteous and sinless. Putting aside that Biblical nuance of what the Bible might mean in some cases by righteous, we typically use it to denote moral perfection.

So, is sinlessness something less than moral perfection?

It seems to me that righteousness and sinlessness are synonyms. If righteousness has more of a postitive meaning, then it still refers to the same thing. One can describe a person as both righteous and sinless just like one can describe a contact lense as both concave and convex. Both have to be true for either to be true.

It seems to me that others believe that righteousness and sinlessness are like peanut butter and jelly, too completely different things but both necessary for a sandwhich.

So someone could, in theory, stand before God sinless and God would say, what?–“Sorry? you’re still not righteous enough for me to accept you”?

Wasn’t Adam created righteous?

John Williamson Nevin
Originally uploaded by markhorne.

Eph. IV. 4-6.–There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

This is the image of the CHURCH, as delineated by the hand of the inspired Apostle. In the whole world, we find nothing so resplendently beautiful and glorious, under any other form. The picture is intended to enforce the great duty of charity and peace, among those who bear the Christian name. In the preceding part of the epistle, Christ is exhibited as the end of all separations and strife to them that believe, and the author of a new spiritual creation, in which all former distinctions were to be regarded as swallowed up and abolished forever. Reference is had in this representation primarily to the old division of Jew and Gentile; but in its true spirit and sense, it is plainly as comprehensive as humanity itself, and looks therefore directly to every other distinction of the same sort, that ever has been or ever shall be known in the world. Christianity is the universal solvent, in with all opposites are required to give up their previous affinities, no matter how old and stubborn, and flow together in a new combination, pervaded with harmony only and light at every point. “In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, not uncircumcision, but a new creature.” “Those who were far off, are made nigh by his blood.” “He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; making in himself of twain one new man.” In him, all spiritual antagonism among men is subverted. The human world is reconciled first with God, and then with itself, by entering with living consciousness into the ground of its own life as revealed in his person. Such is the idea of the Church, which is “the body of Christ, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” And now at length, passing from doctrine to practice, the Apostle calls upon those to whom he wrote to surrender themselves fully to the claims of this exalted constitution. “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Such a temper, and such a life, are necessarily included in the very conception of the Church, as here described. “There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” He does not say, Let there be one body and one Spirit, as simply urging Christians to seek such agreement among themselves as might justify this view of their state; but the fact is assumed as already in existence, and is made the ground accordingly of the exhortation that goes before. There is one body and Spirit in the bond of peace. The unity of the Church is not something which results first from the thought and purpose of her vast membership, of which it is composed; but on the contrary, it is the ground out of which this membership itself springs, and in which perpetually it stands, and from which it must derive evermore all its harmony, and stability, and activity, and strength.

From the beginning, this great truth has dwelt deep in the consciousness of the Christian world. Through all ages, and in all lands, that consciousness has been uttering itself as with one mouth, in the article of the creed, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. The Church is one and universal. Her unity is essential to her existence. Particular Christians, and particular congregations, and particular religious denominations, can be true to themselves only as they stand in the full, free sense of this thought, and make it the object of their calling to fulfil its requisitions. The manifold is required to feel itself one. All particularism here must be false, that seeks to maintain itself as such, in proportion exactly as it is found in conflict with the general and universal, as embraced in the true idea of the body of Christ.

I propose to consider, in the further prosecution of the subject at this time, first, the Nature and Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church, in the view now stated; and secondly, the Duty of Christians as it regards the unity, by which it is declared to be thus Catholic, and holy, and true.

–to be continued

FIRST POST
SECOND POST
THIRD POST
FOURTH POST

In his argument that Romans 1.17 refers to a righteousness from God rather than God’s righteousness being demonstrated in the Gospel story, Dr. Riddlebarger’s sums up what he thinks are the results of his three text by saying,

These texts, it seems to me, not only speak of the very thing we are told Paul does not address when he speaks of the righteousness of God–the status of the sinner–-but in the very next clause of Romans 1:17, Paul will speak of this righteousness which is revealed in the gospel, as coming to us through faith.

Riddlebarger’s theology is fine, but I don’t see why Paul has to be referring to that theology in the words that he uses. Paul is obviously talking about salvation (v. 16) that is bestowed upon believers. “The Gospel… is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” But that hardly proves that Paul is referring to the subjective appropriation of salvation, and thus of Christ’s rightiousness, in v. 17.

Dr. Riddlebarger goes on to write,

Therefore, in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness which Paul goes on to say, “is by faith from first to last.” Literally in the Greek text, this phrase reads, “out of faith and into faith,” or “from faith to faith.”

Why not stick to the literal reading?

