Paul on the law?
Re: Paul on the law?
Indeed.karenprtlnd wrote:...... is difficult.
Holy and perfect."To look in the mirror at ourselves, without "the law"......is apprehendable. And it implies something beautiful about "the law". About Christ. Not ourselves.Why would anyone in there right mind, in an open free america, consider Christ? Because it is beautiful.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
You Are Israel
Sabbath Truth
Heavenly Sanctuary
You Are Israel
Sabbath Truth
Heavenly Sanctuary
Re: Paul on the law?
Psa 19:7 The law of the LORD [is] perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD [is] sure, making wise the simple.karenprtlnd wrote:No. Because it is beautiful.
Rom 7:12 Wherefore the law [is] holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
In order for beauty to be in the eye of the beholder they have to grasp what they are looking at. It that sense the law is indeed "beautiful."
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
You Are Israel
Sabbath Truth
Heavenly Sanctuary
You Are Israel
Sabbath Truth
Heavenly Sanctuary
Re: Paul on the law?
Think of it this way, If we only had the writings of the first-century Jewish historian Josephus we would only know about John the Baptist, Jesus the Christ, and James the brother, but we would not know that, for example, Peter or Paul ever existed. And if we calculated comparative importance by amount of space, the ranking would be, first, James with 27 lines of Greek in the Jewish Antiquities 20.199-203, then John with 24 lines in 18.116-19, and finally Jesus with 13 lines in 18.63-64. James, in other words, gets twice the space of his brother Jesus.
Around the end of the first century C.E., Luke records in the second volume, Acts, that the Roman appointed ruler of Palestine Herod Agrippa I, executed "James, the brother of John" (Acts 12:2). Both James and John had been identified as "sons of Zebedee" in his gospel (Luke 5:10). Agrippa also imprisoned Peter at that time in 41 C.E., and when he escaped, Peter said, and Acts 12:17, to "tell this to James," clearly not the just-executed James but another with the same name. Luke never identifies this second James any further but his authority is indicated as recipient of that message and I conclude that he is the same James who later acts the most authoritatively in Acts 15:13 and 21:18. Furthermore, the earliest gospel, Mark, identifies a James in the first place among the four brothers of Jesus (Mark 6:3), and Matthew 13:55 followed Mark in that listing, but Luke omitted it entirely.
In summary, then you would know from Luke that there was a second and very important James but you would never know from either of Luke's volumes that James was in fact the brother of Jesus.
On the other hand, none of Paul's letters in the New Testament dating to the 40s and 50s ever mentioned James, son of Zebedee, brother of John.
Note, too! James had lived in Jerusalem for at least 30 years without incurring anti-Christian persecution and his execution toppled a high priests. James was clearly important not just to the Christian Jews but also to non-Christian Jews and presumably to Pharisaic Jews in Jerusalem, who called for the removel of the high priests
Ananite for the crime of executing James “the Just”.
James made it clear to Paul in Acts 21:20 And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,
Just what point was James trying to make to Paul?
The most significant point about James, however, is not his authority within early Christianity. Nor is it is martyrdom, which like his brothers, was due to his opposition of the high priest. The most significant point about James is his opposition to Paul. This is already evident and Paul's letters to Galatians. It is, on the one hand, programmatically absent from Luke's Acts and represents one of those basic locations where one should not collate and combined Paul and Luke, not collapse the distinct layers into one single layer, but separate and distinguish the earlier Paul over Luke, not collapse these distinct layers into one single layer, but separate and distinguish earlier Paul over the later Luke. It is, on the other hand, fictionally expanded and fantastically heightened in a still later layer, the second century source within the Christian novel known as the Clementine Recongnitions. This raises a very important question for excavating Jesus textually. What happens if you look at Jesus through his brother James rather than, or at least as well as, through his apostle Paul?
