And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Coming up with an explanation that covers both data points is challenging.  I think Doug Wilson pointed out that he got Wright to agree that Zacharias might describe Saul the Pharisee as something less than righteous.  That is a good point, and I can’t think of anything that has been said that solves it in easily memorable steps.

But I may be able to offer further clarity on the post I made yesterday (let me know if it adds clarity, obscurity, or if it was already too obscure to say that it is more so now).

As I see it Romans 1-3 goes something like this:

1. God is angry at sin and is punishing it by giving the world over to more sin.

2. Implied question: but you only means the Gentiles, right?

3. Not at all: Have you looked at all the things everyone sees Israel doing lately?

4. Implied question: but doesn’t the special standing that the Jews have give them protection from judgment on these matters?

5. Not at all: God has always saved and loved believing Gentiles and rejected unbelieving Jews.  Gentiles have even been in a position to judge these Jews.

6. So being Israel/being Jewish has never been a guarantee of righteous standing before God.  Both are alike under sin and the Law condemns Israel and therefore condemns the world.

Now, I think I got much of this from Wright.  And I think it works in the text.  No one denies that “the moral law” (violation of basic commands of the decalogue) is involved in provoking the wrath of God.  Nevertheless, “the works of the law” is mentioned in a context that implies it is not directly pointed to whether the Jewish leadership throughout Asia was widely engaged in witchcraft, but is pointed to whether, if that was the case, God would overlook it because they were Jewish.  By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

By the way, I left out part of the argument.

7. Just because God faithfully brought about salvation through the unfaithfulness of Israel does not mean Israel is any less guilty.

Diligent Oyster Avoidance.

I can’t find my password at the moment so I’ll address it here.

Am I the only one who thinks that this works better as a defense of Wright’s view (though it may point to clarifications he needs to make) rather than a rebuttal?:

certain things are enclosed by boundaries. The border to a country encloses a way of life. It is not just about being on this side of the border or that one. The boundary markers do not exist in their own right, but are there for a reason, and they mark and point to something else

Here is what I see.  I see Paul saying that both those “of the law” will be justified along those who are believers like Abraham before he was circumcised (Romans 4.14-16):

For if it is those of the law [alone] who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. 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 one of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all

This jives with Paul’s point that Abraham was justified while “ungodly.”  John Murray denies that the term “ungodly” applies to Abraham because he think that “ungodly” has moral connotations and that it couldn’t be explained simply by saying that Abraham was a believer who sins.  I understand Murray’s reluctance, but think his solution is implausible.  Rather, “ungodly” refers to Abraham’s status as a Gentile (see here for more argumentation and contextual evidence).

Now none of this is identical to the term “works of the law” but it does show that the law is firmly enmeshed in questions of Jewish identity whether they alone or right with God.  All this in Romans 4 is further defense and elaboration of an earlier statement:

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.  Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.  Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law (Romans 3.28-31).

How do we avoid the implication that Paul is saying we believe one is justified by faith whether or not he is a Jew?  I simply don’t see any other way to go.  There is no need to bring up monotheism if Paul is saying that “we believe one is justified by faith rather than by being good enough.”  Sure, works of the law cover the entire gamut, but it is the entire thing as given to Israel as part of her special calling and identity.

In fact, if Paul is making a special case for Gentiles here, he would be implying that they are so much worse than Jews that only justification by faith could include them.  And that would be a reversal of all his argumentation in Romans 2 and 3.

In case I am not being understandable.  As I see it the traditional view would demand the following:

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law [that is, apart from any attempt to be morally good or pure enough to be justified].  Or is God the God of Jews only? [because if anyone could be justified by being morally pure enough, it could only be Jews] Is he not the God of Gentiles also? [Who are so much worse than Jews that, if there was any need for a supply of moral good works then we know all the Gentiles would be even more hopeless than the Jews] Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.  Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law (Romans 3.28-31).

But everything in Romans 2-3 has been arguing that there is no such great difference.  Both Jews and Gentiles are alike under sin.

With Romans:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Without Romans:

For God so loved the world, that he waited four thousand years while many generations perished, and then he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Here is an experiment: let’s read Romans 5.12-6.6 with the man Adam for the singular anthropos.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through the one Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one ‘s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one Adam Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of the one Adam’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one Adam Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one  Adan’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one Adam’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old Adam was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

And what about Romans 7.21-24?

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner Adam, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched Adam that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

I think this is worth contemplating….

Paul’s frustration:

• Romans 7.28: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
• Romans 9.1-3: “I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

How God brought about a propitiation in the death of Christ:

• Romans 3.22b-25: “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, through faithfulness.”
• Romans 8.3: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh”
• Romans 9.22-24: “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?”

