Professor Marcus Minninger delivered the Fall 2012 faculty lectures entitled, Did the Reformation Misread Romans? Recent Debates and a Reformed Response. This is the first lecture in the series. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, we are thankful for the very full and rich deposit of revelation that we have. in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. We are thankful for how these scriptures are to us a guide and a light, how they speak to us of our Savior and so bring us life. We're thankful for how they both encourage and rebuke, how they both build up and tear down. And we are thankful, Father, that as trends come and go and as Men live and pass away as even centuries of and eras of the church go by Your word does not fade as a flower But it abides forever and we're thankful that it is a sure and certain word that We can depend upon and that by your spirit we can understand it not necessarily perfectly or in every single detail, but still fully and well and sufficiently for our salvation and for our guidance in this life. We are thankful then, Father, to be a people of the Word, of your Word, and of course of the Word incarnate. We are thankful that Jesus Christ ministers to us through the pages of Scripture and that he has preeminence in the Church in part because of his Word. We're thankful that he interprets scripture perfectly and that the Spirit illuminates our hearts as we seek you and your will in prayer. Father, we pray that you would illuminate your word for us both this night and in other nights to come in this course. and in our lives in general, that we would take your word with the full seriousness that it deserves, and that we would submit our favored ideas or our pet notions to it, that we would in fact submit ourselves to it, and that you would have your way with us because we are under your command. Lord, we ask that you would illuminate our hearts and minds. We know that we are as sinners prone to distort Your Word. We pray that You would relieve us from this and that You would help us to be able to think and see rightly, having minds renewed by that same Spirit of Jesus Christ. So Lord, we commit our time together to You, asking for You to do Your work in us as only You can by Your Word and Spirit. These things we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you. Come on in. Have a seat wherever. All right. We had, uh, tonight, um, what I propose that we'll do is, uh, introduce the topic for the course and, uh, particularly talking about why do we need to study Romans again? Why do we need to study Romans one through three again? This is, as I'm sure you saw in the advertised literature, a course that asks the question, did the Reformation misread Romans in light of recent challenges to a Reformed interpretation of Romans, a traditional Reformed interpretation of Romans? And then it seeks to answer that question in particular by a study of Romans 1 through 3. We're going to just look at a few things tonight. Why do we need to study Romans 1 through 3 again? And what's the approach that I will take in studying it again? I have to warn you that I think tonight will be a little bit more abstract than the rest of the course. A little bit more talking about trends in scholarship and getting ready for a more nuts and bolts, careful look at the texts themselves, which we will walk through in what you might consider painstaking detail eventually. But tonight we're sort of setting the table for why do we need to do this again and what will our approach be. So, if I lose you a little bit tonight, I'll try to make everything plain and simple and clear, and I certainly want your questions, if you have them, along the way. But if you feel a little like it was up in the clouds tonight, it will come down to the text very concretely towards the end of the night, and then also much more so in detail in the coming weeks. All right, let me start by handing out this little outline, which should help you know where I'm at and where we're going. A basic, somewhat skeletal outline. Appreciate you all coming out, even on a rainy night. Interpretation doesn't take place in a vacuum. We are always reading the Bible for some reason or another, in some context or another. Things that happen in life, things that happen in history, in the world around us challenge us to read the Word, provoke us to read the Word. We go to read the Word because of things that we're concerned about. And so we're going to talk a bit tonight about our moment in history as it concerns reading the letters of the Apostle Paul and a conflict between two perspectives on doing so. So we'll start off then with point number, well, the first major subheading there or headings, current scholarship. How many of you have heard of the New Perspective? I hope all the seminary students raise their hands. How many think you know quite clearly what it is? Good. That way nobody can contradict me. No. Good. Well, that way it'll be informative. I won't be rehearsing anything that's overly familiar tonight. But I do want to talk about traditional interpretation of Romans 1 through 3. what that traditional interpretation has come to be called the old perspective by those chiefly those who have advocated a new perspective and a new perspective on Paul a new perspective