Paul's Use of Scripture - Gal 3.10-13

[JSNT 65 (1997) 85-121]
ROLE REVERSAL AND PAUL'S USE OF SCRIPTURE INGALATIANS3.10-13 Don Garlington

Scarborough, Ontario Ml G 3T1, Canada
Introduction It is but a truism that Paul's use of the Old Testament is a perennial puzzlement to many of his interpreters. Among the most pondered pas sages in his letters is Gal. 3.10-13, with its employment respectively of Deut. 27.26, Hab. 2.4, Lev. 18.5 and Deut. 21.23. On one level, the agenda of this segment of Galatians is clear enough. In order to support his contention that (v. 10a), Paul selects two passages (Deut. 27.26; 21.23) which predicate cursing of a class of individuals, with two others sandwiched in between which counterbalance cursing with life (Hab. 2.4; Lev. 18.5). ' These several pronouncements of 'the law and the prophets' are proof positive to Paul that his critics in Galatia are cursed by God and that only those who heed his gospel are blessed. On another lever, however, the inner workings of his tack have been the source of rather intense headaches for exegetes. The problem, in brief, resides not in the original intention of these texts, but in Paul's application of them to his Jewish opponents, including the members of the Galatian churches who were inclined to listen to them. Particularly problematic is the reasoning of 3.10, which appears to be self-contra1. Gal. 3.10-13 would thus appear to be a chiasmus: A Curse (Deut. 27.26) Life (Hab. 2.4) 'Life (Lev. 18.5) A'Curse (Deut. 21.23)
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Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)
dictory. As C D . Stanley explains, this verse, at least at first glance, presents a genuine conundrum:
Whereas Paul's own statement [of 3.10a] appears to pronounce a 'curse' upon anyone who would attempt to live by the Jewish Torah, the biblical text to which he appeals [Deut. 27.26, in 3.10b] clearly affirms the opposite: its 'curse' falls not on those who do the Law, but on those who 2 fail to do it.
Therefore, while elements of the passage are straightforward enough, what remains contested is the rationale behind the apostle's conviction that his adversaries are under the curse of the Torah, and how precisely the texts chosen by him support his accusation. Moreover, an additional complication arises out of the proposition of v. 13 that Christ, assuming the place of the incorrigible son of Deuteronomy 21, delivered us , . In what sense could the messiah, for Paul, have actually been considered the 'glutton and drunkard' of Deut. 21.20 who would not obey the voice of his parents? In attempting to resolve these problems, the present essay argues a twofold thesis. (1) Gal. 3.10-13, Paul's cursing of his opponents, is rooted in Gal. 2.17-18, according to which the apostle tacitly identifies this group as 'ministers of sin' and 'transgressors', who seek to thwart the eschatological purposes of God in Christ. They are no less than apos tates and enemies of God; it is upon them that the curse of the law justly falls.3 Therefore, as intensely ironic as it may seem, the people most loyal
2. C D . Stanley, '"Under a Curse": A Fresh Reading of Galatians 3.10-14', NTS 36 (1990), p. 481. Cf. M.-J. Lagrange, Saint Paul: Epitre aux Galates (EBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1950), p. 69; D. Luhrmann, Galatians (Continental Commentary; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp. 60-61. 3. F.F. Bruce touches on this approach with his recognition that Paul's argu ment is 'very much ad hominem' (The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text [NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982], p. 162). Bruce, however, does not develop the idea or follow through with it consistently. Similarly, H.D. Betz anticipates this investigation by pointing out that the conclusion of 3.10the 'men of the Torah' aie under a curseis contained already in the propositio of 2.15-21 (Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galatia [Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979], p. 144). Other studies approximating the present attempt to explain this difficult passage are: J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), pp. 21541; J.P. Braswell, " T h e Blessing of Abraham" Versus "The Curse of the Law": Another Look at Gal. 3.10-13', WTJ 53 (1991), pp. 73-91; N.T. Wright, The Climax
GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture
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to and zealous for the Torah are condemned by none other than the Torah itself as covenant-breakers. (2) The Old Testament passages adduced by him subserve his relegation of the opponents to the status of the enemies of God. Appropriately so, because each passage, especially as viewed in context, speaks to the issues of apostasy and perseverance. Ministerial Role Reversal as a Result of the Christ-Event Without retracing all of Paul's steps up to 3.10, a crucial turning point in the argument comes at 2.11, where he begins to recount the incident at Antioch. As B.R. Gaventa observes, Paul here shifts from the confirmation of his apostolate and gospel to his challenge to Cephas, a 'pillar' of the Jerusalem church. As she notes, Paul's language reflects the intensity of his challenge to Jerusalem, as evidenced especially by 2.11, 13, 14.4 Especially important for my purposes, Gaventa further observes that in the remainder of ch. 2 Paul insists again on the singularity of his gospel and prepares for the argument regarding the law and Christ in chs. 3-4. However, the clash with Peter, the account of which effectively extends through 2.21, also looks backward as being the final stage of Paul's autobiographical narrative commencing with 1.10. The purpose of this narrative, Paul's 'biography of reversal', is to communicate a personal word to the Galatians. That is to say, when Paul became a believer in Jesus, he ceased to be a 'zealot' for the traditions of Israel.5 This is a message Paul was convinced his readers needed to take to heart, because having become believers in Jesus themselves, they want to become 'zealots' for these very traditions. This is why he pleads with them later: 'Become as I am, because I have become as you' (4.12).
of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), pp. 137-56; J.M. Scott, 'Paul's Use of the Deuteronomic Tradition', JBL 112 (1993), pp. 645-65; idem, '"For as Many as Are of Works of the Law Are under a Curse" (Galatians 3.10)', in C.A. Evans and J.A. Sanders (eds.), Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (JSNTSup, 83; SSEJC, 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), pp. 187-221. The contexts of the cursing passages have been explored in brief by F.F. Bruce, The Curse of the Law', in M.D. Hooker and S.G. Wilson (eds.), Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honour of CK. Barrett (London: SPCK, 1982), pp. 2736. Bruce recognizes that the issue in these cursing texts is that of perseverance versus apostasy. 4. B.R. Gaventa, 'Galatians 1 and 2: Autobiography as Paradigm', NovT 28 (1986), pp. 309-26(317). 5. Gaventa, 'Galatians 1 and 2', pp. 314-19.
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Hence, assuming that Paul's agenda in Galatians is both unified and specific, we may deduce that the citations of 3.10-13 must bear some relation to the choice Paul places before his readers: zeal for the law or zeal for Christ. Deut. 27.26, Hab. 2.4, Lev. 18.5 and Deut. 21.23 are thus placed in service to support the course of action recommended by Paulthe decision for Christ. Therefore, his employment of these pas sages grows out of the sharpened polemic that leads up to and flows out of the incident at Antioch and cannot be properly understood apart from the battle lines drawn on that occasion. In addition to this general theological thrust of 1.1-2.21, in which the 'zeal' motif occupies the foreground, Paul's attack takes a decidedly personal turn when he relates the clash between Cephas and himself. For him, the core issue had to do with 'the truth of the gospel' (2.5, 14), that is, whether uncircumcised and non-kosher Gentiles could be admitted to table fellowship and thus be recognized as the people of God. As Paul saw it, Peter's 'hypocrisy' resided in his inconsistency: the one who himself lived 'as a Gentile' ( ) was attempting to compel Gentiles 'to live as Jews' () in order to be acceptable to the God of Israel.6 Yet he does not let the matter rest there. Beginning with v. 15, he brings himself and other Jewish Christians into the fray by appealing to their common outlook. In his words, 'We ourselves, who are Jews by birth', have come to understand that our vindication as the people of God () is not but (. 16). In . 15-16, two factors stand out. One is the stress on the first person plural, indicated by the emphatic at the beginning of 2.15. This is the first of several instances in which the first person plural is used to denote Jewish Christians of the Pauline sort, who had been nurtured in Judaism and taught the Torah. The impact of is thus: even we know that justification is not , but rather . In v. 16b, it is stated just this way: . Moreover, Paul stresses the ethnic factor by speaking of this group as any Jew of the period would have: they are ', not . By way of cross-reference, in Rom. 11.21, 24 designates Israel as the 'natural' branches, while the Gentiles are the 'unnatural' ( ) branches, is thus a way of designating Jews as the aboriginal people and the Gentiles as late-comers to the covenant. It is by drawing the lines between himself
6. On , see Dunn, Jesus, Paul, pp. 145-50, 154-55.
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and his associates, on the one side, and , on the other, that Paul would have us think very much in terms of 'them and us'. One might paraphrase:
As distinct from them, the Judaizers and their followers, we, notwith standing our Jewish heritage, know that a person is not justified by works of Torah, but by faith in Christ; even we, who share the same historic biblical values as our opponents, have trusted in Christ for justification.