Roman 1.1-7

Greeting = Paul and Ambassador/Jesus is Lord/ via 2-stage life thru resurrection (applied throughout rest of letter)/Great Commission

Romans 1.8-12
Thanksgiving and prayer for the Romans/wants to visit

Romans 1.13-17

Obligated to preach Gospel even to Barbarians in Spain (so whatf ollows will be an object lesson in humility and need to love and give to the nations) as well as to Romans where Paul wants to make new home. Because Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel (i.e. to be explained–not ashamed that God led Israel to break covenant in order to fulfill the covenant promise of using Israel to bring salvation to the nations), because it is the power to save because it reveals God’s faithfulness in fulfilling his promise of salvation to the benefit of those who believe.

Romans 1.18-3.20

Gospel is power to save from = God’s wrath is snowballing as the world, Jew and Gentile alike, rides straight down to hell in a handbasket/ (and Israel under God’s wrath means that there is no hope to be found in Jewish righteousness)/ In fact, if there is any hope in Israel, it is in their apostasy, but we have no right to judge God for working in this way because he is our judge.

Romans3.21-4.24

God has demonstrated his faithfulness in the faithfulness of Christ in making propitiation in the midst of this wrath and redeeming all who believe, Jew and Gentile/ Thus the law is not to be kept in perpetuity but faith is what matters, just as it did for Abraham who was right with God when he believed but before he was a Jew.

Romans 5.1-11

No more slide to hell in a handbasket. We know we have hope and glory, yet via weakness, not triumphalism.

Romans 5.12-21

So the sin and death spreading from the one trespass of Adam is now all going to be overwhelmed by the much greater righteousness and glory spreading from the one obedience of the New Adam and the many trespasses of Israel brought about through the Law.

Romans 6
But we must not infer that we are to increase sin in order to spread more salvation. Rather, being baptized into the new order, we are now to embrace weakness in the death of Christ that we might walk in the new age of obedience/ Whereas before all lives were characterized by bondage to sin in that old age (even OT believers in comparison to Christians), now we can be assured that our obedience will grow and count towards a glorious future by God’s gift.

Romans 7.1-6
The death and resurrection of Christ freed us from the age of the Law.

Romans 7.7-25
(Romans 5.12ff redux) So Israel was, while under law, always prone to be driven to greater sin by the greater grace it was shown. Thus, many realized that the promises given to Israel to be a light of the world were never going to happen because Israel constantly weakend and fell and came under judgment

Romans 8.1-39
(Romans 3.21ff + 5.1ff redux) So now all that wrath and increasing sin has been absorbed by Jesus so that sin is condemned and we can fulfill the law in the Spirit where the flesh was too weak. Our weakness, on the other hand, will only work for good as we are patterned after the death and resurrection of Christ by the Spirit.

Romans 9.1ff
[Ran out of steam/stopping with this] (Redux Romans 3. + 5.12ff +7.7ff) God is not unrighteous in using Israel because it is consistent with his electing sovereignty that just as he chose to harden Pharaoh to proclaim his power throughout the world so he hardened a controlling part of Israel to display his wrath on sin in Jesus flesh and proclaim his power of God to salvation in the Gospel. …

Romans 2.6:

So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

Romans 4.9-11:

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

Still chewing on this.  Plainly, the “law” was not given until Sinai.  But Paul also speaks of “precepts of the Law” and Gentiles becoming a “law to themselves” (2.14).  Further, Paul describes Abraham’s faith as praiseworthy:

16 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, 17 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. 18 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.” 19 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. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

While this justification is available for David when he sins as well (though if you read the rest of his Psalm it gets interesting), the fact remains that trust in the Lord is itself the real keeping of the Law–because it is loyalty to God/Jesus which God promises to forgive and exalt and to which applies the representative headship of Jesus with the imputation of righteousness, it is commanded by God and thus is obedience, and it is the motivational basis for following God in all his ways.  Thus Romans 3.31: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” And 3.27: “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.”  Or from Romans 9.31-32: “Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.”

So even though it is not technically law, it does seem that Abraham is the example of the Gentile who is regarded as circumcised because he trusts in God.  Hebrews 11 also points out how faith works itself out in love (Galatians 5.6):

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

And this corresponds to how Abraham is described in Genesis 18:

17 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

And also in Genesis 26.5 “Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Now, neither of these makes a distinction between his pre- and post-circumcision faith resulting in obedience, so Paul singles out what happens before circumcision.  But it is hard not to see Abraham, whom Paul singles out as a Gentile for a time, despite the fact that the Law is not yet given, is supposed to count as proof of Paul’s rhetorical question, “So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?”

Supposedly God’s law is not gracious because it bring wrath.

Thus, for example, Romans 7:

4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

Or consider a much shorter statement from Romans 5:

20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass

Romans 4:

15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

Or this from Romans 3.20:

through the law comes knowledge of sin.

So can the Law be gracious if this is true?

Yes. From Romans 2, in the context of pointing out that being entrusted with the Law as a circumcised Jew does not mean that one is right with God, Paul writes:

3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

Notice that this dynamic unfolding from God’s “kindness” is exactly what Paul says that the Law brings. The law was an aspect of God’s kindness and undeserved graciousness to Israel.