INTERPRETIVE PERSPECTIVES ON THE APOSTLE PAUL Romans and the âLutheranâ Paul
Stephen Westerholm
Known today simply as an empiricist philosopher, John Locke (1632â1704) was also seen in the past as a careful student of Paul. His Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul was widely read throughout the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth. In the preface to his Paraphrase, Locke noted the dangers faced by readers of Paul who consult commentators on the apostleâs writings. On the one hand, some consult only those commentators whom they consider âsound and Orthodox.â Naturally, they find in those works only what confirms their own opinions: hardly, Locke insisted, the way to arrive at Paulâs âtrue Meaning.â On the other hand, there are those who consult a variety of commentators, excluding none âwho offers to enlighten them in any of the dark Passages.â The problem for these readers is that they emerge from the exercise âdistracted with an hundred [interpretations], suggested by those they advised with; and so instead of that one Sense of the Scripture which they carried with them to their Commentators, return from them with none at all.â If readers of the first type find their own rather than Paulâs intended sense, the latter âfind no settled Sense at all.â1
The quandary in which, according to Locke, readers of diverse commentators found themselves in his day is, if anything, a still greater dilemma for those today who attempt to keep abreast of Pauline scholarshipâas the present volume itself amply demonstrates. And yet, if Scripture is to be the final authority for believersâ faith and practice, then what it requires them to believe and do must be accessible to them. Protestant talk of sola scriptura has always been accompanied by a conviction about Scriptureâs perspicuity: the belief that, in all that is essential, the meaning of Scripture is clear to humble believers who approach Godâs word with a prayer for the illumination of Godâs Spirit and a willingness to obey the message they receive.2 Consistent with this conviction, the argument of this essay is that, in spite of the diverse views propounded by scholars on any number of points of Pauline interpretation, certain fundamental truths are so clearly taught in Scripture (here our focus will be on the Letter to the Romans) that they mayâand oughtâto be affirmed confidently. More specifically, while recent scholarship has rightly drawn attention to the first-century context in which Paul wrote and to elements of his argument that have at times been overlooked, central features of the traditional or âoldâ perspective on Paul (now often referred to as the âLutheran perspectiveâ) are indisputably Pauline and remain foundational to any proper understanding of the apostleâand, indeed, of the Christian gospel itself. The âcentral featuresâ here discussedâwhile due attention is given to Paulâs argument in contextâare the following:
- In Godâs eyes, all human beings are sinful.
- No human being is righteous in Godâs eyes on the basis of the deeds they have done.
- God has provided atonement for the sin of human beings through the death of his Son, Jesus Christ.
- By Godâs grace alone, apart from human works, God finds righteous those who have faith in Jesus Christ.
The Universality of Human Sinfulness
For many believers, Romans 3:23 has served (since childhood!) as the primary proof text for universal human sinfulness: âFor all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.â3 When detached (as memory work!) from its context, much that is important to Paulâand most of his argument in the preceding chapters in Romansâis lost to view. Here I will attempt to fill out that picture while at the same time insisting that the common use to which Romans 3:23 has been put is no distortion of Paul.
In Romans 1:16â17, Paul sets forth in summary form the essence of the gospel, âthe power of God for salvation.â He returns to the topic and develops it two chapters further on, at 3:21. (See the discussion of points 3 and 4 below.) Before doing so, however, he insists on the universal need for the message he proclaims (1:18â3:20). Romans 3:23 may well serve as a summary of his argument (indeed, it serves that purpose in its original context), but students of Paul will want to know the steps he takes before reaching that conclusion.