The second factor is the identity of the phrases 'works of the law' and . Without rehashing the continuing debate on the two, the position herein assumed is that 'works of the law' are tanta mount to 'covenantal nomism' (E.P. Sanders, J.D.G. Dunn) or 'nomistic service' (E. Lohmeyer, J.B. Tyson), and that is 'Christie faith', that is, faith directed specifically to Jesus of Nazareth as Israel's messiah.7 It is both the renunciation of 'works' and the espousal of 'Christie faith' that demarcate the Pauline camp from the Judaizers. Whereas the latter insist on qualifying Jesus' messiahship in terms of the Torah, the former are equally adamant that Christ does away with the law and, therefore, with the distinctions that once divided Jew and Gentile. Accordingly, the core issue of the Galatian letter can be reduced to a basic choice: Christ or the Torah.8 Gal. 2.17 enters the picture with its continued stress on the experience of Jewish Christians of the Pauline party (as brought to the fore espe cially by at the end of the second clause). Having stated their abandonment of the law in favour of the Christ of his gospel, Paul now poses a rhetorical question, intended, presumably, to ward off an objection from the Judaizers' side. Paul's interlocutor, it appears, thinks that a justification which bypasses the Torah turns a Jew into a 'Gentile sinner', thus making Christ a . This comes as no surprise given that the circumcision party, if anything, would have sought adamantly to preserve the separated status of the people of God, and particularly the integrity of the messiah. Accordingly, 'sinners' here means what it does in so many places in Jewish literature, namely, those 9 outside the covenant. More specifically, 'those outside the covenant', , are Gentiles (as opposed to apostate Jews); and
7 A J Hultgren, 'The Pistis Christou Formulation in Paul', NovT 22 (1980), pp. 248-63 is matched in 2.20 by . In both cases, the genitives are best taken as 'adjectival' 8 T D Gordon, 'The Problem at Galatia', Int 41 (1987), pp 32-43 9 Dunn, Jesus, Paul, pp 61-88
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the precise combination of words 'sinners of the Gentiles' is very much in line with contemporary Jewish usage, that is, Gentiles were 'sinners' by definition. So, from the Judaizers' point of view, to seek to be justi fied in Paul's Christ meant the abandonment of God's age-old standard of righteousness, which for them was nothing short of forsaking the covenant and becoming as pagans. To them, the conclusion was inevitable: Paul's Jesus is nothing but a promoter of apostasy ( ). Paul's comeback is introduced by his customary , followed (in v. 18) by a response to the accusation brought against him. His reply entails a role reversal: it is precisely in rebuilding the things that he tore down, the Torah, that he would become a 'transgressor' () or apostate, not the other way around. That is to say, were he to insist on the segregated status of the ancient people as insured by the law (e.g., Num. 23.9; Ep. Arist. 139-42; Jub. 22.16), then he would transgress with respect to God's eschatological purpose in Christ, then he would be found unfaithful to the one who was destined to be the of the law (Rom. 10.4; Gal. 3.23-26). 'Transgressor' thus assumes a new meaning in light of the Christ-event. The term used to mean one who forsook the law; but now it means to embrace the law, that is, as being a necessary complement to the 'in Christ' experience. It is this ideology, I want to argue, that opens up Paul's use of the Scriptures in 3.10-13. If fidelity and infidelity have been redefined eschatologically with respect to God's purposes in Christ, ministerial role reversal has ipso facto occurred. Now that 'the faith' has come (Gal. 3.23), it is Paul who promotes genuine fidelity to God's (new) covenant, not the Judaizers. The latter actually foster unfaithfulness, because although they champion Jesus as Israel's messiah, the Torah for them remains indispensable as the Jewish gateway to salvation. In this, they have repudiated the Christ of Paul's proclamation, who has abolished for all time the very peculiarities of the law. The remainder of Paul's reflection on the incident at Antioch (vv. 1921) serves to buttress his proposition that a new way of looking at things has come about as a result of the Christ-event. According to v. 19a, Paul is now dead to the law. Indeed, it was the law itself which brought about his demise; the law, as it were, became the instrument of its own cessa tion in Paul's believing experience. The parallel is Rom. 7.7-13. The logic of that passage is that even though the law per se is not sin, it was, nevertheless, by the law's instrumentality that he came to recognize his
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own idolatry. Paul, then, represents himself as the example of one who was placed under the discipline of the law and 'shut up to sin' (Gal. 3.22) in order that he might find Christ. In other words, he applies the macrocosm of this salvation-historical principle to the microcosm of his own experience (note again the emphatic at the beginning of Gal. 2.19, which corresponds to and in the previous verses); he is the voice of those Jewish Christians who have 'died to the law'; in him the law has revealed sin and increased the trespass; he is an Israelite in whom the law has achieved its long-range redemptive purpose. Gal. 2.20 extends Paul's reply to the Judaizers by elaborating his new life in Christ. The verse can be read as Paul's response to the Jewish conviction that possession of the law eo ipso insures life (e.g., Deut. 4.1, 10, 40; 5.29-33; 6.1-2, 18, 24; 7.12-13; Sir. 17.11; 45.5; Bar. 3.9; 4.1; cf. 4 Ezra 14.30; Pss. Sol. 14.2). The repeated emphatic of v. 20 approximates, in the parlance of psychology, the human 'ego'. It is no longer Paul's 'ego' that controls the direction of his life and allegiances, but Christ. From now on, the crucified messiah, the Christ of the cross, is the master of Paul's fate and the captain of his soul. Therefore, his whole existence is . No longer does his faith necessitate zeal for the law, but is now focused solely on the Christ who, on the tree, brought an end to the Torah. The reversal of zeal motif thus emerges once again from 1.11-2.10, corresponding to the ministerial role reversal theme of 2.11-21. And more than anything else, it is the death of the messiah on the cross that highlights in such dramatic fashion the redirection of Paul's zeal. Yet it was such an identification with Jesus, the outcast of Israel, that the oppo nents could not tolerate. Effectively, they would not come 'outside the camp' (4QMMT 30; Heb. 13.13) and suffer as Jesus had suffered, bearing the reproach of a reprobate. Because they feared reprisal from their compatriots, as directed toward Jesus first and Paul later, they would not stop preaching circumcision for the sake of Christ's cross (Gal. 6.11), the implement of his banishment from the community of Israel. Paul, by contrast, turned from circumcision to embrace persecution for the sake of the cross (Gal. 5.11; 6.17). In his case, zeal has been redefined, thereby making the term central in the debate with the Judaizers. Consequently, as R.G. Hammerton-Kelly observes, Galatians must be placed within the context of the larger struggle among the Jews of the late Second Temple 10 period over what constituted a proper zeal for God.
10. R.G. Hammerton-Kelly, 'Sacred Violence and the Curse of the Law
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Gal. 2.21 is intended to head off another objection from the opponents, namely, that Paul's gospel nullifies the grace of God. 'Nullify' () means to render the covenant inoperative. It is an expected term inasmuch as is Yahweh's covenant love for Israel. Thus, in nullifying the grace of God, as the charge went, Paul was accused of making shipwreck the covenant relationship itself. However, this is precisely what Paul disclaims, because, in his words, , . The wording shifts from to because 'righteousness' is the outcome of 'grace'. If Yahweh's is his self-giving to his people in his election and sustenance of them, then Israel's expected response is , her compliance with the standards of the covenant, in keeping with the relationship estab lished at Sinai, , in short, speaks of Israel's covenant standing, that is, the exercise of her privileges and obligations under the law. This being so, Paul's logic is clear enough: if the old state of affairs simply continues into this era, then the death of Christ is to no purpose (). His underlying assumption (not shared by the Judaizers) is that Christ's death was designed specifically to usher in the new age by setting aside the Torah in its existing form. If we ask, How could Paul reason in such an a priori manner?, the answer is that he is still appealing to the experience of certain Jewish Christians who know that righteous ness comes by way of Christ alone, 'apart from the law' (Rom. 3.20). The implication is that the Judaizers are nothing but 'false brethren' (Gal. 2.4; cf. Phil. 3.2-3). He is just as explicit in 2 Corinthians. According to 2 Cor. 11.13-14, this same basic group is branded as 'false apostles'; it is from such 'unbelievers' that the Corinthians were to segregate themselves (6.14-7.1). The Age of the Spirit versus the Age of the Flesh The so-called pro bat io section of Galatians commences with Paul's astonishment that his readers are so eager to follow the lead of his antagonists (3.1-5). One reason for his dismay is the manner in which Christ was preached to them, i.e., as crucified. Given that the Judaizers were deeply embarrassed by the notion of a crucified messiah'a 11 blasphemous contradiction in terms' there must be more than a
(Galatians 3.13): The Death of Christ as a Sacrificial Travesty', NTS 36 (1990), pp. 98-118(102). 11. Bruce, Galatians, p. 166.
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touch of irony to Paul's castigation. In other words, the cross, in which he glories (6.14), actually possesses an attractiveness about it, because, according to 2.19-20, the cross is the place where the Son of God dis played his love. Thus, in turning away from the Christ of the cross, the Galatians were in the process of rejecting God's love for them. The second reason is the Galatians' experience of the Spirit: did it come or ? Obviously, it was the latter. However, their lack of discernment ( [cf. Lk. 24.25]) was such that they were confused about the direction of salvation history. They had forgotten that they began 'in the Spirit', that is, in the historical era of the Spirit's advent, in which they were enabled to perform miracu lous works. Paul, then, found it necessary to remind them that the continual stream of the Spirit commenced at 'the ends of the ages' (1 Cor. 10.11), which, for him, meant liberation from the era of the Torah (2 Cor. 3). The operative words of v. 3b are the eschatological verbs and . marks the inception of the Galatians' Christianity at the turning of the ages,12 and is eschatological in the forward-looking sense inasmuch as it contem plates the consummation of the process of perfection begun with the advent of Christ and the Spirit (cf. Phil. 1.6; Heb. 6.1). The problem, however, is that the readers wanted to be 'perfected' . 'Flesh', in this place, by way of contrast with 'Spirit', is not 'the sinful nature' or 'human effort' (as per NIV); it is, rather, the era of the flesh, that is, the old covenant/old creation. If it be asked why the former aeon is called 'flesh', the answer may reside in the fact that the Torah ministered largely to that dimension of human nature. Consequently, the flesh was high on the Judaizers' agenda.13 Thus, the question of v. 3 is pointedly historical in its thrust. No wonder, the Galatians are . Their quest for perfection is anachronistic: they are going in the wrong direction; they want to reverse the plan of the ages! It is Paul's insistence on a chronologically consistent eschatology, 12. In 3b, , in all probability, is to be construed with rather than with what follows. The reason for thinking so is that in Paul is char acteristically eschatological, signifying the onset of the new age (e.g., Rom. 3.31; 5.10; 6.22; 7.6, 17; 8.1). Thus, the Galatians have begun now, in the era of the endtime manifestation of God's 'grace' (5.5; cf. Jn 1.17). 13. J.H. Neyrey, Paul in Other Words: A Cultural Reading of his Letters (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), p. 159.