on a lot of things and so you have two perspectives in conflict before we get to the new we got to review a little bit about the old so we'll talk about traditional And I should say traditional conservative or for our purposes we'll say traditional reformed interpretation of Romans 1-3. Traditionally the whole book of Romans is taken to be a sort of synopsis of Paul's theology. that it's almost like his Burkhoff, as somebody has on the table there, one of the students, his distillation of his theology, and within that, Romans 1-3, or maybe 1-4, or maybe 1-5, there's variations on a theme, but at least Romans 1-3 are essentially explaining the gospel in this sense, the gospel in the sense of how can I be saved? How individually can I be saved? So there's two sides of that. The one side is the bad news and the other side is the good news. The bad news being the truth about sin and the good news being the truth about justification by grace alone through faith alone. So, traditionally, Romans 1-3, at least, are describing the gospel. And what we mean when we say the gospel in this particular context is the basic news of these three categories, which I've listed here. Sin, condemnation, and the need for justification by faith alone. the sin of every individual in world history, without exception, their condemnation because of their sin, particularly because they not only sin, but they sin culpably. They sin against knowledge. They have knowledge from creation about who God is, yet they sin despite that. they're culpable for their sin, deserves condemnation, therefore, and can in no wise be justified by works, by obedience, but only by trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for his atoning work. So the key categories that every bit of interpretation revolves around, I've written, therefore, you sin, condemnation, justification by faith alone. And of course, that Gospel message takes as its opposite, or as its point of contrast, that which it stands over against, any attitude or message of works righteousness, any sort of legalism or optimism or failure to understand, total depravity, or whatever it might be that lends itself to an attitude of earning salvation oneself, deserving, being able to be saved by one's own merit, or something like that. So the contrast point, the opponent that Paul has in Romans 1-3, according to traditional interpretation, is works righteousness. And a basic overview of what Romans 1-3 are about, I've written there for you in your outline. Again, I don't want to be overly simplistic. There's variations on this. one commentator would cut the cake a little bit differently or write the titles of each section a little bit differently, but by and large you would say that Romans 117 announces a thesis that righteousness from God is received by faith alone. Your basic Lutheran, in the sense of Martin Luther's, realization, his paradigm shift, his own conversion experience, to see in the text of Romans 117 and elsewhere good news, not bad news, not an announcement that God is merely righteous in the sense that he will give us what we deserve, he's just in that bare sense, but that there is a righteousness from God given to us which we are to receive by faith alone. then that thesis is articulated in what follows chapter 1 verses 18 through 32. The rest of chapter 1 describes the sinfulness of Gentiles, or perhaps the sinfulness of everyone, depends on the interpreter, but most, I would say, probably still take it as the sinfulness of all Gentiles. because of the particular things that are described there. Then chapter 2 and 3, in various measures, seek to prove also the sinfulness of Jews, which of course then would account for everyone, once you've got Gentiles and Jews in the bag, with a digression of sorts in Romans 3, 1-8, And then chapter 3, 21 through 26, goes on after Paul's described the bad news, now he begins to describe the good news of justification by faith alone. Alright, so probably something you're fairly familiar with, at least the general content I hope you are familiar with, since it's central to our Reformed heritage and central to the Gospel itself. We can see that, on balance, this traditional interpretation centers on truths that are at the heart of the Gospel, at the heart of the Reformed faith, as concerns that question that Luther was plagued by. How can a sinner find a gracious God? How can I be saved? How can I individually find forgiveness, find relief, find justification from my sins. Now before we move on I think it's just important to step back and remember that this basic set of truths about the sinfulness of every human being and their deserving condemnation and being able to find justification by faith alone through Jesus Christ alone, those basic truths are truths that are based not merely on these passages in Romans 1-3, but many, many, many passages of Scripture. And just in Paul's letters, we could name a few, clearly and in somewhat protracted detail in Romans 4-5, maybe 4.2 through 8 would be in some ways as crystallized as anywhere, or Romans 5.19. Big chunks of Galatians would certainly come to mind here as well. Galatians 2.15 through 3. 