When we read Paul, we must understand the polemical and pastoral character of his letters. That is principle number six. Although this idea is fairly self-evident, I have placed it after the previous principles because without them we often fail to grasp his arguments or his pastoral applications.
By polemical character, I mean that, if necessary, he engages in vigorous debate in his letters. When he does, they are specific arguments in particular time-and-place contexts. Yes, they have applications for any reader, in any generation. But only after his points of dispute have been properly identified and correctly understood.
Paul’s letters are not systematic treatises in theology.
That is such an important point. If there is any clear consensus among scholars who study Paul, it certainly is this: Paul’s letters are not systematic dissertations. They are pastoral letters concerned with practical problems in localized faith communities. Paul always wrote with specific issues in mind. If you lose sight of that, if you take a text and pull it out of the context and try to turn it into some abstract theological truth, you must do so with great caution. ”A text removed from its context,” goes the time-tested adage, “becomes a pretext.”
That is precisely what has so often happened in the Protestant Christian analysis of Paul’s writings. We forget the historical setting; we lose sight of the polemical character of his letters. We forget that he was a Jew, thought of himself as a Jew, and held the Torah in the highest regard. Remember, he is the one who said that the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good (Rom 7:12).
Paul deals with specific issues and a particular cast of characters who often are giving him (and by implication, the gentile churches) a very hard time. He responds to them in kind. In some ways, regrettably, Paul did not give us any systematic theology, particularly on the nature of the Law, the Torah. Even the book of Romans, written at the end of his life, is not a systematic treatment of theology.
Without a sensitivity to and familiarity with Second Temple period Judaism, it is easy to misconstrue what he is saying when we try to put together a coherent presentation from his letters.
As a gifted apostle, Paul wore many hats: church-planting missionary, evangelist, and prophet.
But at his core, he was a pastor, combating fundamental and egregious errors among fellow Christians (both Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus) and dealing with congregational issues, all while instructing and encouraging the faithful.
He confronted errors that, in his view, belittled the Messiah, distorted the Gospel, and misrepresented the Father’s promises and intent from the beginning. And he has no problem responding to his opponents with the same volatile language they use. If we are honest, he says things that today would be considered outrageous, provocative, and argumentative:
“Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.” “As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!”
Paul writes with passion and with fervor. He is the Messiah’s handpicked Jewish apostle to the Gentile world and is zealous for the task. That is another key point to keep in mind. Paul may speak to the Jewish believers, as he does in Romans, but all of his epistles are fundamentally written and directed to Gentiles, not to Jews. Paul is an earnest advocate for the Gentile’s place in God’s economy as part of the covenant people of God according to the promises given to Abraham.
So what are we to make of Torah’s commandments?
The very ones of which Jesus taught: Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:19).
I have found it helpful to carefully consider the pastoral implications of the apostle’s statement: For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4).
From Paul’s Hebraic perspective, how is Jesus the “end of the Law?” What does he mean? We face two choices based on the Greek word for “end” (telos) in the text.
- First, telos can mean termination or cessation. Something has come to an end. In this sense, Paul would be saying, “The Torah has terminated in Jesus.”
- Second, telos can mean the fullness, goal, purpose, or aim of something. In this sense, Paul would be saying, “The Torah has culminated in Jesus.”
The word telos is used 42 times in the New Testament. In only four or five instances does it clearly mean the finish, termination, or cessation of something. The other 37 or 38 times it means the goal, the aim, the result, or consummation of something. And yet, most translators take telos in Romans 10:4 in the former sense, as that of termination. It is overly simplistic to say their interpretation is faithful to Paul.
Let’s take a step back and ask: How can YHWH’s word, his Torah, come to an end?
How can the Father’s wisdom and guidance, his instruction and correction, cease? The Holy God is eternal; his word reveals his character, his will, and his ways. Torah in that sense cannot come to an end, can it?
Jesus did not think so, as we have seen in Matthew 5. But neither did the one who wrote the following, namely, Paul: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16-17).
The only way you can believe the Torah ceased in Jesus is if your tradition teaches you that the original covenants—represented by the Judaism of Paul’s day—presented a system of salvation based on your works, on your merit. Remove that and Paul’s primary meaning becomes clear. The Torah found its fullness in Jesus.
I understand this raises more questions than a simplistic dismissal of the Old Testament.
I am making a case for expanding our thinking beyond the Graeco-Roman “one or the other” to the more satisfying “both/and” of a Hebraic perspective. A careful and exegetically honest study of the Romans 10:4 text answers “yes” to both senses in which Jesus is the telos of the Torah. Let me explain.
Thinking biblically requires two hands. On the one hand, the Messiah is the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. In that sense, he is the end. Yet on the other hand, Jesus is the aim of the Torah. His life is God’s word lived faithfully; for us, and by the Holy Spirit, in us. Because the telos of God’s word was, is, and will always be the same… love.
I believe Paul is using telos this way in Romans 10:4.
On the one hand, he vigorously argues (against the position of the circumcision party) that Jesus is indeed the end of the Torah in the sense of its ritual requirements for admission into the community. If you remember, these agitators were promoting their own concept of righteousness; a reduced and shrunken view as opposed to the expanded view of God’s redemptive activity through Jesus. It is true for Paul that Christ ended the standard practice of becoming a proselyte to Judaism. He removed the boundary markers that separated Jews and Gentiles in the household of faith.
On the other hand, Paul is clearly saying that Jesus is the goal and purpose, the realization of God’s Torah. He is that which it pointed to, which it prophesied of; he is its fullness. The Son extends the Father’s righteousness to all who believe. We could say it this way: Paul’s orientation to God’s Word was transformed by his encounter with God’s Word made flesh. And so it must be for us.
Paul’s pastoral heart is revealed in the way he applies these things throughout his letters. But perhaps nothing is more memorable or meaningful for our discussion than these words found in Galatians: For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ […] Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the Law of Christ (5:14, 6:2).