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interestingly enough, that accounts for the addition of Abraham to the equation in vv. 6-9. While some of its details are exegetically debatable, the gist of the section is clear enough: the patriarch is invoked as one who was characterized by 'the hearing of faith', not 'the works of the law' ( ', ). 14 Simply put, Abraham belongs to 'us', , not to 'them', oi . In principle, the progenitor of the Jewish race, to whom the gospel was 'preached beforehand' (v. 8), finds his proper identification in the age of the Spirit, not the age of the flesh, even though he lived in the pre-eschatological era. To adapt an observation of T.L. Donaldson's, the link between Abraham and 'those of faith' seems to have been constructed without any reference to Israel at all.15 Therefore, Abraham is in the same arena as the Gentiles, of whom righteousness can be predicated in spite of their own uncircumcision and non-observance of the Torah. This becomes all the more ironic as one considers that Abraham, prima facie, was the perfect model for the Jewish missionaries: it was he who converted from paganism to the true God and his law. It is just the un-Jewishness of Paul's use of Abraham that provides the bridge into his cursing of his opponents; that is, in the salvation-historical purposes of God, the paradigm of eschatological justification is provided not by the Torah, but by Abraham, who had nothing to do with the Torah. Thus, the Judaizers are actually at variance with the experience of their hero and model. In their endeavour to maintain the law as the standard of righteousness, they have chosen to remain on the wrong side of the eschatological divide, so that instead of being like Abraham, they have become very unlike him. Since righteousness, in Paul's view, is now defined by his gospel (Rom. 2.16; 16.25), these people have dis qualified themselves from being the seed of Abraham because they are 16 aligned with the 'flesh'. And as vv. 10-13 will argue, they have actually
14. See S . Williams, 4Justification and the Spirit in Galatians', JSNT 29 (1987), pp. 91-100 C K. Barrett suggests that takes up the passage quoted by the opponents (Gen. 15.6) and attempts to refute their exegesis ( T h e Allegory of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in the Argument of Galatians', in Essays on Paul [London: SPCK, 1982], 159) In all probability, each of the texts quoted in 3. 3 was forwarded by the opponents. 15. T.L. Donaldson, T h e "Curse of the Law" and the Inclusion of the Gentiles: Galatians 3.13-14', NTS 32 (1986), pp. 94-112 (101). 16. In this letter, to be is synonymous with being in the old age. It is equivalent to (3.22), (3.23), (4.2), and (4.3). See further L. Belleville,
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become God's enemies (cf. Rom. 11.28) and are for that reason subject to the law's curse. The Scriptures and the Apostasy of the Judaizers As Paul, in 3.10-13, turns directly to the 'curse of the law', the 'curse' is placed conspicuously in contrast to the 'blessing' of Abraham. (Below, in vv. 13-14, the order is reversed: the curse of the law turns into the blessing of Abraham). In his schema, 'blessing' belongs to the eras of Abraham and the Sprit, while the age of the Torah is epitomized as 'curse'. So far, it has been intimated that the Judaizers are under the curse because they have, for all practical purposes, self-consciously chosen to remain in the age of the law, thus opposing God's eschato logical designs in Christ. As Betz puts it, the logic behind Paul's words is simply that exclusion from blessing equals curse; and the 'men of the Torah' are excluded from blessing because they regard the observation of the law as a condition for salvation.17 But while these ideas, I believe, are present in 3.1-9, they are, more or less, subliminal. It is Paul's use of the Old Testament in 3.10-13 that elevates his underlying intentions from mere impressions to an articulated tactic in his dealings with his antagonists. In attempting to come to terms with the mentality under lying Paul's use of the Bible, I shall first probe each passage in its own context and thereafter attempt to fit these prominent portions of Israel's scriptures into the theological and polemical programme of Gal. 3.10-13. The Quotations in their Original Contexts Deuteronomy 27.26. As Paul begins to unfold his agenda, v. 10a is con nected with the foregoing verses by means of its first . The con junction is causal strictly speaking: those who are or, according to v. 11, , are not 'blessed with Abraham'; they are just because they have severed their connections with the patriarch by virtue of their preference for the Mosaic period. The second of the verse (10b) introduces the first of the Old Testament quota tions, Deut. 27.26, which is intended to prop up the allegation that are under a curse. In other words, the 'law people' are cursed by none other than the law itself, the very law to which they are
'"Under Law": Structural Analysis and the Pauline Concept of Law in Galatians 3.21-4.11\ JSNT 26 (1986), pp. 53-78. 17. Betz, Galatians, p. 144.
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unswervingly loyal and to which they look as the paradigm of Jesus' messiahship and God's will for his covenant partners. One cannot help but wonder if in nomenclature corresponds to 'the men of the community' ("firn "0]) of 1QS 5.1 and 'the men of the law' (rmnn -0]) of 4QS 1.1. If so, the identity of the group is the more readily discernible: they are the people devoted to the standards of the covenant. Deut. 27.1-30.20 is devoted to the renewal of the covenant. It opens with the initial exhortation for Israel to keep the commandments (27.114), passes into the twelve curses of Mt Ebal (27.15-26) and thereafter into the blessings for obedience (28.1-14) and the curses for dis obedience (28.15-68), followed by a reiterated admonition to keep the covenant (29.1-15), as accompanied by another restatement of the punishments for forsaking the bond with Yahweh (29.16-29). Finally, there is a prophecy of Israel's inevitable banishment and restoration (30.1-10), although Moses pleads with Israel to choose life rather than death, especially as the commandment is performable given its proximity to her (30.11-20). This whole section of Deuteronomy is appropriately summarized by Wright: 'Deuteronomy 27-30 is all about exile and restoration, understood as covenant judgment and covenant renewal'. 18 Hence, the overall impression left by these several chapters is that fidelity or the absence thereof to Yahweh and his covenant are of paramount importance, because life and death, blessing and cursing, respectively hinge on the decision that Israel will make. Chapter 27 is occupied with various social misdeeds and the resultant curses. The centre of gravity of the materials is idolatry (v. 15). Indeed, because of its pivotal position in the structure of the chapter, one receives the impression that idolatry is the fountainhead of the vices enumerated in vv. 16-26. The pattern is only to be expected, because forsaking Yahweh opens the floodgates to all kinds of sins. Accordingly, the whole of this recitation of curses is summarized by its final item: 'Cursed be he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them' (v. 26). Thus, idolatry and its attendant evils are avoided by 'doing' the law. In the mind of the author(s), the root issue was faithful ness to Yahweh, as exemplified by obedience to his laws; conversely, the one who is devoted to idols cannot help but incur the curses kept in store for disobedience.
18. Wright, Climax, p. 140 (italics deleted). Wright's overall thesis that covenant theology lies behind Paul's use of the Scriptures is undoubtedly correct.
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Verse 26, as Peter Craigie remarks, has a summary and all-inclusive nature: it describes the person who does not render the positive action that obedience to the law demanded. 'There is a sense', he says, 'in which the previous eleven curses are only examples, the twelfth curse making it quite clear that any action that does not elevate the words of this law brings an offender under the curse of God'. To this extent Craigie is correct. However, his ensuing comment is wide of the mark: 'the reach of the law is so all-pervasive that man cannot claim justifica tion before God on the basis of "works of the law'". 1 9 Apart from pressing the familiar theological category, 'on the basis of works of the law', which is out of keeping with Paul's own choice of words, Craigie makes two other mistakes. One is a failure to recognize that Deut. 27.15-26 revolves around idolatry, with its resultant problems. The cursed one, 'who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them', is not merely the one who falls short at various points, but the apostate and idolater. The 'reach of the law' is not perfect compliance with its demands, or anything approaching it, but fidelity to the God who graciously gave it to Israel. The other mistake is a failure to realize that the law is in fact performable. Obedience to the Torah in the Hebrew scriptures themselves (as distinct from later theologies) is never portrayed as an unobtainable goal. Rather, according to Deut. 30.11-20, it is a thing within Israel's grasp ('this commandment...is not too hard for you, neither is it far off, v. 11). One is able to say this because, again, 'keeping the law', 'obedience', and such expressions, speak of perseverance, not sinless perfection.20 The operative word of Deut. 27.26 is 'remain', as complemented by 'do' (the latter is parallel to and defined by the former). The LXX, an adaptation of which is quoted by Paul, reads: . The underlying Hebrew of is D"p\ which literally means 'to uphold' the words of the Torah. One might have
19. P. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), p. 334. 20. If there is any emphasis on 'all' (only in the LXX), it is qualitative, not quanti tative. Israel was not free to pick and choose from the variety of the commandments: each one had its peculiar importance. It is in this sense that Paul can write in Gal. 5.3 that everyone who receives circumcision is bound to keep the whole law. Ironically enough, the Judaizers do not keep 'the whole law' because of the absence of love on their part (5.14). Note how in Deut. 30.16 loving God is correlated with walking in his ways and keeping his commandments.
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expected the LXX dress of C - to be a form of . In fact, Paul T himself seems to be aware of the appropriateness of this verb, when, in Rom. 3.31, he writes, . On my reading, this means 'we uphold the [eschatological] purpose for which the law was given'. We shall see momentarily that there is an appropriateness to , one which evidently appealed to Paul. Nevertheless, the force of Wpn is not to be overlooked: the Israelite was to 'uphold' or 'support' 'the words of this law', which were given to regulate the relationship between Yahweh and his people. In so doing, one would honour one's prior faithcommitment to Yahweh. The same note of allegiance to (or renewal of) the covenant is sounded by the hiphil of * in, for example, 2 Kgs 23.3, 24. By way of further illustration, 1 Sam. 15.11, 13, Jer. 35.15, 16 present us with a study in contrast: as over against those who have broken faith with the Lord, there are individuals who have 'upheld' the Torah. At heart, then, the point of Deut. 27.26 is 'Cursed be anyone who is fundamentally disloyal to the lawanyone who does not, by his actions, show that he is on the side of the law and anxious to "make the law stand'". 21 That the LXX chose for D^p* is understandable, given that the verb 'has the meaning of remaining within a specified territory'.22 Its selection may reflect the climate in which portions of the translation took place, that is, the necessity of persevering in 'the holy covenant' ( 1 Mace. 1.15) in the face of the Hellenistic onslaught. Elsewhere, likewise means 'persevere in' (Sir. 2.10; 6.20; 11.21 [in parallel to ]; 1 Mace. 10.26, 27; Philo, Cong. 125; Josephus, Apion 2.257; cf. Num. 23.19).23 Furthermore, in other crucial passages in Deuteronomy, the kindred , as it reproduces 2 , denotes dedication to Yahweh and continuance in his ways (e.g., 11.22; 13.4; 30.20; cf. Josh 22.5; 23.8-11). In these verses, the phrase stands in parallel with the synonymous expressions 'keeping the commandments' and 'loving Yahweh'. Not surprisingly, the idea of 'remaining'/'abiding'/'cleaving' is
21. J. Bligh, Galatians: A Discussion of St Paul's Epistle (Householder Commentaries, 1; London: St Paul, 1970), p. 257. 22. H. Schlier, Der Brief an die Galater (MeyerK; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 5th edn, 1971), p. 132. 23. See also BAGD, p. 255. J.W. Wevers confirms that although plus does not display the transitive nature of the Hebrew construction of Deut. 27.26, the Greek rendering 'to abide by' or 'persist in' is not far removed from the sense of the original 'cause to stand', 'establish', 'uphold' (Notes on the Greek Text of Deuteronomy [SBLSCS, 39; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995], p. 425).