14 and also elsewhere in the letter keeps echoing throughout the letter Ephesians 2 1 through 10 By grace you've been saved in that none of yourself. It is the gift of God right not of works lest anyone should boast and Philippians 3 8 through 9 as Paul talks about his own conversion experience his previous life in Judaism and now how he finds all that loss compared to the passing greatness of Christ Jesus, his Lord. So this is a frequent theme in Paul's letters, the concern for justification by faith alone, and the issue we're dealing with isn't isolated to just this one set of passages. So that's kind of a starting point, probably a starting point of some familiarity. Anybody have any questions before we move on? I imagine that much is probably not very new, which it shouldn't be. Secondly then, we'll turn to what all the fuss is about, in a sense, the so-called new perspective on Paul and its approach to some of the same information in Romans 1-3. I have two sub-points here under the new perspective because in order to understand the new perspective, you have to understand a little bit of its origins of how the logic flows out here in what it argues. Before the new perspective is a new perspective on anything else, it is a new perspective on Judaism. It's a new perspective on the ancient Judaism of the period when the Second Temple was in existence. The Second Temple not being Solomon's Temple, but the Temple of the period of the Restoration. After the First Temple was destroyed, the Second Temple was built under Ezra and Nehemiah. and lasted until 70 AD, and so that period of time in which the Second Temple stood is often used as a designation for what is called Second Temple Judaism, and means Judaism as it existed during that time period. Now whether or not we like that designation, that's the way it's referred to, and before the new perspective is anything else, it is a new perspective on this, on Second Temple Judaism, on what Judaism of that time period taught and believed and what it didn't teach and believe. So the scholars who brought about this proposed new perspective did so first and foremost on a basis of a new study of Jewish documents from this time period. rereading them and coming to the conclusion, which was sort of the main thesis, that Judaism during this time, contrary to the way it was typically represented, especially by Christians, and Protestant Christians, and even more so German Lutheran Christians, but Judaism of this time period, contrary to the way it was typically portrayed, by Christians was not legalistic. That was the thesis. And so, whereas Christians wanted to paint Second Temple Judaism as a sort of proto-Pelagianism, pull yourself up by your own moral bootstraps, works, righteousness, religion, that wasn't actually true. That was the thesis. That the Judaism of the time period was not legalistic, it was instead a religion of grace. And so the sort of original propounder of this thesis, basically, the one who gets credit at least, if that's a good thing to get credit for, goes by E.P. Sanders. And his book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, was an extensive look at, particularly Palestinian Judaism, Judaism in the geographical district of Palestine, during the Second Temple period as distinct from Judaism off throughout the Roman Empire, not in Palestine, right? And so he did a very, very lengthy, hundreds of pages of looking at these different resources, different primary documents, things written by Jews during this time period And he goes through in this painstaking effort to prove his thesis that Judaism at that time was not legalistic, it was a religion of grace. And he summarized his thesis by describing Judaism of the time period as covenantal gnomism. Covenantal gnomism. I'm not writing very clearly. nominalism well covenantal because the religion was based in God's covenant with Israel Nomism because of the law right the Prevalence of the law as a good gift to Israel to guide them, okay? now Covenantal gnomism, which is, again, the term he used to describe the views of Judaism, the theology of Judaism, boils down to covenantal gnomism. And that essentially, for our purposes at least, means especially two things, two tenets or beliefs of Judaism, as Sanders summarized it. First of all, Israel, its very existence, was predicated upon grace. It was elected by God, chosen as a nation graciously, and then God entered into a covenant with Israel also graciously, which includes the law. God elected them and made with them a covenant, bestowing his law upon them graciously. That's sort of the foundation of Judaism in Sander's viewpoint. Secondly, after that, Israel then goes on, having been graciously made the people of God and given the covenant, Israel must then go on to maintain and upkeep their position as God's favored people by obeying. and by obeying the covenant. And if they messed up, different portions of Judaism had different thoughts about what you could do to make up for that or to atone for that, to address that. You messed up, you sinned, you didn't keep the covenant. So there were sacrifices that could be made or there was the suffering of Israel would atone for what it had done, right, corporately, going to exile and sort of pay for your sins through suffering. Prayers, various means of atonement, okay. But, so that was the two essential points. Israel was made God's people graciously. They were elected by grace, they were