Paul and Luke. there was, Luke and Paul agree, a crucially important debate in Jerusalem around the year 50 C.E. on whether male pagan converts to Christianity would have to be circumcised before they could be excepted into full and equal membership alongside male Jewish converts who were, of course, already circumcised. They also agreed that the source of the affirmation, or restrictive, position (yes to male pagan circumcision) came from "certain individuals," as Luke puts it an Act 15:1, or from "false believers," as Paul puts it in Galatians 2:4. That difference is a good indication come by the way, of their divergent narrative tones: for Luke, all is irenic consensus; for Paul, all is polemical tension. They further agreed that the final decision was in the negative (no to male pagan circumcision). Finally, they agree that James was quite important in the entire proceedings. Luke records that Peter, Barnabas, and Paul spoke first, and James last. But it is James who concludes that "I have reach the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God" by demanding that their males be circumcised (Acts 15:19). Paul again concurs "That when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised" (Galatians 2:9). But granted those general and important agreements, everything else is specific and is in equally important disagreement.
Acts 15 vs. Galatians 2. In the later Act 15, Luke speaks of one single debate, at one time in Jerusalem, with one result, complete harmony on both that first original subject (no to circumcision traditions for pagan male converts). In the earlier Galatians 2, Paul, on the other hand, speaks of two debates come at two times in Jerusalem (2:1-10) and Antioch (2:11-16), and with harmonious consensus on the first subject but severe discord on the second one.
On the former subject, there was, as just mentioned, agreement by all (save, presumably, Luke's "certain individuals" and Paul's "false believers"?). That position would have been accepted to somebody like James because one strand of Jewish tradition held that God would bring the Gentiles into full committee with Jews at that ideal utopian or eschato-logical moment in the future when God finally made the earth divinely just. Gentiles would then be converted not to Judaism, with male circumcision, for example, but to the God of the entire world. Jews and Gentiles would then feast together with God on a pure, just, peaceful, and fruitful earth. It was a vision of God's eventual justification and pacification of a violent earth not by the great final war at Mount Megiddo (Armageddon) in which evildoers would be finally slaughtered but by the great final banquet on Mount Zion in which the evildoers would be finally converted. Recall, for instant, the rhapsodic images of Micah 4:1-4 and Isaiah 2:2-4 on cosmic peace:
Isa 25:6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
Against that background and within precisely that irenic tradition of eschatological apocalypticism, James and all the others (save for some dissident holdouts?) agree that circumcision was not mandatory for male pagan converts to Christian Judaism.
Galatians 2: 11-17. It was, however, on that second subject that Luke and Paul disagree both profoundly and directly. Paul sets this second debate not at Jerusalem but at later Antioch. What was at stake was no more and no less than the present and future unity of the new community. Would there be two separate, unequal, and maybe even inimical wings to that new Christian community, a Christian Jewish one observing kosher regulations and a Christian pagan one not doing so? And that question was especially acute because a united community of Jews and Gentiles eating together would have to go one way or the other. Either altogether would observe kosher, with Christian pagans conceding to Christian Jews, or altogether would avoid kosher, with Christian Jews conceding to Christian pagans. The whole problem, of course, arose only where such joint assemblies were already taking place or might eventually do so.
That second subject was not about circumcision. That was already conceded by James at Jerusalem and has not been retracted by James at Antioch. And neither was it about Christian pagans observing kosher all by themselves in, say, Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome. It was precisely and accurately about and only about common meals when Jewish and pagan converts ate together in religious assembly. Here is Paul's account of the debate, dispute, or row, at Antioch in Galatians 2:11-16:
Gal 2:11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?" 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Centuries of Christian commentary have presume that Paul was obviously right in that debate. What if he was “possibly” not?
To be continued!
I pulled this from a book I have been reading... Excavating Jesus Beneath the Stones, Behind the Text The Key Discoveries for Understanding Jesus in His World By John Crossan and Jonathan Reed
Paul
Around the end of the first century C.E., Luke records in the second volume, Acts, that the Roman appointed ruler of Palestine Herod Agrippa I, executed "James, the brother of John" (Acts 12:2). Both James and John had been identified as "sons of Zebedee" in his gospel (Luke 5:10). Agrippa also imprisoned Peter at that time in 41 C.E., and when he escaped, Peter said, and Acts 12:17, to "tell this to James," clearly not the just-executed James but another with the same name. Luke never identifies this second James any further but his authority is indicated as recipient of that message and I conclude that he is the same James who later acts the most authoritatively in Acts 15:13 and 21:18. Furthermore, the earliest gospel, Mark, identifies a James in the first place among the four brothers of Jesus (Mark 6:3), and Matthew 13:55 followed Mark in that listing, but Luke omitted it entirely.