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taken up by later Jewish literature. Ben Sira, for example, more than once correlates cleaving to God with obedience (e.g., Sir. 11.22; 13.4; 30.20). To cleave (p21) to God entails dispositions such as love, fear and faith, virtues commended by the scribe throughout his book. The usage carries over into the New Testament in such passages as Jn 15.1-11, according to which the disciples must 'abide in' ( ) Christ. Habakkuk 2.4. Having confronted his opponents with a text threatening apostasy with the wrath of God, in v. 11, Paul turns to the other side of the coin, to a prophetic passage calling to mind Yahweh's vindication of his faithful people, whoare 'blessed' rather than 'cursed'. Hab. 2.4 is introduced as providing the reason why it is obvious () that . is the functional equiva lent of in the previous verse. Accordingly, for Paul it is evident that those who remain , the Judaizers and those like them, cannot be 'justified before God', simply because , the implication being that these people do not belong to the company of the righteous who will live because of their faith(fulness). Hab. 2.4 represents an outstanding instance of God's intervention to save his people (his 'righteousness'). In context, the prophet is con fronted with the impending invasion of the holy land by the Chaldeans. The fact that a nation far more sinful than Israel should be the instru ment of her judgment occasions a crisis of faith on Habakkuk's part. In the face of his pleas, God answers that in time he will punish the Chaldeans for their iniquity. In the meantime, however, the righteous of Israel will 'live', that is, by their fidelity to the covenant they will survive the enemy invasion and return to their own land. Such is the original meaning of 'the righteous will live by his faith(fulness)'. The focus is not on how one becomes righteous; but rather, the righteousness of the covenant is presupposed.24 And Yahweh's assurance to the prophet is
24. As acknowledged by H.N. Ridderbos: T h e question is not how a man shall become righteous, but how the righteous (the pious) shall live, in the full and deep sense of an unafraid and unthreatened life' (The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953], p. 124). Ridderbos, in fact, con sistently recognizes the original thrust of each of the Old Testament passages placed in service by Paul. By contrast, Ridderbos's successor on Galatians, R.Y.K. Fung, has argued elaborately for 'he who is righteous by faith' as the most appropriate sense of the Hebrew and Greek versions of Hab. 2.4 (The Epistle to the Galatians [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], pp. 143-45). However, Ridderbos is
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just that the righteous person will live through the judgment and ulti mately be vindicated ('justified') "lroiftfcU. The basic and really simple point, then, is that in the original setting it is the faith(fulness) of the righteous Israelite that will ensure his deliverance: when the judgment falls, it is reliance on the Lord himself that will see him through. Hence, Paul's ought to be rendered, 4the righteous shall live by faith(fulness)'.2<5 But faith(fulness) directed toward God could never be abstracted from the Israelite's commitment to the Torah. Indeed, the ensuing context affirms this. After the assurance that the righteous shall live by his , Hab. 2.5-17 immediately lodges a bitter complaint against the unright eous, who have forsaken the law in various regards. This rehearsal of vices eventuates in the root cause of all ungodlinessidolatry (vv. 1819).26 Instead of giving heed to the idol, a 'dumb stone', the whole earth is to keep silence in the presence of Yahweh, who is in his holy temple (v. 20). Again, Paul quite consciously draws on a passage from the Jewish scriptures that speaks directly to the issue of perseverance over against apostasy. In this particular case, he chooses one that has as its Sitz im
right: the prophet has in view the behaviour of the already righteous person. The same was conceded by J Lightfoot (St Paul 's Epistle to the Galatians [London MacMillan, 1865], 138) 25. The LXX's own is normally taken to be a reference to Yahweh's own fidelity, by which the righteous person will live However, in Greek terms, could just as well be 'objective genitive', that is, the faith(fulness) of has God as its object. Either way, there is no reason to believe that Paul has departed from the original sense of the text: 'das Sichhalten an das Wort Gottes und seine Tat' (Schlier, Galater, 133). Why Paul omits is adequately explained by F Mussner According to Mussner, Paul is not interested in the because of his christological interpretation of Habakkuk, that is, whereas concentrates on Yahweh, Paul wishes to shift attention to Jesus. It is in his christo logical application of the prophet that the life of Hab. 2.4 has special reference to 'life in Christ' (Gal 2.2). And, in like manner, ' ist fur Paulus in der tat noch mehr als 'emuna im atl.- judische Verstand. Glaube ist fur ihn vor allem nun Glaube an Jesus Christus und Eintritt in die Christusgemeinschaft, ist geradezu ein "Sein in Christus'" (Der Galaterbnef[HTKNT, 9, Freiburg Herder, 1981], 227). In any event, only the Greek is problematic The Hebrew unambiguously reads irC!CK3, designating the person's own faith(fulness). 26 Cf. how 1QS 4.9-11 attributes all kinds of vices to 'the spirit of perversity', which corresponds to the idolatrous frame of mind decried by 1QS 2 11-12, 2 263.2.
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Leben a crisis of faith in the history of Israel. As was to become the order of the day during the Greek and Roman periods, the pre-exilic people of God are forced to decide for Yahweh, despite a pagan presence pummelling them with brute violence. In view of such a daunting prospect, Habakkuk ponders the question later to be raised by Jewish Apocalyptic: Is Yahweh able to deliver his people and bring just retribu tion on their enemies? The answer is that in spite of all, those who continue to trust in him will, by virtue of that faith(fulness), survive the devastation. Accordingly, the return of the faithful remnant to the land will be their 'justification', that is, their vindication as the righteous people of God. Leviticus 18.5. In v. 12, Paul returns to the books of Moses, again to shore up a thesis. This time the thesis is: ; rather . 27 The link with Hab. 2.4 is provided by 'life', as signalled by in both verses. The choice of words, , is certainly terse, but is explicable given Paul's propensity for prepositions of origin and sphere ( and ). To say that the law is 'not of faith' is to affirm that the law and faith belong to distinctly different historical realms: the former does not occupy in the same turf in the salvation-historical continuum as the latter. It is true that Paul propounds a certain juxtaposition of believing and doing, which weshall examine below. Nevertheless, it is a juxtaposition grounded in historical factors. The section of Leviticus commencing with 17.1 and extending through 27.34 could be termed: 'maintaining the covenant with a holy God'. A wide variety of topics is covered, but the centre of gravity is that of preserving the integrity of the covenant by means of the various pro visions of the Torah. Chapter 18 in particular focuses on sexual matters.
27. Why Paul omits from the LXX of Lev. 18.5 is uncertain and prob ably should not materially affect our understanding of his intentions In any event, it does not follow that he sees this text as devoid of the principle of faith R.N. Longenecker thinks that Paul may have deleted in order to remove Lev. 18 5 from the category of the rabbinic texts that play on the term ( e , as indi cating generic humanity), so as to bring law-keeping Gentiles within its purview (Galatians [WBC, 41, Dallas Word Books, 1990], 121) One can understand how this idea would have played readily into the Judaizers' hands But even if this tradition was alive in Paul's day, it is a non sequitur that 'doing' would have been divorced from 'believing', as Longenecker seems to assume
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Given the equation of adultery with idolatry in ancient Judaism,28 one is not surprised to find discussions of it in this portion of the book (cf 20 10-21) In other words, fidelity in marital relations is a picture of Israel's devotion to her 'husband', Yahweh As a kind of heading to ch 18, recalling the preamble to the Decalogue, 2 sounds the oft-repeated note of Leviticus 'Say to the people of Israel, I am the Lord your God' These words signal both Yahweh's ownership of Israel and her peculiar privilege to have him as her God Immediately thereafter, in vv 3-4, Yahweh distinguishes his people from Egypt, from which they came, and Canaan, to which they are going These peoples have their 'statutes', but Israel is not to do them, it is, rather, Yahweh's 'ordinances' and 'statutes' that she is to 'walk in' The notion of 'walking' in itself is eloquent of perseverance, it is tantamount to 'doing' and 'keeping' the Torah (vv 4-5) 2 9 (It was, of course, the Israelite's 'walk' ["pn] in the ways of Yahweh that inspired the rabbinic category of halakah ) Hence, Yahweh's fundamental admonition to his people is that they are to repudiate the statues and, therefore, the gods of Egypt and Canaan and cleave to him alone It is none other than the marriage-like alliance between God and Israel that is epitomized by the climactic statement of 5 'You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances, by doing which a man shall live I am the Lord' Israel's loyalty to Yahweh as the Lord of the covenant is thus embodied in her diligence to observe the Torah, thereby insuring the integrity and continuance of the community The two components of 18 5 are 'do' and 'live' 'Do' is clarified by the immediate context, inasmuch as it stands in parallel to 'keeping' the commandments and 'walking' in them The point is hardly that of earning anything (with the unspoken assumption that no one actually can earn life by keeping the law) It is, instead, perseverance in the standards set
28 See D Garhngton, The Obedience of Faith' A Pauline Phrase in Historical Context (WUNT 2/38 Tubingen Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1991), pp 186-91 (esp pp 190-91) 29 Note how in Deut 10 12 'walk' is combined with other synonymous expressions 'And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul' According to Deut 13 4, instead of listening to false prophets, the people are to walk after the Lord their God, fear him, keep his commandments and obey his voice Cf Bar 4 2, 3 14, and contrast Jer 11 8, Sir 2 12-14 Wis 6 4, Tob 1 2, 14 2, Bar 1 17-19, 2 10 3 12-13 2 Mace 6 1 11 25, i Mace 34 4 Mace 2 8 23
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by Yahweh's covenant, as opposed to giving heed to the 'statutes' of the Egyptians and the Canaanites. When one 'does' the law, one acknowl edges that Yahweh is one's God and that his will alone determines the norms of covenantal life, in contrast to the licentious deities of the outside world, who permit the 'abominations' prohibited by 18.6-30. To 'do the law', in short, is to be 'obedient', that is, to remain faithful to the God who called his people out of bondage. 'Live' is likewise qualified by the covenant setting. On this basis, it is arguable that the life in question is not eschatological or eternal as such. Gordon Wenham, for example, maintains that life of Lev. 18.5 is physical and earthly, even though such a life is a happy one, in which a person enjoys God's bounty of health, children, friends and prosperity (cf. Lev. 26.3-13; Deut. 28.1-14; 30.11-20; Neh. 9.29; Ezek. 20.11).30 It is to be conceded to Wenham and others that 'live' does indeed mean primarily 'to go on living' in the land, especially in view of Ezekiel 20, the first 'commentary' on Lev. 18.5. Even so, we must reckon with the fact that in certain strands of Jewish interpretation the eschatological dimension is very much present. For example, 1QS 4.6-8 makes 'everlasting blessing and eternal joy in life without end' (2& 'TI) the extension of 'long life' and 'fruitfulness' here and now (cf. Dan. 12.2; Wis. 2.23 [passim]; 2 Mace. 7.9; 4 Mace. 15.3; 17.12). Conversely, reserved for those who follow 'the spirit of falsehood' (the apostates) are a multitude of plagues now and 'everlasting damnation', 'eternal torment' and 'endless disgrace' hereafter (1QS 4.12-14). Likewise, Targ. Ps-J. and Targ. Onq. to Lev. 18.5 both posit everlasting life as the reward of doing the Torah (cf. Lk. 10.25). Indeed, such an eschatological slant on the life of Lev. 18.5 would have played readily into Paul's hands, as he transposes the life of the Torah into eternal life in Christ.31 In sum, Lev. 18.5 is the Old Testament's classic statement of 'covenantal nomism'. The verse is 'a typical expression of what Israel saw as its obligation and promise under the covenant'; it is an expression
30. G.J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 253. J.E. Hartley agrees that life here means that 'Israel will have a secure, healthy life with sufficient goods in the promised land as God's people' (Leviticus [WBC, 4; Dallas: Word Books, 1992], p. 293). 31. It is on this note that Galatians virtually commences (1.2): Jesus' resurrection inaugurates the eternal messianic age, corresponding, as it does, to the oracles con cerning the captivity and restoration of Israel, the nation's own death and resurrection (e.g., Isa. 26.19; Ezek. 37.1-14; Hos. 6.1-2).