In fact, the word “faith” can mean either “faithfulness” or “faith” Paul is going to talk about the demonstration of God’s faithfulness and righteousness (undisputably in 3.1-6, for example) as well as the primacy of trust in God as the proper response to the Gospel which results in justification. It seems to me at least possible that Paul is setting us up for his argument with a deliberate wordplay–“from God’s faithfulness to our trust.” God demonstrates himself faithful to believers in the Gospel.

What is hapening here is that Paul is arguing that our faith is the only possible response to God’s faithfulness and that God’s righteousness is the sure basis for our confidence that he will justify believers. Just as the Psalmist prayed to be justified according to God’s righteousness (Psalm 35.24) so Paul argues that God’s righteousness is revealed in the Gospel story of the death and resurrection of Jesus so that God is both ” just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3.26), so he is also arguing along a line similar to the what we find in Hebrews 11.11: “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” God’s faithfulness is the anchor of our faith. This will be Paul’s own emphasis in chapter 4 of Romans:

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

These themes of our faith being the only appropriate response and the only possible means of grasping onto God’s righteousness and faithfulness are amplified greatly by Paul’s appeal to the prophecies of Habbakuk. Habbakuk is consumed with the question of God’s righteousness in allowing his covenant people to be decimated. And in pursuing that question God assures Habbakuk that those who trust in him will live. Thus, Habbakuk ends with statement of faith that sounds a great deal like Paul’s description of Abraham’s faith:

I hear, and my body trembles;
my lips quiver at the sound;
rottenness enters into my bones;
my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
to come upon people who invade us.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.

Here I have to disagree with with Dr. Riddlebarger who says,

In the original prophecy, Habakkuk was speaking in reference to the Jews, who will live (i.e., “survive”) because of their faithfulness to YHWH, while the pagans around them will perish (“die”) at the hands of their enemies. But Paul reinterprets these words in the light of the coming of Christ, to mean that all those who believe in Christ when the gospel is preached, therefore receive a righteousness from God and will live, that is, they will participate in the life of the age to come, even now in the present.

I highly doubt that God was promising that every Jew who would remain faithful would not be killed, any more than Jesus did when he promises not one hair of their head would be detroyed. Like Abraham, in order to trust God Habbakuk and his readers would have to affirm that God can raise the dead. And while I think faith and faithfulness are related, I don’t think that Habbakuk is concerned about some level of moral behavior over against trust. While I do believe Paul saw things more clearly in the light of the coming of Christ, Dr. Riddlebarger’s despription of how Paul “reinterprets” sounds too much like “changes the meaning of,” for me to agree. Of course, this is only a passing comment and I am probably not understanding Dr. Riddlebarger completely. All I can say is that I think Habbakuk taught that those who trusted in God were accepted by him and promised the resurrection as a result. Since this is said in the context of the invading Chaldaeans who would destroy the Temple and put an end to the sacrifices of the Mosaic Law, I think we have ample precedent here for a justification by faith apart from the works of the Law.”

For what it is worth, here is a series of posts I did on the righteousness of God:

PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX

It’s now or never for “Veronica Mars” (Page 2)

I have to say I found this review unsatisfying. I liked the fact that season 1 got re-opened on some issues. But what really bothers me is this report:

Add to that the adoration from critics and high-profile fans such as Stephen King and Joss Whedon, and it’s clear that “Veronica Mars” now has almost every possible outside advantage. Show creator Rob Thomas is attempting to capitalize on that with his decision to forgo the first two seasons’ year-long arc structure in favor of three shorter mysteries, making it all the easier for new viewers to start watching the show.

Attempt to capitalize by ridding the show of what made it great? That’s sad.

And another thing, the writer takes for granted that a proper mystery show is supposed to be decipherable to the audience with all the clues laid out. No, Sherlock Holmes is dead. Philip Marlowe is the detective here, as a blond California Daddy’s-girl who just started college. Raymond Chandler pointed out long ago in his essay, “The Simple Art of Murder,” what was wrong with the “puzzle mystery.” There is no reason to expect a decent TV show to try to use that method or to judge it by whether or not it does so. Since the writer himself points to noir elements, I would expect him to realize that VM is essentially a hard-boiled detective story where the process is not an assemblikng of clues, but a journey through characters who have so many secrets that one investigation involves exposing a host of other crimes that all get tangled up. Veronica Mars is not Nancy Drew; she’s better.

So I read Psalms 10 and 11 this morning and listened to Max McLean through the flash player. As I’ve said the audio can really help me focus.

But, while I’m sure Max is a nice guy and all, I’m not wild about his intonation or the background muzak.

