Something I wrote to a friend, sharing my
‘nowhere-near-conclusive’ thoughts on “Why don’t Christians keep the Law?”…
I think - based on the work authors like Dunn,
Wright, Nanos, Witherington, etc. - that Paul was addressing an entirely
different set of questions than we are...he seems have to a different framework
in mind...and this is so because his opponents challenged him with
assumptions no longer present (or 'active') in our own day...Paul's
writing of the Law is near inseparable from the problems cropping up at the
time. Yeah I'm sure he has some 'timeless theology' underlying
everything, but the way he expresses this is sooooo juxtaposed with the
issues he was facing that I am not sure we - two millennia later
on - can ever bridge that 'epistemic distance' to obtain some
purified view of 'law and gospel' filtered of all 2nd Temple concerns...
Hence, whilst I 'work with' the popular
distinction between 'universal moral’, ‘ceremonial’ and ‘cultural’ laws, I am
unsure that the distinction is itself not 'culturally' conditioned
and, hence, as universal as I would like it to be. And after reading N.T.
Wright, I think we'd all be more cautious about saying that 'ceremonial' and
'universal' meant all that much to the Jews that time, any more than 'law' and
'grace' did... ;>)
These distinctions are good as a
hypothetical lens through which we look at laws in Scripture, but it's itself
not all that clearly stated (or at least not to me). A necessary first-step (still ‘in the air’ as far as today’s
scholarship is concerned), IMO, is to focus on what Paul himself meant
by his use of certain terms (like 'works of the law', ‘justification by faith’,
etc.) using his assumptions, his storyline.
Well, "Why do Christians not keep the
Law?", the tentative answer I'd give - in keeping with my undergrad
level of theological training (grin) - is:
Formerly, the Law was given to the Jews as some
kind of 'badge' denoting their membership in the people of God...when Christ
died and rose for us, we have a NEW 'badge' i.e. faith in Him as Lord and
Saviour of the World (a’la Wright, Dunn and many others). This is what ‘justification by faith’ refers
to, NOT the ‘process’ of salvation through trusting in promises (as opposed to
‘moral efforts’) but how the saved people are IDENTIFIED given their ‘new
covenant’ status (this is obviously contrasted with ‘justification by works’
whereby the Jews reflected their salvific status through observance of Torah.)
Christ’s life, death and resurrection was the
fulfilment of the Jewish Law itself; it pointed to Him...therefore, ritual
observances performed with the intention to DISCRIMINATE Jews from
non-Jews have been abolished (so maybe it's the INTENTION that's key here, not
the actual DOING?)...maybe we Gentiles ARE allowed to be
circumcised, just as long as we do not believe that this adds anything to our
status as God's people - but in that case, why do it?)
Still, SOME laws would be expected by
BOTH Jews and non-Jews as necessary praxis of a people under God (Thielman is
good here)...I'm not sure what ALL these specifically are, but I do
know that whatever we do, we cannot contradict the 'law of Christ' which
is to love God and neighbour i.e. love seems to 'bind' everything together in
the new covenant.
However, I am uncertain if the original
question would be a valid one to Christians who are also Jews, as
per Mark Nanos' thesis...for there could be a case for the continued
observance of certain aspects of the law as an expression of Jewish-ness,
as long as there's no discrimination of Gentiles...
As is plain to see, I'm still 'working on it'...*big bland smile*...
AL