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of how first-century Jews would have understood righteousness, that is, 'life within the covenant, "covenantal nomism", the pattern of religion and life which marked out the righteous, the people of the covenant'. 32 Therefore, one continues to live within the covenant relationship by compliance with its terms, that is, by 'doing the law' or perseverance.33 It is life as the outcome of law-observance that doubtlessly gave rise to the expressions 'the law of life' (Sir. 17.11; 45.5) and 'the command ments of life' (Bar. 3.9; 4.1; cf. Pss. Sol. 14.2; 1QS 4.6-8; Ep. Arist. 127; 4 Ezra 14.30; Philo, Congr. 86-87).34 These commandments are no less than the very embodiment of Israel's wisdom: 'All who hold her fast will live, and those who forsake her will die' (Bar. 4.1). Deuteronomy 21.23. The final text is a return to the curse, specifically the punishment meted out to the reprobate son, who would not 'obey the voice of his parents'. However, after v. 12, the Judaizers drop out of sight and the application of the curse is now to Christ, who redeemed us , (. 13). Deuteronomy 21 is composed of a set of disparate laws relating to murder, war and family affairs. While there appears to be no unifying element to the chapter as such, vv. 18-23 form a fairly well-defined pericope: the death of the son (vv. 18-21) and his subsequent treatment (vv. 22-23). That the son is 'stubborn' and 'rebellious' is instructive in itself, because these are terms characteristic of Israel's resistance of and apostasy from Yahweh's lordship in the wilderness and afterwards. Thus, while the son's behaviour was in the first instance confined to a household, its implicit threat would be against the security and continuity of the covenant community at large. His deportment is all the more grievous because of its specific nature, that is, disobedience to parents,
32 J D G Dunn, Romans (WBC, 38 a, b, 2 vols , Dallas Word Books, 1988), , 601 33 The expression 'the doers of the law' in Rom 2 13 is modelled on Lev 18 5 and like statements The same phrase crops up in 1 Mace 2 67 ( ), where it designates loyalist Jews who would be vindicated against the Gentiles by divine justice Significant also are lQpHab 7 11,81 ( *\DVJ), 12 45 ( m i m 2?) See D Garhngton, Faith, Obedience, and Perseverance Aspects of Paul's Letter to the Romans (WUNT, 79, Tubingen Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1994), pp 67-71 34 See further C H Cosgrove, The Cross and the Spirit A Study in the Argumentation and Theology of Galatians (Macon, GA Mercer University Press, 1988), pp 90-91
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which, according to Deut. 27.16, ipso facto incurs Yahweh's curse. He is further characterized as 'a glutton and a drunkard', an index to the kind of life led by one who has rejected not only his parents but Yahweh as his God (cf. Prov. 23.20). In light of Mt. 11.19 and Lk. 7.34, 'glutton and drunkard' may have become a stereotyped idiom for 'apostate' by the first century. But be that as it may, 'glutton and drunkard' is juxtaposed to 'obey', which throughout Jewish literature uniformly signals covenant fidelity. After the evil had been purged from Israel by the death of this man (v. 21), the corpse was to be hanged on a 'tree' or 'wooden post' fV) as an example to others (cf. Num. 25.4; Josh. 10.26-27; 2 Sam. 21.6-9). This is not crucifixion as such, simply because the person was affixed to the tree after death.35 Moreover, the body was to be buried on the same day as the capital punishment, not left to suffer the further degradation of being consumed by scavengers. Even so, the hanged man was nothing less than the D^rK rbbp, the 'curse' or 'repudiation' of God, whose severity of punishment was reserved for individuals who had cursed God and in turn must incur his curse (cf. Job 2.9). The issue was not that of infringing this or that peculiarity of the Torah, but rather the repudiation of Yahweh himself, along with his chosen people. This is why the hanged man suffered 'a formal and terminal separation from the community of God's people'.36 As we shall see, it is Paul's casting of
35. In time, crucifixion came to be regarded in some circles as fulfilling Deut. 21.22-23. Especially striking is 1 lQTemple 64.6-13, a halakic interpretation of Deut. 21.22-23, which explicitly equates crucifixion with Yahweh's curse against traitors to Israel. In a similar vein, 4QpNah 5-8 possibly alludes to Deut. 21.22 in its notice that 'the lion of wrath' (Alexander Jannaeus) introduced into Palestine the practice of hanging 'living men, which was never done before in Israel'. J.A. Fitzmyer ('Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament', CBQ 40 [1978], pp. 498-507), in agreement with Y. Yadin (The Temple Scroll [3 vols.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983], I, pp. 373-79), accepts the linkage of the two passages from the scrolls and concludes that crucifixion was in fact practiced by some Jews to execute criminalsand both passages seek to justify this method of capital punishment by an application of Deut. 21.22-23. See additionally Bruce, 'Curse', pp. 31-32; M. Wilcox, '"Upon the Tree"Deut 21:22-23 in the New Testament', JBL 96 (1977), pp. 88-90; O. Betz, 'Jesus and the Temple Scroll', in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 81-85; J. Zias and J.H. Charlesworth, 'Crucifixion: Archaeology, Jesus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls', in Charlesworth (ed.), Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 277-79. 36. Craigie, Deuteronomy, p. 286.
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Jesus in the role of the apostate of Deuteronomy 21 that illumines to no small degree his modus operandi in Gal. 3.10-13. The Quotations in the Fabric of Paul's Theological/Polemical Programme The Historical Direction of Paul's Thought. Paul is concerned to delineate two arenas or spheres in which one might choose to dwell: the old age with the Torah at centre stage, or the new age with Christ occupying the forefront. This impression is again confirmed by the prepositions employed in our text, but more especially by 3.1-6, which establishes Paul's governing perspective as old age versus new age along a time-line of salvation history. Paul thus envisions a context of existence in which a person lives: one may belong either to the old or the new, but not both at the same time. One might say that his prime concern is eschatology; but it is an eschatology determinative of soteriology. In other words, salvation hinges on being on the correct side of the eschatological divide, of being 'in Christ', not . That his thought unfolds in linear/historical terms has at least one important corollary. Time-honoured terminology such as 'reliance on works of law' or the 'basis' of justification and so forth, is wide of the mark as far as Paul's own argument is concerned.37 Particularly given the broader scope of his soteriology, his overriding agenda is to establish that it is 'in Christ', in the 'new covenant' and 'in the Spirit' that one becomes the righteousness of God and escapes the 'dispensation of death' (2 Cor. 3.4-18) that was the Torah. In a nutshell, the heart of Paul's soteriology is that one becomes and then remains a faithful member of the covenant people by virtue of being 'in Christ' versus being . The focus, in other words, is on the complex of the person of Jesus and his work within the new era, not on a transactional 'basis'. One might say that lying at the heart of Paul's theology is, to
37 As is true of Paul's usage generally, the phrases , and (3.23, 4 4, 21) in Galatians (and elsewhere) have to do with the sphere m which the opponents and their followers choose to dwell, that is, in the era of the Torah, not the age of the Spirit As far as justification in particular is concerned, C.H. Cosgrove has shown that Paul characteristically construes with prepositions indicating instrumentality, not evidential basis ('Justification in Paul A Linguistic and Theological Reflection', JBL 106 [1987], esp. pp. 654-61). In his words, T h e question never becomes whether one can be justified on the basis of the law or works but remains always whether one can be justified m the sphere of the law' ('Justification', 662)
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coin a phrase, his 'christological eschatology'. If these comments are at all insightful, the texts adduced by Paul have as their primary function the delineation of one age from the other. On the one side, there is the era of the Torah. Those who cling to it are cursed because their allegiance is to the wrong epoch of salvation history. Not only has their eschatology resulted in their own undoing, their guilt is aggravated by their zeal to win others to their cause. The 'cursing' passages (Deut. 21.23; 27.26), then, have peculiar applicability to the Judaizers. The very texts to which they probably appealed to encourage Gentiles to embrace the law have been turned against them by Paul. On the other side is the era of the Spirit and the accomplishment of God's salvific designs in Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified messiah. It is only the people who are in the specifically Pauline sense (not or ) who can partake of the life proffered by Hab. 2.4 and Lev. 18.5. In keeping with Paul's use of the figure of Abraham in Gal. 3.6-9, the 'life' of these texts is accessible only as one is committed unreservedly to the new age. The 'life' texts, therefore, demarcate the era of 'the hearing of faith' from that of 'works of the law'. The Juxtaposition of Believing and Doing. Virtually every commentator recognizes that Paul, in some way or the other, plays off believing and doing, especially in the statements of vv. 11-12. But in what sense are the two set in opposition? The majority of scholars assume that they are mutually exclusive by the nature of the case: 'faith' by definition excludes 'works', and vice versa. However, in historical perspective, any dichotomy between believing and doing in the Jewish schema is simply off base: Judaism was and is as much a 'faith system' as Christianity. In attempting to untangle the inner workings of Paul's reasoning, we are helped by the recognition that he purposely distinguishes entities that are indistinguishable in the Hebrew scriptures themselves. In a manner resembling Rom. 2.13, where a wedge is driven between 'hearing' and 'doing' (a thing unthinkable to the Jewish mind), he intentionally pits one component of covenant life against another. In so doing, he presses the notion that there is another kind of 'doing the law' than the Mosaic variety, one that corresponds to the 'obedience of faith' (Rom. 1.5) which has been revealed eschatologically 'apart from the law' (Rom. 1.17; 3.21).38 The inseparability of faith and obedience in the Hebrew Bible is