given the covenant and the law to follow graciously, so they had a favored status before God, and that they were to maintain and upkeep that relationship by keeping the covenant, by obeying, and by doing the appropriate things to atone if they did not. Sanders' big hobby horse then was that Judaism is not crassly legalistic. Judaism is not a merit-counting religion. A, I want to have more obedience than disobedience so that someday maybe I'll be saved religion. That was his viewpoint. Now, before we get to evaluation of that, this thesis that he put forward I believe it was in 1977 his book appeared, came to be very, very influential. And it came to have quite a lot of implications. If you view Judaism as not legalistic, then the question arises, well, why did Paul, a Jew, need to become a Christian? Why did Paul convert? And then even the question for some was, did Paul really convert or did he just alter which sect of Judaism he was in? Or more specifically, for our letter, and our concerns here, If Romans is not written against works righteousness, because Jews don't believe in works righteousness, and so, for example, the Jew in Romans 2 that Paul directly addresses and comes into conflict with, that Jew wouldn't have believed in works righteousness. Then what's the big fuss? What's the disagreement about? Why are they somehow in conflict or in disagreement with one another? In other words, we're moving on by the implications. If Sanders is right that the Judaism of the time period is a religion of grace, then the conflict or the opposition that forms the Book of Romans is not an opposition between works righteousness that the Jews held and grace that the Christians held to and advocated for. That's where the rub begins to be felt in terms of implications, not just for studying Judaism, but for studying Christianity, for studying the Apostle Paul. So the options then are, if Sanders is right, the options are either Paul is not actually opposing works righteousness, or Paul is not accurately representing his opponent. as he describes his opposition with his opponent. Paul's involved in some sort of pastoral effort to rhetorically influence the Romans away from something, and in the middle of doing that, he doesn't dispassionately and fairly, on their own terms, describe his opponent. And different scholars would take different views on this matter. But either there is a genuine point of substantive disagreement between Paul and say, the Jew of Romans 2.17, that we'll look at that Jew's claims later, but Romans 2.17 directly addresses, if you call yourself a Jew, etc., etc., and he gets into this debate or conflict with either Paul, either the substance of their disagreement is something else besides legalism, besides works righteousness, or perhaps Paul is just a little bit caught up in his argument in the rhetorical moment and he isn't a scholar, right? That would be sort of what some of this He was very on edge about his concerns for that church, and so he said what he said for their good, but he's not a historian, Paul, and he wasn't seeking to sort of give an encyclopedic description of Judaism. He was just caught up in some rhetoric. Of course, then the question becomes if the conflict between Paul and Judaism isn't over works righteousness, then what is it over? So here we come to criticisms regarding views of Romans 1-3 itself. I didn't put my own sub points here. Criticisms regarding Romans 1-3 itself. I will come on to new perspective counter-proposals. What do they want to say positively in point three? But before I get ahead of myself, let's look now, if this is our general set of criticisms that the New Perspective offered about Second Temple Judaism, what people in Second Temple Judaism believed, and how we as Christians ought not to misrepresent that, which is what Sanders saw. Then let's look a little more closely at criticisms about our traditional view of Romans 1-3 itself. Before I do that, any questions on what I've said so far? Not really sanctifying, atoning. Um, well, um, uh, yeah, I mean, Sanders looks at all different sections of Jewish literature. Um, and, um, some pockets of it, um, didn't talk this way and some did, but, um, he would, he would point to specific examples where, um, it was thought that the tribulation and trials and sufferings of the Jewish people was because of their sin and was in some measure then exhausting the punishment of their sin over time. Once they had eventually paid for it, then they were restored from exile. The exile was really the big issue here. More so than something, say, in the period of the Judges or David with the Philistines, but Babylon, right? The destruction of the temple, this sort of horrific laying waste of huge parts of the promised land. Carding people off right and then of course we do see in in scripture the question why oh Lord how long oh Lord right? Till you will again restore the fortunes of Israel read the Psalter right? but the view that Israel's suffering somehow was measure for measure and Exhausted the needed wrath That's of course not a biblical idea But it would be one that some pockets of Judaism would be given towards at times. Another question? I believe he's an Episcopal, although I don't know quite how much that means to him or not. He was a professor for many, many