In summary, then you would know from Luke that there was a second and very important James but you would never know from either of Luke's volumes that James was in fact the brother of Jesus.
On the other hand, none of Paul's letters in the New Testament dating to the 40s and 50s ever mentioned James, son of Zebedee, brother of John.
Note, too! James had lived in Jerusalem for at least 30 years without incurring anti-Christian persecution and his execution toppled a high priests. James was clearly important not just to the Christian Jews but also to non-Christian Jews and presumably to Pharisaic Jews in Jerusalem, who called for the removel of the high priests
Ananite for the crime of executing James “the Just”.
James made it clear to Paul in Acts 21:20 And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,
Just what point was James trying to make to Paul?
The most significant point about James, however, is not his authority within early Christianity. Nor is it is martyrdom, which like his brothers, was due to his opposition of the high priest. The most significant point about James is his opposition to Paul. This is already evident and Paul's letters to Galatians. It is, on the one hand, programmatically absent from Luke's Acts and represents one of those basic locations where one should not collate and combined Paul and Luke, not collapse the distinct layers into one single layer, but separate and distinguish the earlier Paul over Luke, not collapse these distinct layers into one single layer, but separate and distinguish earlier Paul over the later Luke. It is, on the other hand, fictionally expanded and fantastically heightened in a still later layer, the second century source within the Christian novel known as the Clementine Recongnitions. This raises a very important question for excavating Jesus textually. What happens if you look at Jesus through his brother James rather than, or at least as well as, through his apostle Paul?
Paul and Luke. there was, Luke and Paul agree, a crucially important debate in Jerusalem around the year 50 C.E. on whether male pagan converts to Christianity would have to be circumcised before they could be excepted into full and equal membership alongside male Jewish converts who were, of course, already circumcised. They also agreed that the source of the affirmation, or restrictive, position (yes to male pagan circumcision) came from "certain individuals," as Luke puts it an Act 15:1, or from "false believers," as Paul puts it in Galatians 2:4. That difference is a good indication come by the way, of their divergent narrative tones: for Luke, all is irenic consensus; for Paul, all is polemical tension. They further agreed that the final decision was in the negative (no to male pagan circumcision). Finally, they agree that James was quite important in the entire proceedings. Luke records that Peter, Barnabas, and Paul spoke first, and James last. But it is James who concludes that "I have reach the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God" by demanding that their males be circumcised (Acts 15:19). Paul again concurs "That when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised" (Galatians 2:9). But granted those general and important agreements, everything else is specific and is in equally important disagreement.
Acts 15 vs. Galatians 2. In the later Act 15, Luke speaks of one single debate, at one time in Jerusalem, with one result, complete harmony on both that first original subject (no to circumcision traditions for pagan male converts). In the earlier Galatians 2, Paul, on the other hand, speaks of two debates come at two times in Jerusalem (2:1-10) and Antioch (2:11-16), and with harmonious consensus on the first subject but severe discord on the second one.
On the former subject, there was, as just mentioned, agreement by all (save, presumably, Luke's "certain individuals" and Paul's "false believers"?). That position would have been accepted to somebody like James because one strand of Jewish tradition held that God would bring the Gentiles into full committee with Jews at that ideal utopian or eschato-logical moment in the future when God finally made the earth divinely just. Gentiles would then be converted not to Judaism, with male circumcision, for example, but to the God of the entire world. Jews and Gentiles would then feast together with God on a pure, just, peaceful, and fruitful earth. It was a vision of God's eventual justification and pacification of a violent earth not by the great final war at Mount Megiddo (Armageddon) in which evildoers would be finally slaughtered but by the great final banquet on Mount Zion in which the evildoers would be finally converted. Recall, for instant, the rhapsodic images of Micah 4:1-4 and Isaiah 2:2-4 on cosmic peace:
Isa 25:6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
Against that background and within precisely that irenic tradition of eschatological apocalypticism, James and all the others (save for some dissident holdouts?) agree that circumcision was not mandatory for male pagan converts to Christian Judaism.