38. Garlington, Faith, Obedience, p. 59.
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still intact, but both have been refocused on Jesus, the crucified messiah. It is true that v. 12 poses a problem. Its proposition, , is buttressed by the words of Lev. 18.5: . On the usual reading, Paul is taken to mean that 'the law has nothing to do with faith' in this sense: whereas the law required performance, the gospel enjoins only faith. As the argument goes, anyone who would be justified 'on the basis of works' must reckon seriously with what the Torah itself says: . However, this more or less traditional interpretation falters for two reasons. (1) Lev. 18.5, is not 'performance', but the exercise of faith within the parameters of the covenant. (2) Neither the Bible nor later Jewish theology recognizes a distinction between doing and believing: they are the two sides of the same coin.39 This means that the resolution of the problem must be sought along the lines of the historical character of Paul's argument. His is not a topical discussion of faith and works, but an epochal delineation of the respective places of and in salvation history. We are to think of two historical eras, meaning that , the period of the , cannot arise , the period of maturity (3.23-25), simply because of the chronological impossibility of the procedure (again, 3.1-5). Even if, for the sake of argument, encapsu lates a 'faith-principle', the faith in question is specifically (2.16) and which have now come to displace the era of the (3.23-25), which possessed its own kind of 'faithprinciple'. Still, What is the precise relationship of the two clauses of v. 12? If my analysis is correct that the law and (Christian) faith belong to distinct historical eras, then we may answer by paraphrasing v. 12: 'the law and faith may occupy separate historical compartments ( ), nevertheless ('), the Torah's own standard of fidelity remains intact' ( ). Now, however, the call for faithfulness has been projected into the present eschatological context, whereby 'doing the law' is redefined as faith(fulness) directed to the Christ of Paul's gospel. As regards the Judaizers, this principle of life as a result of adherence to the Torah does not apply, because they have failed to observe the law in its overall salvific design, that is, to lead Israel to Christ (3.23-25). In short, they live in the wrong age and will not relinquish the law in favour of a law-
39. The bulk of my Obedience is devoted to this proposition.
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free gospel as procured by the death of the messiah . Herein resides their apostasy. The Key Issue: Perseverance versus Apostasy, not Sinless Perfection. The Judaizers are not under the curse because they have failed to keep the law 'perfectly', but because they have proven defective in the central matter: fidelity to the God of Israel. It is in this originally intended sense of Deut. 27.26 that the opponents are cursed: they have not persevered 'in all things written in the book of the law, to do them'. 4 0 J.M. Scott maintains, rightly in my view, that Paul's use of Deut. 27.26 is grounded in the Deuteronomic theology more broadly speaking. For the apostle, this verse does not represent a 'retrograde voice of legalism' for the simple reason that he assumes the Deuteronomic perspective so prevalent in Second Temple literature, as reflected in the penitential prayer of Dan. 9.1-19 and parallel passages. The impact of this theology as imple mented by Paul is that the divine judgment begun in 587 continues on Israel and that the Jewish people remain in exile until the present day. In this regard, the tack of Gal. 3.10 resembles the employment of Isa. 52.5 in Rom. 2.24.41 All this makes extraordinarily good sense in light of the thesis herein proposed: Paul would envision the ongoing exile to be the product of Israel's latter-day 'apostasy', consisting in her unflagging zeal for the Torah and the national life. The representatives of this 'eschatological apostasy' in Galatia are the circumcision party. Proof positive to Paul that the opponents are apostate is their lack of love. According to 5.14, 'the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself" '. The appeal to Lev. 19.18 implies that the Judaizers sustain an apostate-like relationship to the covenant, because lying at the core of the covenant is the Israelite's love for Yahweh and neighbour (cf. Deut. 30.16; Mt. 22.36-40). Because they have engendered 'biting and devouring', 'provoking one another', and 'envy of one another' (5.15, 26) on the part of their followers, the opponents have disqualified themselves from being the people of God. The Judaizers do not keep 'the whole law' (5.14), because they have disregarded its
40. The various interpretations of Paul's use of Deut. 27.26 are summarized by Betz, Galatians, pp. 145-46; Stanley, 'Curse', pp. 482-86; Scott, 'Galatians 3.10', pp. 188-94. 41. Scott, 'Galatians 3.10', pp. 194-213; idem, 'Deuteronomic Tradition', pp. 657-58.
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sum and substance, its very raison d'tre.42 The relation between love and the covenant is confirmed by Deut. 30.16, which correlates loving God with walking in his ways and keeping his commandments. Paul's Underlying Presupposition. Paul, in keeping with his custom, uses the Bible in his pursuit of a theological agenda; and, as ever, agendas imply goals and their underlying tactics. In plain language, Paul works with presuppositions. Among interpreters, the most commonly supposed assumption on Paul's part (his unexpressed premise) is that the law demands a quantitative obedience which, by virtue of human sinfulness, is impossible to render. The necessary corollary of this position is that Paul insisted on perfect obedience to the law. This approach, to my mind, has been successfully rebuffed by several scholars.43 Nevertheless, I believe that Paul does assume something, namely, what has been established by the preceding portion of Galatians: the Judaizers have become 'ministers of sin' and 'transgressors' because of their preaching of 'another gospel'. Therefore, the apostasy/perseverance texts of Deut. 27.26, Hab. 2.4, Lev. 18.5 and Deut. 21.23 are directly applicable to them by virtue of role reversal. It is just in this regard that Paul's quotation of Hab. 2.4 in particular assumes significance. The opponents, understandably, were adamant that faith(fulness) was inconceivable apart from the Torah; only such faith(fulness) would stand one in good stead at the last judgment. lQpHab 8.1-3 provides a famous illustration.44 Paul, however, has detached faith(fulness) from its specifically Mosaic setting: faith(fulness) is still required, but its object is no longer the Torah (including some such figure as the Teacher of Righteousness).45 In a word, he shifts the focus
42. See D. Garlington, 'Burden Bearing and the Recovery of Offending Christians (Galatians 6:1-5)', TrinJNS 12 (1991), pp. 151-83. 43. J.D.G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), p. 171; idem, Jesus, Paul, p. 226; S. McKnight, Galatians (NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 154-55; Wright, Climax, pp. 144-45; G. Howard, Paul: Crisis in Galana (SNTSMS, 35; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1990), pp. 51-54. 44. Longenecker (Galatians, p. 119) notes that Exod. R. 23.5 couples Hab. 2.4 with Gen. 15.6, as it makes the point that the former summarizes the whole Torah in one principle: faithfulness rewarded by faith (cf. Midr. Ps. 17A.25 and b. Mak. 24a). The linkage of the two is appropriate, because both have to do with the perseverance of faith. 45. Paul thus agrees and disagrees with the Jewish interpretation of Hab 2.4 at
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of 'faith' away from the law onto the person of Christ, the new object of faith. It is by virtue of this adjustment that Hab. 2.4 can 'prove' for Paul that the righteousness of God is now revealed 'apart from the law' (3.21). To be sure, the Judaism of his day uniformly made God the object of faith (e.g., 1 Mace. 2.59, 61; cf. 4.9-11); but it is likewise true that reliance on the law was the indispensable expression of one's faith in God (e.g., 1 Mace. 2.64; Sir. 32.24-33.3). It would be a fair assessment to say that for Judaism generally God and the Torah were the twofold object of faith: to believe in the one was ipso facto to believe in the other. But over against such a conviction, Paul makes God in Christ the focal point of faith(fulness) with no further qualification. From now on, one is able to 'get in' and 'stay in' the covenant by virtue of a faith(fulness) detachable from a Mosaic standard. This being so, the totality of the Mosaic era had only one goal: to point to Jesus (Gal. 3.23-25; Rom. 10.4). In the case before us, Paul draws on a typology of the last judgment potentially discoverable in Habakkuk and the other prophets (i.e., the Babylonian captivity and return to the land) and applies it to the level of the antitype. That is to say, God's righteousness as his saving action has taken place in Christ. Therefore, the eschatological revelation of 'the righteousness of God' no longer takes account of the Mosaic context of the same righteousness. Accordingly, Hab. 2.4, for Paul, is definitive because it is the fulfilment in Jesus that clarifies the long-range intentions of God. As ever, the difference between Paul and his opponents is his conception of this particular messiah as the end-product of the scriptures. Justification. Paul is quite sure that (. 11) because (Hab. 2.4). The question, naturally, is: How does Hab. 2.4 establish Paul's proposition? Given that the prophet commends faith(fulness) as the ideal for all who would embrace the Sinai covenant, the passage seems to support the Judaizers rather than Paul (as all the other texts drawn on in 3.10-13). In a nutshell, the answer resides in alterations resulting from the Christevent. the same time (see Betz, Galatians, p. 147):fidelityis still the order of the day, but it is now to Christ, not the Torah. On Paul's 'eschatological' use of Hab 2.4, see K. Kertelge, 'Rechtfertigung ' bei Paulus: Studien zur Struktur und zum Bedeutungs gehalt des paulinischen Rechfertigungsbegriffs (NTAbh, 3; Mnster: Aschendorff, 2nd edn, 1967), pp. 89-95.