years and I believe has stepped down. He's no longer at Duke University, a very sort of applauded, praised, what's the term, inveterate professor there over time, and very well known for this thesis. He didn't really seem to do a whole lot else, but it was considered by many to be a very revolutionary thesis that many in the academy adopted. and followed in one measure or another. So yeah. Another hand? Yeah. That's a complicated question. Yeah, I mean there's, we have to look at the Second Temple period as Well, as we have to look at most every period of the Christian Church, of God's people, as a mixture. that there was faithfulness and there was unfaithfulness. So even as the New Testament opens, you see Zachariah and Elizabeth faithfully. You see Anna, you see Simeon, those who were devout, faithful, looking for the Messiah to come. And yet you see the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the chief priests and various forms of corruption. And of course, if you look back to Israel of old, in the period of the judges, When we talk about the period of the Philistines, that was a horrendous period of Israel's history. What faithfulness really was there to point to almost at certain points? Individuals who were fairly exemplary, some of them, and not all that exemplary, others of them, and the judges. We don't have really time here to give sort of a layout of Second Temple Judaism, but I think you have to see it as a mixture as the Jews seek to come to grips with the exile, the fact that the restoration wasn't anything all that impressive outwardly in terms of their empire anymore, and the fact that they never regained autonomy. They were under Babylon, and they were under Persia, and they were under Greece, and they were under Rome, right? And they had periods of limited self-rule, and then periods where one empire or another would crack down more, and so there were a lot of different efforts to say, well, what should we be doing? And how can we reform ourselves? So, originally, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, which is another well-known sect of Judaism at the time, they were all originally reform movements. How can we purify what we're doing appropriately? Now, of course, they're based on different viewpoints of how to do that, and a lot of bad theology involved on one side or the other. Judaism comes to diversify in that time period quite a bit as different people take different views of what Israel should be doing to sort of kick-start God's plan and bring in legitimate self-rule, bring in God's kingdom, etc. Okay, so it's a complex topic, but I would say you see some crass legalism. Read 4 Ezra, although it's probably at the edge of our time period. Read, I wouldn't say maybe crass legalism, but still a very clear legalism in Wisdom of Solomon, which is in the Apocrypha. And then you see some writings that are, on the face of things, quite grace-oriented. certain of the Psalms that were found in the Qumran community, for example. So, I would say we'd have to see it as a mixture. In being a mixture, it's not different than Israel pre-exile, because they were a mixture too, but they also had ongoing faithful infallible revelation being given, and some very good leaders, whereas Israel post-Ezra Nehemiah and starts to be in a period of silence of Revelation and they start to be sort of wild a little bit more wild and woolly developing well their own new ideas all right any other pressing questions here all right criticisms regarding views of Romans 1 through 3 Conclusions from the New Perspective about what Judaism was not saying, led to a widespread reassessment about what Paul was or was not saying, including in Romans 1-3. And so, what you see then, after Sanders, and as people begin to process his thesis and add their own thoughts in, is that many age-old, long-standing questions or concerns already voiced by advocates of the traditional interpretation, things that they puzzled over in their commentaries and said, this is a difficult issue, I'm not sure exactly what to make of this. Those sorts of things came to have renewed emphasis and to be broadcast much more loudly and with the conviction that there are these interpretive challenges or questions or difficulties because you're wrong, the whole thing, more or less. So age-old, long-standing interpretive questions came to be emphasized much more strongly than they used to be and then new criticisms added on top of things that were long recognized questions and a litany of critiques of the basic view of Romans 1-3 that was long held came to be expressed. Let me tell you what some of those are. I won't be able to get to all of them, we'll maybe see some of them more as we go through the text itself, but things that challenge the traditional view that Paul is describing sin, that every single individual is sinful first, and then that he's describing, therefore, justification by faith alone over against works righteousness. Things that make you puzzle and some people would say overthrows the old view include things like this. Why does Paul along the way in his argument, describe what appear to be righteous Gentiles, in the midst of Romans 2 in particular. So, Romans 2, 13 through 15. Romans 2, 13. This is such a famous little interpretive chestnut here for that