Galatians 2: 11-17. It was, however, on that second subject that Luke and Paul disagree both profoundly and directly. Paul sets this second debate not at Jerusalem but at later Antioch. What was at stake was no more and no less than the present and future unity of the new community. Would there be two separate, unequal, and maybe even inimical wings to that new Christian community, a Christian Jewish one observing kosher regulations and a Christian pagan one not doing so? And that question was especially acute because a united community of Jews and Gentiles eating together would have to go one way or the other. Either altogether would observe kosher, with Christian pagans conceding to Christian Jews, or altogether would avoid kosher, with Christian Jews conceding to Christian pagans. The whole problem, of course, arose only where such joint assemblies were already taking place or might eventually do so.
That second subject was not about circumcision. That was already conceded by James at Jerusalem and has not been retracted by James at Antioch. And neither was it about Christian pagans observing kosher all by themselves in, say, Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome. It was precisely and accurately about and only about common meals when Jewish and pagan converts ate together in religious assembly. Here is Paul's account of the debate, dispute, or row, at Antioch in Galatians 2:11-16:
Gal 2:11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?" 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Centuries of Christian commentary have presume that Paul was obviously right in that debate. What if he was “possibly” not?
To be continued!
I pulled this from a book I have been reading... Excavating Jesus Beneath the Stones, Behind the Text The Key Discoveries for Understanding Jesus in His World By John Crossan and Jonathan Reed
Paul
Re: Paul on the law?
First, non-circumcision for male pagan converts was worth an absolute non-negotiable position and James had agreed to that position at Jerusalem. Without that agreement Christian paganism would have died at birth if not conception. Second, and only as second, could a further question arise, namely, in joint (Eucharistic?) meals between Christian Jews and Christian pagans, will unity be maintained by common kosher or common nonkosher custom? Third, read again Paul's accusation against Peter. We interpret that says to mean that Peter, a Christian Jew, had been observing the common nonkosher solution when eating with Christian pagans. And so, apparently, were (several, many, all?) Other Christian Jews at Antioch. But now that they have agreed to James demand for the common kosher solution. Such a change from nonkosher for all to kosher for all, Paul twice condemns as hypocrisy. The assembly’s response to Paul is not given but, no doubt, they would have said that, no Paul, it is not hypocrisy but simply courtesy. Fourth, this is a pragmatic question against which Paul mounts an in this case irrelevant argument. Had Peter and the others ever believed that kosher was still mandatory for their salvation, they could not so easily omitted it.
The question at Antioch was not fundamentally different from modern, believing Christians observing all Jewish customs while eating in a Jewish home or praying in a Jewish temple. It would not be a question of communal hypocrisy but of ecumenical courtesy now, and it would also have been a question of communal unity then. Finally, to this pragmatic question Paul introduces "works of the law" three times and opposes to them "faith in Christ" three times. Paul's antithesis of base and works might be theologically justifiable in the abstract but for that pragmatic question at Antioch it was irrelevant in the concrete. Does anyone believe that James, Peter, Barnabas, and all the others (save Paul) had opted for justification by "works of the Law" rather than "faith in Christ"? Paul's position (at least as recorded to the Galatians) was akin to machine gunning butterflies. James, Peter, Barnabas, and all the others who agree with him, were right at Antioch. Paul was wrong at Antioch.
Romans 15 and Acts 21. There is one final New Testament indication of James authority in Jerusalem and here, once again, Paul and Luke differ profoundly but now indirectly. Before, but especially after, the Jerusalem decision on circumcision, the groups unity was an obvious and fundamental problem. And Paul was very aware of it. That was why he agree enthusiastically and followed up conscientiously on the common decision to take up a collection from Christian pagans for those Christian Jews known as "the poor" in Jerusalem (a common-life community like at Qumran?). After James and the Jerusalem "pillars" excepted the non-circumcision of male pagan converts, "they asked," he said in Galatians 2:10, "only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do." But, while Paul discussed that collection repeatedly in his letters, Luke's Acts never mentions it all. There are, however, sections and that book that makes sense only if Luke (or at least his sources) new about it and presumed its existence and operation.
Paul discusses his plans for delivering the collection to Jerusalem in Romans 15:25-27, 30-31 and he acknowledges two dangers that may well destroyed its function as a unifying process between Christian Jews and Christian pagans:
At present, however, you want to Jerusalem and Ministry to the Saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share the resources with the poor among the Saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owed it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things… I appealed to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf, that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my ministry to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the Saints.