So after Psalm 11 was done, I went to the options page and stripped out the verse numbers. Then I blocked the text and hit control-command/apple-z. That started “Vicki,” one of the standard voices in the Mac OSX text-to-speech program, reading Psalm 11 to me.

“She” did a great job. Her interpretations of the punctuation and honoring the line breaks was quite realistic without sounding syrupy. I think I’m going to use her help again.

Google is starting a search engine for code source.

Hat Tip: Mac World News

Back in March I wrote

Recall Jack Miller’s query as to whether believers who affirm that God loves them are willing to concede that God likes them? Is our presentation of God’s love for sinners something like Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice? Does God confess that he loves us in spite of his better judgment and even against his character? Do we give that impression? Would it be good news if we did?

I happened to be looking at some church website designs just now and stumbled on this one with a quotation from C. S. Lewis’ Weight of Glory:

…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

God is not the unmoved mover [but see Joel’s comment for how badly I mangled this term]. He is moved by us (whether we like it or not).

Here is an excellent post. An excerpt:

…”But he contradicts himself, morphing his positions! Hard to pin down!” That’s what they say, anyway, and apparently this is so obvious a failing in me that it should be child’s play to demonstrate in a debate. Right? I would wager that the first century contained false teachers who were just as much a slippery gus as I appear to be in the eyes of some. St. Paul told Titus to do something about them. St. Paul is telling the TRs, given their premises, to do something about it also. But if they won’t debate, then they have a responsibility to ramp down the rhetoric, and to knock off calling fellow Reformed ministers “unruly and vain talkers.”

Funny, I just responded to someone who asked something about the label “TR.” It used to be a name I was glad to attribute to myself until I ran into various factions who wanted to fight over it. Now I wonder if there is any real theological meaning left to the term. I mean, as I see it, a TR who could “ramp down the rhetoric” would either cease being a TR or, if you prefer, prove that he never really was one in the first place. He would just be a Christian gentleman with Reformed convictions.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am YHWH your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.

Outside of the necessity being the mother of invention and perceived tradition mandating the necessity, would any seminary professor restrain himself from failing a student who turned in the following in an exegetical paper?

Leviticus 18.5 means the only way the Israelites can get life from God is to sinlessly keep every one of God’s commandments without ever needing to exercise faith or trust God for continual forgiveness.

After all, the context is simply the following of other gods and following the true God. This is an exhortation, in our age, to be a faithful Christian rather than one who explores other religions. Nothing in the statement implies that only those without any sin are capable of heeding the command.

And wouldn’t he get an even worse grade if he also said:

Moses provides an alternative to the demand of Leviticus 18.5 in his statements in Deuteronomy 30:

For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

Here Moses is exhorting the Israelites to live by faith as opposed to the works principle found in Leviticus 18.5.

Would this not be an insane interpretation?

And contrary to popular opinion, Paul does not engage in such horrible exegesis in Romans 9 and 10. Here is what he writes:

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law of righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,

Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the goal of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is from the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. And the righteousness from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) or “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

(By the way, the ESV’s take on Romans 10.3 is absolutely inexcusable: “For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” Here the exact same phrase in the Greek “translated” (so-called) in two entirely different ways. It actually reads: “For, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” The Greek changes the word order, so you could perhaps change the last to “righteousness of God” to be hyperliteral and show a mild chiasm. But the relationship is a simple genitive. “comes from” is not anywhere in the text. If it is supposed to be supplied, let it be supplied by the reader figuring out what the possessive relationship is supposed to mean!)

You will notice that in my translation, rather than contrasting what “Moses writes” with what “the righteousness from faith” says, using a “But,” the two are compared with an “And.” This is a perfectly plausible translation of the Greek word, de. Paul’s point is not that the law taught works righteousness but a passage in Deuteronomy gives us a clue that we shouldn’t listen to the law. Paul’s point is that the righteousness of the law was never meant to be pursued “as if it were by works” but only “by faith.” Paul is using the passage from Deuteronomy to properly interpret the one from Leviticus and show they are both consistent with each other.

(Paul uses Leviticus 18.5 in Galatians 3, but here he does not compare it to a passage from Deuteronomy, but with the faith in which both Jew and Gentile are one seed. The law set up boundaries that divided Jewish and Gentile believers while the faith has come to make us all one in Christ. In that sense “the law is not of faith” and we needed Christ to get us out of the realm of the Law by suffering the curse that would be involved in leaving it behind to embrace the new covenant.)

Of course, there are other interpretative options someone might argue for, but claiming that Leviticus 18.5 teaches one must be perfectly obedient in order to live is not plausible and there is no prima facie reason to force such an interpretation because of something the Apostle Paul wrote.