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In Habakkuk, the life of the righteous person was coextensive with his vindication ('justification') as a member of the loyal remnant who would return from captivity (e.g., Isa. 10.21-22 and many prophetic passages). In a very real sense, it was just that the people of God expected to be vindicated. Nevertheless, as in Rom. 1.17, Paul detaches (310) from its Mosaic setting and predicates faith(fulness) of the believer in Christquite irrespective of the Torahnow that the right eousness of God has been revealed in the gospel to 'all who believe' (Rom. 1.16; 3.21, etc.). It is the 'eschatological now' which marks the divide between the age of the 'flesh' and the age of the 'Spirit' (Gal. 3.3) and has refocused faith on a new object. Whereas faith(fulness) was once directed to Yahweh, who chose to keep his people distinct from the nations, from now on it is placed in the Christ of Paul's gospel who has received all without distinction. Henceforth is pointedly (= [2.20])'Christie faith'. Therefore, the Judaizers are not the 'righteous' who 'live', because their faith is anachronistic, rooted, as it is, in the wrong covenant. Their sort of faith is exercised by ( ), not by the people who are and () . All this suggests rather forcefully that role reversal is very much operative in the justification discussion of Galatians. To their consterna tion, no doubt, the opponents are informed that the rules have changed. They, who only would have expected to be vindicated and as the appropriate arena and expression of their faith, are now told that they are excluded from the community of salvation: they are no longer the who live ; they cannot be justified while they remain as they are; they are by definition. To be sure, such ideas would have appeared entirely far-fetched to the opponents, not to mention their chagrin at Paul's use of the scriptures to back up his claims. Even so, Paul is insistent that the eschatological justification/vindication/restoration of the new 'Israel of God' (Gal. 6.16) entails a reassessment of the prevailing understanding of who the 'righteous' are and the conditions under which they may expect to be justified. Paul's Christology. Apart from Paul's penchant for role reversal, his Christology must have been a factor in his assessment of his com petitors, a Christology which engendered a radically different conception than theirs of the role of the law and 'the obedience of faith' in the
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messianic age. It was, once more, Paul's 'christological eschatology' that was the deciding factor. One might ascribe a similar awe-inspiring vision of Christ to the opponents, especially as they must have been impressed by his resurrection and the advent of the Spirit on Pentecost. But it was Paul's peculiar conception of Jesus and his work that most radically drew the line of demarcation between himself and the Jewish Christian missionaries. In rather stark discontinuity with so many Jewish convic tions regarding the eternity of the Torah (e.g., Bar. 4.1; Wis. 18.4), the law, for Paul, was intended only to be provisional, a , whose purpose was to keep Israel separate from the nations until the coming of (the) faith (Gal. 3.23-25). It is, in other words, the Pauline 'in Christ' experience that has rendered all previous distinctions null and void, so that now there can be neither Jew nor Greek in him (Gal. 3.28). Thus, however valid the law may have been for its time, 'now the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law' (Rom. 3.21). Role Reversal and the Judaizers. At the risk of some repetition, a further word should be appended to the phenomenon of role reversal, which more than any other factor discloses Paul's use of the Old Testament in Gal. 3.10-13. While modern readers may marvel, as many of his Jewish contemporaries must have, at Paul's seemingly quixotic treatment of these passages, I would argue that it is understandable enough given not only certain broad assumptions, but in particular the agenda pursued up to 3.10-13(14). It is in the 'reversal of zeal' and 'ministerial role reversal' motifs of Gal. 1.1-3.9 that one finds the groundwork laid for the apostle's remarkable application of cursing and blessing texts to the Judaizers. With the passing of the tutelage of the Torah (3.23-25), faith has been redirected to a crucified messiah, who has inaugurated the age of the Spirit and has expanded the boundaries of the covenant community. But the Judaizers, in their unabated zeal for the Torah, are excluded from life and blessing. They belong to the wrong era and, consequently, their faith is misdirected. More than that, in desiring to keep intact the things that have now been torn down in Christ (2.18), they have become the latter-day 'transgressors' () and 'ministers of sin' ( ). It is they who now promote defection from Yahweh; they have transgressed with respect to God's eschatological purpose in Christ and have proven unfaithful to the one who was destined to be the of the law. Therefore, it is they,
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, o and (o) , who incur the escha tological curse pronounced by the Torah itself against apostates. It is Paul's opinion of his opponents that both explains and is confirmed by the allegory of Gal. 4.21-31. CK. Barrett once observed that as the underlying story of Gen. 21.8-14 stands, it supports the Judaizers' position rather than Paul's. Indeed, as in the case of Gen. 15.6, the incident was probably put in play by the Judaizers to further their missionary programme, and for that reason was take up by Paul as well, only with his own spin.46 In a remarkable instance of what R.B. Hays calls 'hermeneutical jujitsu',47 Paul turns the tables on the oppo nents, I would argue, just in terms of his theology of role reversal. The reason why Gen. 21.8-14 can fit his purposes is that the Judaizers are now considered to be the children of Ishmael, not Isaac; it is they, not the uncircumcised Galatians, who are to be cast out as foreigners to the covenant; it is they who are 'sinners of the Gentiles'; it is they who are born of the slave woman, 'according to the flesh' (4.22-25, 29, 30-31)! It takes little historical imagination to be convinced that the Judaizers did not conceive of themselves in such terms. Quite the contrary, from their vantage point, they had indeed entered the new age and viewed themselves as 'Jewish Christian missionaries' who were attempting to extend the reign of messiah Jesus to the nations. But as Paul saw things, they believed too much in their conviction that the messiah would preserve an unmodified Torah and Jewish societal values. From his perspective, they were for all practical purposes still in the pre-eschatological era. At best, Paul might have thought them confused about the character of the messianic age; or at worst, which seems to have been his actual assessment of them, they were perverting the plan of salvation by not recognizing that the Torah was destined to pass away in Christ. The 'cash value' of their ('other') gospel, accordingly, was that Gentiles were excluded from the covenant until such time as they became 'honorary Jews'. For Paul, this was unconscionable, because it distorted 'the truth of the gospel' (2.5, 14) beyond recognition. There would appear to be a certain resemblance between the Jewish Christian missionaries and the Qumran sect. According to 4QMMT 1220, it is none other than the blessings and cursings of Deuteronomy that
46. Barrett, 'Allegory', p. 162. Cf. Longenecker, Galatians, p. 199; HammertonKelly, 'Sacred Violence', p. 108. 47. R.B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 112.
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are said to have been fulfilled in the events contemporary with the community, that is, the priestly establishment in Jerusalem is currently under the curse because of its defection from the Torah (cf 1QS 2 5-18, 5 7b-20) After so saying, the writer of the letter encourages his readers to consider the godly kings of Israel, who feared the Torah and were seekers of it (vv 23-25) And it was just because of his concern for their welfare that he and his group sent them 'some of the precepts of the Torah (1 "2) according to our decision', so that they might be delivered from 'the plans of evil and the devices of Belial' (vv 27, 28) In like manner, the Judaizers were motivated by a sincere desire for the blessing of the Gentiles and their avoidance of the curse of the law, and it would seem that their care grew out of the same zeal for the purity of the Torah as author of 4QMMT (and 1QS) and his determination to preserve the integrity of the believing community The Ultimate Role Reversal It is none other than Jesus' own relation to the old and new communities respectively that brings us to consider the ultimate role reversalthe cursing of the messiah by the Torah By definition, the Davidic king was the representative of Yahweh and the embodiment of his righteousness Yet as startling as it must have been, Paul consigns his messiah to the curse that befell the apostate of Deut 21 23 (cf Mt 11 19, Lk 7 34) 4 8 Dunn thinks it plausible that Deut
48 It is true that Paul's adaptation of the LXX of Deut 21 23, omits the words (= ""frr *?** rbbp) This is frequently said to reflect Paul's reluctance to assert directly that Jesus was cursed by God However Fitzmyer points out that the same omission occurs in 4QpNah 3-4 8 which uses Deut 21 23 similarly to Paul ('Crucifixion', 512) See also Wilcox, 'Tree', 87 Another modification of the LXX is the substitution of for C D Stanley thinks this is because implies that the curse had aheady fallen on the victim prior to his hanging on the tree To Paul this was unacceptable because it had to be that Christ was cursed on the nee {Paul and the Language of Scripture Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature [SNTSMS 74 Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1992] 246) However it is doubtful that switching participles could make such a difference Lindars cites m Sanh 6 4, where Deut 21 23 is quoted and discussed 'None is hanged save the blasphemer and the idolater' 'The man', comments Lindars 'is not accursed because he has been hung, but hung because he is already accursed on account of his crime' Lindars then notes that Jesus, in the Gospels, was con demned before the cross {New Testament Apologetic The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations [London SCM Press, 1961], 233)
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21.23 was used in Jewish sectarian polemic against the early Christian claim that the crucified Jesus was messiah. If so, he continues, Paul's ingenuity is shown by the fact that he does not dispute the charge, but turns it to his own ends: Tor him the crucial factor was that the curse denoted a status outside the covenant, "expelled from the people of God'". Because the cursed criminal was a defilement of the land of inheritance, the curses of Deuteronomy 27 and 28 not only involved the withdrawal of covenant blessing, but climax in being put outside the promised land to live among Gentiles. T o affirm that the crucified Jesus was cursed by God, therefore, was tantamount to saying that he had been put outside the covenant, outside the people of God'. By implication, then, the resurrection, God's vindication of his son (Rom. 1.4; 1 Tim. 3.16), signified 'God's acceptance of the "outsider", the cursed law-breaker, the Gentile sinner'.49 It is the death of Jesus within the framework of covenant curse and renewal ( la Deut. 27-30) that J.M. Scott and N.T. Wright have most helpfully applied to our passage. As Wright phrases it, Gal. 3.13 in particular is not an isolated explanation of the cross or a proof text for justification by faith, or anything so atomistic. It is, rather, in his words,
the sharp expression of a theme which occupies Paul throughout the chapter: the fact that in the cross of Jesus, the Messiah, the curse of exile itself reached its height, and was dealt with once and for all, so that the blessing of covenant renewal might flow out the other side, as God always intended.
The interpretation gains in plausibility by the observation that at least some Jews of Paul's era believed that Israel was still under the curse of the exile inasmuch as the prophecies of her restoration had not been fulfilled in the expected manner. Paul thus views the cross of Jesus as the climax of the covenant curses and the commencement of Israel's restoration. In this capacity, Jesus is Israel's 'redeeming representative'. 'He is Israel, going down to death under the curse of the law, and going through that curse to the new covenant life beyond'.50 This insight tallies with Paul's stated purpose of the messiah's condemnation by the law: to redeem others from the Torah's curse (3.13). The verb 'redeemed' () is chosen because of its biblical
49. Dunn, Galatians, p. 178 (italics mine). 50. Wright, Climax, pp. 141, 151-52 (italics his). See the discussions of Climax, pp. 141-56; Scott, 'Galatians 3.10% pp. 217-221.