The external danger was opposition from non-Christian Jews and the internal danger was rejection by the Christian Jews. Both happened. And knowing they both might happen, Paul still accompanied the collection instead of sending it with community representatives. For Paul, the unity of community’s twin wings was important enough to except the task of martyrdom. But in Acts 21:17-25, although he never mentions any collection, Luke tells, in effect, how both of Paul the fears were realized at Jerusalem. James and the Christian Jewish community place a condition on the collection’s acceptance and, when Paul follow that, he was attacked by non-Christians use in the Temple. Here is their condition:
When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us warmly. The next they all went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his Ministry. When they heard it, they praise God. Then they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands of believers were among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. They had been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcised their childrenor observe the customs. What will be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. So do what we tell you. We have four man who were under a vow. Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and blood and from what is strangled and from fortification.”
That text is cited as one further indication of James authority in Jerusalem and of the continuing tension, carefully muted by Luke in Acts 21 as earlier in Acts 15, between James and Paul. The latter was now in a terrible double bind. One alternative was to refuse James’s condition, except the collection’s rejection, and acknowledge Christianity’s split condition. The other was to follow James condition, deliver the collection and thereby emphasize unity, but risk the charge of hypocrisy that he himself had leveled at Peter.
Epistle of James. The “James” of this New Testament epistle is not identified any further but he is almost certainly James the righteous or Just One, James, the son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus. That “Epistle of” could mean anything from personal authorship through developed teachings to fictional attribution. Each position is defensible but none is absolutely provable. For here and now, we emphasized only one point. If you try to imagine the theology of James from a careful examination of the layers imposed of Luke’s Acts, Paul’s Galatians, and Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, you could easily come up with something like the content of the epistle attributed to him.
Paul insisted in Galatians 2:11-17, as just seen, on justification through faith in Christ rather than in the works of the law, an argument simply irreverent to the pragmatic problem at Antioch, which was about maintaining unity rather than obtaining justification. James does not respond, in his 2:14-19, that justification comes from works rather than from faith or from either alone (would any Jew have ever argued those positions?), but he argues that it comes from faith and works together, from faith operating through works, from faith manifested by works, from faith’s inability to be separated from works.
Jam 2:14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
Faith and works are like twin sides of the one coin, distinguishable but not separable, a dialectic, not a dichotomy. It’s quite possible to argue that James and Paul meant different things by their common terms, faith and works, by their common use of Abraham as a model, and by their common citation of Genesis 16:5 (“Abraham believed God, and it was reckon to him as righteousness”), James 2:23, Galatians 3:6, and Romans 4:3.
James 2:23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called the friend of God.
Gal 3:6 Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Rom 4:3 For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS."
It is also quite possible, therefore, to claim that James 2:14-19 is arguing past Paul’s position but, then, so was Paul arguing pass that obtains and everyone else in Galatians 2: 11-17.
Gal 2:11 But when Cephas( Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? "We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. "But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be!
We have, once again, to imagine how differently we would see the situation Antioch if we imagine that, not Paul, but James (and everyone else) had the better case.
The question at Antioch was not fundamentally different from modern, believing Christians observing all Jewish customs while eating in a Jewish home or praying in a Jewish temple. It would not be a question of communal hypocrisy but of ecumenical courtesy now, and it would also have been a question of communal unity then. Finally, to this pragmatic question Paul introduces "works of the law" three times and opposes to them "faith in Christ" three times. Paul's antithesis of base and works might be theologically justifiable in the abstract but for that pragmatic question at Antioch it was irrelevant in the concrete. Does anyone believe that James, Peter, Barnabas, and all the others (save Paul) had opted for justification by "works of the Law" rather than "faith in Christ"? Paul's position (at least as recorded to the Galatians) was akin to machine gunning butterflies. James, Peter, Barnabas, and all the others who agree with him, were right at Antioch. Paul was wrong at Antioch.
Romans 15 and Acts 21. There is one final New Testament indication of James authority in Jerusalem and here, once again, Paul and Luke differ profoundly but now indirectly. Before, but especially after, the Jerusalem decision on circumcision, the groups unity was an obvious and fundamental problem. And Paul was very aware of it. That was why he agree enthusiastically and followed up conscientiously on the common decision to take up a collection from Christian pagans for those Christian Jews known as "the poor" in Jerusalem (a common-life community like at Qumran?). After James and the Jerusalem "pillars" excepted the non-circumcision of male pagan converts, "they asked," he said in Galatians 2:10, "only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do." But, while Paul discussed that collection repeatedly in his letters, Luke's Acts never mentions it all. There are, however, sections and that book that makes sense only if Luke (or at least his sources) new about it and presumed its existence and operation.