that people go around the block about that I'll just read it here Romans 2 13 for is it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified okay those who do the law will be justified so it says of course then that's where all the questions come up okay what does he mean but for our purposes right now this is where the criticism comes up So the doers of the law will be justified, verse 14, for when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness. Right? So, who are these obedient Gentiles? who, verse 13 says, those who do the law will be justified, and verse 14 says Gentiles are doing the law. Does that mean they'll be justified? Or not? Right? That's the question. Okay? Which was brought up repeatedly. You can look at also verse 27 of chapter 2, where it again describes Gentiles who are described as obeying the law and therefore condemning Jews who don't obey the law. So, obedient Gentiles. If Paul is trying to prove that every individual is sinful, why along the way does he seem to describe some who he just says they're obedient? He doesn't in parenthesis say, well, they weren't perfectly obedient. Well, they also sinned, right? So it's an argumentative question. Did we get his argument right? And that has been a long recognized question. It came to have new sort of concern, new emphasis put on it by those advocating a new perspective. Another example close by in Chapter 2, verses 5 through 10 and 12. Paul, at length, describes a judgment according to works. A judgment according to works where there's both a positive and a negative side. Where those who disobey receive tribulation and affliction and judgment. Those who obey receive glory in life and eternal life, glory, honor, peace, immortality okay seems to be that everybody's ultimate fate in that section of the letter corresponds to what they've done in life and his description doesn't only include people that come out on the negative side of that but he people that come out on the positive side of that so the question is well is that hypothetical And if it's hypothetical, no one actually comes out on the positive side. Did Paul make that clear? Okay. Now we're sort of stirring the pot here by talking about all the criticisms, but that's where we're at in our lectures. Just hold on and we'll, we'll, we'll get there eventually. But these are the sorts of things that are turned pointed to, to say, this isn't persuasive. Okay. That was, that's the criticism. This isn't persuasive. Alright, again, Paul's conviction of the Jewish opponent in the latter half of chapter 2. He engages this Jew in 2.17 and following, and he says, well, you claim this, and you claim this, and you claim this, and then he turns the tables on him by saying, well, do you commit adultery? Do you steal? Do you rob temples in 2.21-22? Now, if you look, that's three sins, and they're pretty, sort of, scandalous sins, right? Commit adultery, steal, rob temples. He doesn't say, do you sometimes envy something of your neighbors? He doesn't say, do you have secret lusts? He says, commit adultery, steal, rob temples. That's like, really bad stuff, okay? So, it doesn't seem, perhaps, all that persuasive that Has every single Jew committed adultery, stolen, or robbed temples? How is this supposed to be a conviction of every Jew? Again, another question. You sort of make a tally list of all these questions. Romans 3, 1-8. Widely considered by many a digression in Paul's argument. that for eight verses, he gets a bit sidetracked on things he really just wants to talk about later. Well, what then about the Jews' blessings from God, right? What advantage has the Jew 3.1? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. So we're talking about ways in which they were blessed, right? Well, what does that have to do with They're being guilty and proving that they're all sinful. And so people say, well, he's gotten a little bit ahead of himself in his argument. He wants to come back to that in Romans 9 through 11, the grace of God to the Jewish people because of the fathers, Abraham and so forth. And he's anticipating a bit of that argument, but it's maybe a little out of place in his argument. Well, other people would say, no, you just didn't understand the argument. You can't pull that one on us. You're just trying to cover over the fact that you haven't really gotten what he's about. So this litany of things comes up in the scholarship. This problem and that problem poking holes into this interpretation to the point of seeking to say the Reformation and Luther and those who follow that general tradition got Paul wrong. In the end, Paul and Judaism aren't different. Well, let me get back to that maybe after our break, because that's our next section. What is the issue? What are the counter proposals? Before we take a break, any questions so far? This is an incomplete list of interpretive criticisms that have been levied against traditional scholarship, lots of other ones. I recently read a book that was, well I didn't read the whole thing, thank the Lord, but it was what, like 900 pages or something? Maybe I'll grab it and show it to you, but basically revolving around saying, you know, this old view is Mrs. Paul. But any questions at this point? All right, why don't we take a break and we'll come back and move on from there.