To help properly read and hear the apostle Paul, we must grasp his use of the term “works of the Law.” That is our fourth principle.
He uses that terminology some eight or nine times, and works-based faith is how we have been taught to interpret it. So prevalent is that misunderstanding that one enormously popular translation rendered Galatians 2:16 as: Know that a man is not justified by observing the Law. The NIV is a dynamic equivalent translation that tries to convey the sense of what the original means. Yet these good and godly scholars interpreted this text in the very tradition I am calling into question.
Later editions of the NIV admitted their error by correcting it and returning to the original Greek phrasing, “works of the Law.”
We can say one thing definitively. The phrase does not refer to earning your salvation by your works, since that is a position Paul did not hold to in his Jewish worldview before or after his commitment to Christ. Paul indeed addresses the idea elsewhere, but for now, that is not what he means by “works of the Law.”
With that in mind, the first thing to know is that for Paul, “works of the Law” is a technical term. One familiar to his Jewish hearers in the First Century. To understand, we must become conversant in the argument.
For Israel, Yahweh was the one God; Yahweh alone. By his grace and in his great love, he elected the people of Israel to be the bearers of his redemption and reputation. And in electing them, he subsequently gave them the Torah to guide, to instruct, and to keep them distinct for his holy purposes. It all started with promises to Abraham. To every generation of the people of God, it was by this God’s love and grace according to his promises, not by their works.
However, over time this act of electing Israel and setting her apart from the other nations, in the fleshly mind of some Israelites, led to a twisting and distorting of that great truth. It was good news that Israel was sanctified as a light to the world. The bad news was that Israel eventually took pride in being different from the other nations, whom they thought of as inferior, as pagans.
During the Second Temple period, that set-apart reality was facing intense pressure.
First was the reality of exile and the national soul-searching that followed their return. Second was their conquest by Greece and the subsequent Seleucid rule with its intent to convert all to Greek ways. And third, Israel was suffering under the merciless hegemony of Rome. In other words, it looked like the pagans had carried the day.
So the conversation among the Jewish faithful revolved around how to be distinct, to maintain separation from Gentile ways. At least three specific signs were recognized as essential to maintaining Jewish identity: Sabbath, Circumcision, and Kashrut (food laws).
These “works of the Law” distinguished true Israelites. No other nation rested weekly on a specific day, and they called the Jews lazy for doing so. No other nation circumcised, and the Greco-Roman world looked at it as an abhorrent mutilation of the male form. And the laws of kashrut and purity traditions that developed from them strategically and effectively removed them from table fellowship with Gentiles.
In Ephesians 2, Paul gives voice to this way of thinking: Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
Being excluded from citizenship in covenant Israel seems like no big deal to us now, but to Paul it was inconceivable.
To a first-century Pharisee, there were only two groups of people in the world. The people of God were called Israel, and everybody else was called Gentiles (goyim). The word goyim literally means an ethnic group, a generic non-Jewish nation. However, it had taken on the connotation of paganism because the nations were intensely idolatrous.
He reminds us Gentiles that we were miserable and alone, dead in our trespasses and sins (2:1). That is, until the New Covenant: But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ (2:13). Before that, if you were a Gentile who wanted to follow this God, you would have to undergo an intensive conversion to become part of the Jewish community.
You had to become a proselyte. You had to offer a sacrifice at the Temple. If you were a male, you had to undergo circumcision. You had to submit to ritual immersion, and when you came out of the waters, it was as if, said the rabbis, you were born again. At that moment, you were fully Jewish and obligated to keep all of God’s commandments, as exemplified by the boundary markers of Sabbath, Circumcision, and Kashrut.
Paul was among these incredibly zealous Pharisees protecting the territory of Israel, so to speak. They were known and respected for vigorously protecting Israel’s ethnic identity and separateness from the other nations. So much so that he hunts out these ”heretics”—his Jewish brethren who now believed Jesus was the Jewish Messiah—to punish them.
This was Paul’s zeal, and these boundary markers are the central ones he refers to when he uses the technical term “works of the Law.”
In other words, these are the things that keep us in (Jews) and others out (Gentiles). The revelation of Jesus as both crucified Messiah and risen Son of God recentered Paul’s understanding on the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12.
So he continues in Ephesians: For through him [Jesus] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (2:18-22).
Can you see why Paul is so incredibly impatient, aggravated, and intolerant of the circumcision party? He used to be one of them. And he knew exactly the spirit that was driving the “works of the Law” argument. He has to challenge it. If these Jewish Christians from Jerusalem prevail in convincing Gentile Christians to take on certain aspects of the Law in order to have table fellowship, then all that Christ has done is null and void.
Here is the question Paul is answering. Is joining the faith community going to be through the old way of becoming a proselyte: being circumcised, keeping the Sabbath, and only breaking bread with those who observe laws of kashrut? Said another way, is Jewish and Gentile Christian fellowship going to be based on certain interpretations of the Torah or on Jesus himself—the Torah Incarnate?
He is rigorous and relentless in explaining while defending the latter.
In my experience, this same “works of the Law” spirit is rampant in the Christian church.
Have you ever heard of a church that says our doctrine is the only true doctrine and if you aren’t baptized right, or if you aren’t born again right, or if you don’t speak in tongues right, or if you don’t take communion the right way, etc., then you don’t belong? If you don’t do this and don’t do that, then you’re out. In other words, we have our own works of the law. We have our little, pet doctrines, some of which may have started as good teaching but have ended up as a source of pride and religious identity. Does anybody know what I am talking about? It is incredibly divisive.
You see, it was not just a Jewish issue then; the same problem still plagues us today. It is a matter of the heart. If Paul were here today, dear friends, he would castigate us in the same way he castigated his Jewish believing friends from Jerusalem. When we exhibit this religious spirit, we are wounding the body of Christ.
The issue for Paul is not legalism as it is typically defined. His point is that presumption and pride lead to division and sectarianism. The unity of the Body of Christ is at stake. Once we understand what Paul means by “works of the Law,” we see the danger in our day. That is my point.
He is not confronting people who were trying to earn salvation by their good works. At times, that is a legitimate concern, and he addresses it appropriately. For instance, in Romans 4, he argues that Abraham was justified by faith, not works. Notice he did not say “works of the Law” because his point is different. The same is true in these memorable lines from Ephesians 2:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (8-10).
In defense of Martin Luther, I am highlighting that his concern about trying to merit God’s salvation or favor through self-effort is valid. It is simply not Paul’s argument regarding “works of the Law.” Do you see the difference?
Paul is truly a wonder. Like Phinehas of old, he was zealous for God. But the very zeal that led him to persecute the church is the same in which he now defends those he formerly persecuted. And as he proclaims the Gospel of Jesus the Christ to the Gentile world, he defends them from anyone or anything that would separate them from the love of God in Jesus.
“It is by faith that you are,” he says, “part of God’s household of the faithful.” The proof is the Holy Spirit.