Paul discusses his plans for delivering the collection to Jerusalem in Romans 15:25-27, 30-31 and he acknowledges two dangers that may well destroyed its function as a unifying process between Christian Jews and Christian pagans:
At present, however, you want to Jerusalem and Ministry to the Saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share the resources with the poor among the Saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owed it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things… I appealed to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf, that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my ministry to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the Saints.
The external danger was opposition from non-Christian Jews and the internal danger was rejection by the Christian Jews. Both happened. And knowing they both might happen, Paul still accompanied the collection instead of sending it with community representatives. For Paul, the unity of community’s twin wings was important enough to except the task of martyrdom. But in Acts 21:17-25, although he never mentions any collection, Luke tells, in effect, how both of Paul the fears were realized at Jerusalem. James and the Christian Jewish community place a condition on the collection’s acceptance and, when Paul follow that, he was attacked by non-Christians use in the Temple. Here is their condition:
When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us warmly. The next they all went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his Ministry. When they heard it, they praise God. Then they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands of believers were among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. They had been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcised their childrenor observe the customs. What will be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. So do what we tell you. We have four man who were under a vow. Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and blood and from what is strangled and from fortification.”
That text is cited as one further indication of James authority in Jerusalem and of the continuing tension, carefully muted by Luke in Acts 21 as earlier in Acts 15, between James and Paul. The latter was now in a terrible double bind. One alternative was to refuse James’s condition, except the collection’s rejection, and acknowledge Christianity’s split condition. The other was to follow James condition, deliver the collection and thereby emphasize unity, but risk the charge of hypocrisy that he himself had leveled at Peter.
Epistle of James. The “James” of this New Testament epistle is not identified any further but he is almost certainly James the righteous or Just One, James, the son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus. That “Epistle of” could mean anything from personal authorship through developed teachings to fictional attribution. Each position is defensible but none is absolutely provable. For here and now, we emphasized only one point. If you try to imagine the theology of James from a careful examination of the layers imposed of Luke’s Acts, Paul’s Galatians, and Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, you could easily come up with something like the content of the epistle attributed to him.
Paul insisted in Galatians 2:11-17, as just seen, on justification through faith in Christ rather than in the works of the law, an argument simply irreverent to the pragmatic problem at Antioch, which was about maintaining unity rather than obtaining justification. James does not respond, in his 2:14-19, that justification comes from works rather than from faith or from either alone (would any Jew have ever argued those positions?), but he argues that it comes from faith and works together, from faith operating through works, from faith manifested by works, from faith’s inability to be separated from works.
Jam 2:14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
Faith and works are like twin sides of the one coin, distinguishable but not separable, a dialectic, not a dichotomy. It’s quite possible to argue that James and Paul meant different things by their common terms, faith and works, by their common use of Abraham as a model, and by their common citation of Genesis 16:5 (“Abraham believed God, and it was reckon to him as righteousness”), James 2:23, Galatians 3:6, and Romans 4:3.
James 2:23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called the friend of God.
Gal 3:6 Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Rom 4:3 For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS."
It is also quite possible, therefore, to claim that James 2:14-19 is arguing past Paul’s position but, then, so was Paul arguing pass that obtains and everyone else in Galatians 2: 11-17.
Gal 2:11 But when Cephas( Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? "We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. "But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be!
We have, once again, to imagine how differently we would see the situation Antioch if we imagine that, not Paul, but James (and everyone else) had the better case.
Re: Paul on the law?
Paul,
Are you in agreement with the "Jesus Seminar" folks (Borg, Crossan, et al)?
Are you in agreement with the "Jesus Seminar" folks (Borg, Crossan, et al)?
Re: Paul on the law?
I have heard of them but I'm not familiar with their work/studies. If I remember correctly, it is a group of scholars trying to pick out of the bible just the sayings/words or teachings of Jesus? I could be wrong?Homer wrote:Paul,
Are you in agreement with the "Jesus Seminar" folks (Borg, Crossan, et al)?
Paul