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associations with the liberation of slaves. Two acts of liberation in the Old Testament particularly stand out. One is the exodus from Egypt, 'the house of bondage'. The other is the new exodus from Babylon, as anticipated by the Prophets. The typological potential of this concept, of course, is exploited by the New Testament generally and not least by Paul. However, in Galatians, Paul is driving at something very specific, namely, the 'new bondage' is that of the Torah. The motif emerges clearly enough from the ensuing train of thought: (1) 3.23-25 likens life under the law to the constraints imposed by a ; (2) 4.4 has in view the redemption of 'those under the law', an especially novel idea, since, in historical perspective, 'those under the law' would have been free from (Egyptian) bondage by the nature of the case (cf. Jn 8.33); (3) 4.8-9 equates devotion to the Sinai covenant with the bondage of pagan idolatry.51 Role reversal, then, promotes further role reversal and irony is compounded by irony: the messiah is treated by Israel as an outcast and thus brings the curses of Deuteronomy to a climax; but in the process, he liberates his new people from the 'bondage' that still curses the Judaizers and potentially their admirers. The beneficiaries of Christ's redemption are 'us'. In keeping with Paul's use of personal pronouns throughout the present context, 'us' refers to that group of Jewish Christians whose main representative is the apostle himself, the erstwhile 'zealot' turned proclaimer of the gospel.52 This is the company which has come to recognize that Jesus is the terminus of the law, and that to remain would be an egregious contradiction to Yahweh's design to displace the Torah with him. It is they, by virtue of their experience of the Spirit (3.3-5; 5.16-26; 6.1), who have left the era of the 'flesh', 'the elements of the world' (4.3), in order to enter the 'new creation' (Gal. 6.15; 2 Cor. 5.17). Had they remained as they were, they would have incurred the same () as their Jewish compatriots, who have rejected Yahweh's anointed (cf. Acts 4.24-28). And as far as Paul is con cerned, the Jewish Christian missionaries are no better off than their
51. See my Faith, Obedience, pp. 39-40; N.J. Calvert, 'Abraham and Idolatry: Paul's Comparison of Obedience to the Law with Idolatry in Galatians 4.1-10', in C.A. Evans and J. A. Sanders (eds.), Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (JSNTSup, 83; SSEJC, 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), pp. 222-37. 52. In support, see Wright, Climax, pp. 143-44, 154. For a summary of opinion, see Donaldson, 'Curse', pp. 95-99 (Donaldson himself opts for the position herein taken).
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non-Christian counterparts, because their outlook on Jesus of Nazareth is not discernibly different. The parallel to 3.13 is 4.4-7: the one 'born under the law' redeems those 'under the law', that is, Jews who have entered into their true (eschatological) sonship by virtue of the combined work of Christ and the Spirit. Paul's immediate focus, then, is on the (2.15). But if even they have come to recognize that Christ is the end of the law and the deliverer from bondage, then the Gentile Galatians must as well. Otherwise, they will be subject to the same condemnation as their Judaizing mentors. But not only was Jesus 'born under the law' to 'redeem those under the law', he had to be cursed by the law 'in order that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through (the) faith' (3.14). The force of 3.14 is that Gentile Christians are equally blessed with Jewish Christians, who have received the prophetic promise of the Spirit. This is very much in keeping with the centre of gravity of Paul's teaching on the death of Christ, that is, the cross has broken down the boundary of the law in order to procure the blessing of Abraham for all. Moreover, in their prophetic contexts, 'the promise of the Spirit' is normally associated with the new exodus motif. Hence, the liberation of the latter-day exodus is applied by Paul to the eschatological 'Israel of God' (6.16), which knows no ethnic or cultural distinctions: Jew and Gentile equally are the redeemed 'sons of God' who cry 'Abba, Father' (4.4-7). In so doing, Paul joins a chorus of Jewish tradition regarding the future inclusion of the Gentiles. The difference, however, is that he announces that such expectations have been realized already in the cross-event.53 Summary and Conclusions We have argued that the key to Gal. 3.10-13 resides in an ideology of role reversal, whereby, in light of the Christ-event and the presence of the eschatological Spirit, fidelity to the God of Israel has been redefined. At one time, to cling tenaciously to the law was the sine qua non of fidelity to Yahweh. However, given that Jesus the messiah, for Paul, has abrogated the Torah, and considering that the Galatian believers received the Spirit by 'the hearing of faith', not 'works of the law', Zealot-like devotion to the law is now considered by the apostle to be the sin of
53. Donaldson, 'Curse', pp. 99-100.
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sinsapostasy, consisting in infidelity to the salvine plan of God for 'the ends of the ages' (1 Cor. 10.11). The passage contains two pivotal words: 'life' and 'curse'. 'Life' is the reward of the righteous Israelite's faith(fulness). In the first instance, this life is continued blessing in the land, including health, prosperity, family and friends, and so on. In the larger perspective, however, life is expanded to include 'eternal life', particularly as Paul regards 'life' to be the extension to others of the resurrection life of Christ. Correspondingly, 'curse' is to be defined as the death penalty reserved for the renegade to the covenant. Such a one was not permitted to live in the land, the place of God's blessing, and could not, therefore, attain to the life of the age to come. The curse was, most pointedly, 'the curse of the law'. While this phrase is open to interpretation, it would be a fair assessment to say that 'the curse of the Law is the curse which the Law brings and which, in this sense, the Law itself is'. 54 Both life and cursing (death) combine to form a complex whole, and both carry clear covenantal overtones: '"life" is the chief blessing of the covenant, as death is its chief curse'. 55 Both are developed with respect to the opponents in Galatia: they must bear the curse of exclusion from the bliss of the age to come. As regards Paul's invocation of the cursing passages in particular, Deut. 21.23 and 27.26 correspond to his own curse of Gal. 1.8-9, which could be rendered, 'Cursed be any man who is fundamentally disloyal to the gospel'. 56 There is, one might say, not only 'the curse of the law', but as well 'the curse of the gospel', a curse pronounced against those who would revert to the law. So ironically, the curse of the gospel is the eschatological curse of the law imposed on those who prefer it over the Christ of Paul's proclamation.57 But the Judaizers are not only cursed by Paul's gospel as apostates, they are, as it were, 'ministers of sin' (2.17). They not merely reject this gospel, but actively promote defection from it to their 'other gospel'. They, in other words, are in the same class as an angel who might conceivably preach such a gospel and who are for 54. Betz, Galatians, p. 149 (quoting Schlier). 55. Wright, Climax, p. 149. 56. Bligh, Galatians, p. 257. 57. Paul's is thus equivalent to , sacred cursing (e.g., Lev. 27.2829; Deut. 7.26; 30.7; Josh. 6.17-18; 7.1, 11-13). From his perspective, those who 'pervert the gospel of Christ' ( 1.7) ought to receive the same treatment as that meted out to Christ by their non-Christian Jewish compatriots. In their case, however, the curse is that of the new covenant. Paul picks up on the language of the Torah, but his application is within the framework of his gospel.
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Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 ( 1997)
that reason . Their 'apostasy' is further evident by their lack of love toward those who will not conform to their strictures. In so responding, they have eviscerated the covenant. It is role reversal resulting from the eschatological situation that opens an avenue of understanding to the problem posed at the beginning of this essay, that is, whereas Gal. 3.10a pronounces a curse upon anyone who would attempt to live by the Torah, the biblical text to which Paul appeals, Deut. 27.26, affirms just the opposite: the curse falls not on those who do the Law, but on those who fail to do it (Gal. 3.10b). My explanation is that there is an irony involved in Paul's assertion and its biblical support. That is to say, in their very keeping of the law, the opponents have not kept it, because they have not 'upheld' it in its eschatological design, that is, to point Israel to Jesus of Nazareth as the one who has done away with the barriers of separation between nations. Their 'infidelity' thus consists in their retention of a Torah that ipso facto was nationalistically restrictive.58 To state it yet another way, it is because the opponents retain their identity as Jews of the Mosaic stripe that they have failed to 'do the law'; it is because they are and that they are condemned by the Torah's curse. Therefore, given Paul's set of assumptions, Deut. 27.26 can be placed in service because doing the law is now tantamount to not doing the law. Since the turning of the ages, to live by the law is a failure to keep the law! In a word, the opponents are apostates in a newly defined eschatological sense. It is from the vantage point of eschatological role reversal that Paul's actual use of the Bible pays dividends for the exegete. The frequent assumption is that he lifts words from the Old Testament in order to provide proof texts for pet doctrines, all the while disregarding their original setting. However, without rehearsing the debate respecting the 59 bearing of context on the New Testament's use of the Scriptures, Paul, I would submit, is indeed cognizant of the original intention of the passages adduced in Gal. 3.10-13; and the more one takes this intention into account, the more light is shed on his purposes in appealing to the biblical texts in the first place. While many of Paul's readers have called into question his handling of the scriptures, it does possess its own kind
58. 59. Wrong Baker, Cf. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, pp. 228-30. See the collection of essays in G.K. Beale (ed.), The Right Doctrine from the Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: 1994), pp. 137-309.
G ARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture
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of internal consistency, one which, in his estimation, was consonant with the story of Israel and supplied him with materials to articulate his con viction that cursing and blessing are apportioned according to one's stance toward Jesus of Nazareth.60 And as scholarship continues its quest for new light on Paul's use of the Old Testament, the phenomenon of role reversal in his letters is one well worthy of further exploration.
ABSTRACT The article examines Paul's use of Deut. 27.26, Hab. 2.4, Lev. 18.5 and Deut. 21.23 in Gal. 3.10-13 In their respective contexts, each passage from the Torah addresses the issue of perseverance versus apostasy. Therefore, when Paul applies these texts to his opponents, he accuses them of being iatter-day apostates', because they have rejected the Christ of his preaching. Additionally, the essay attempts to resolve a problem: whereas Gal. 3.10a pronounces a curse upon anyone who would attempt to live by the law, the biblical text to which Paul appeals, Deut. 27.26, affirms the opposite. The proposed explanation is that there is an irony involved in Paul's assertion and its biblical support: it is in their very retention of the Torah that the opponents have not kept it, because they have not 'upheld' it in its long-range eschatological design.
60. Cf Wright, Climax, pp. 140, 144, 155; E E. Ellis, Paul's Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh" Oliver & Boyd, 1957), pp. 126-39,147-48; R.N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids* Eerdmans, 1975), 121, M Noth, '"For AH who Rely on Works of the Law are under a Curse'", in The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Studies (London. SCM Press, 1966), pp 118-31, D -A Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums. Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verstndnis der Schrift bei Paulus (BHT, 69, Tubingen* Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1986), pp. 338-40, 347-50
^ s
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Paul's Use of Scripture - Gal 3.10-13

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[JSNT 65 (1997) 85-121]

ROLE REVERSAL AND PAUL'S USE OF SCRIPTURE INGALATIANS3.10-13 Don Garlington

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

39. The bulk of my Obedience is devoted to this proposition.

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 (1997)

53. Donaldson, 'Curse', pp. 99-100.

GARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 65 ( 1997)

G ARLINGTON Role Reversal and Paul's Use of Scripture

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