Readers of Romans 1:18â3:20 can hardly fail to notice that, though the conclusions Paul reaches are universal, he arrives at them after spending a good deal of time discussing the relative standing before God of Jews, on the one hand, and non-Jews (or gentiles), on the other. Indeed, the bulk of his discussion seems less concerned with demonstrating that all are sinners than it is with showing that, differences between them notwithstanding, Jews and gentiles are on the same footing before God. The fundamental principle of âGodâs righteous judgmentâ is that God will judge all human beings according to their deeds (2:5â6). Paul spells out the principle in the simplest of terms: God requires, of all human beings, that they do what is âgoodâ and avoid doing what is âevil.â He will grant eternal life to those who do what is good, while those who do evil will face his wrath (2:7â10). But even in stating this fundamental principle, Paul is clearly bent on emphasizing its applicability to Jews and âGreeksâ (gentiles) alike:
[God] will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. (2:6â11)
âThe Jew first,â because in important respects the Jews have long been a privileged people. But Paulâs point here is that the same basic principle of judgment applies to Jews and non-Jews alikeâand necessarily so, since âGod shows no partiality.â His argument then proceeds by taking into account the very real differences between Jews and gentiles and yet showing that there is no essential difference when God judges human beings according to their deeds. The principle stands: both will be judged by whether what they have done is âgoodâ or âevil.â
The principle of course assumes that Jews and gentiles both know the good they are to do and the evil they are to avoid. Against any such simple assumption, the argument might be raised that Jews, but not gentiles, have been given Godâs law, which spells out what is to be done and what avoided. Paul has no quibble with the premise of that argument (note 2:12, 14, 18, 20); but he insists that, when God judges the deeds of human beings, mere possession of (the written code of) the law makes no difference. It makes no difference because (a) Godâs demands as found in the law given to Jews are identical with the good that he requires of all human beings; (b) gentiles, though lacking the law given to Jews, are nonetheless aware of the good they must do; and (c) since what God requires is the doing of what is good, Jews who possess the written code, no less than gentiles who lack it, must actually do the good if God is to find them righteous.
a. In Romans 2:10, Paul insists that Jews and gentiles alike must do âgoodâ if God is to grant them âglory and honor and peaceâ (the equivalent of the âeternal lifeâ mentioned in 2:7). In 2:13, however, the language has changed: in this verse, what God requires of those he will find righteous is that they be âdoers of the law.â Yet Paul is still thinking of what God requires of Jews and gentiles alike, for he proceeds to show how gentiles, though not in possession of the written law, can nonetheless be held responsible for doing âwhat the law requiresâ (2:14; see [b] below). His argument thus rests on the assumption that what the law commands people to do (2:13) is the same as the good that, according to 2:10, God requires of all human beings.4 Two points about this assumption are worth noting.
First, in speaking of what the law requires, Paul is not, for the moment at least, thinking of what are commonly called the âceremonialâ demands of the law; after all, he makes abundantly clear elsewhere that he does not think gentiles are required to observe Jewish feasts or food laws, or that gentile males should be circumcised (e.g., Gal. 4:10â11; 5:2â6). Rather, the prohibitions of stealing and adultery, mentioned later in the chapter, represent the kind of commandment he has in mind (Rom. 2:21â22).
Second, the notion that the demands of the Mosaic law code spell out the good that God requires of all human beings was widely held by Jews of Paulâs day. If Proverbs speaks of âwisdomâ as that which human beings (all human beings) are to pursue and practice (Prov. 3:13â18; 4:5â9, etc.), later Jewish literature identified this âwisdomâ with the law given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai (e.g., Sir. 24:1â27). In Jewish apologetic literature, this conviction took on a particular shape: given that, in the Greco-Roman world, philosophers often stated ethical ideals in terms of conformity with ânatureâ or âthe [unwritten] law of nature,â Jewish apologists were wont to speak of the Mosaic law as the perfect embodiment of âthe law of nature.â After all, they reasoned, the divine Source of the law of nature can be none other than the God who gave Israel his law; inevitably, then, the order of nature is reflected in the prescriptions of the Mosaic law (see 4 Macc. 5:25â26).
In short, Paul need anticipate no disagreement when he identifies the good that God requires of all human beings with the (moral) demands of the Mosaic law.
b. He does, however, anticipate the objection that gentiles can hardly be held responsible for keeping a law they have not been given. Granting that gentiles are those âwho do not have the law,â he uses the self-evident fact that gentiles at times do what the law requires (e.g., refrain from murder, adultery, and theft) to show that God has given them an inner awareness of the lawâs basic demands (2:14â15).5 Coming immediately after the declaration that âthe doers of the lawâ will be âjustifiedâ (2:13), this insistence that gentiles are aware of the good required in the law (2:14â15) serves to place gentiles effectively on the same footing as Jews in the face of divine judgment (2:16): both must do the goodâand that is what the law requires.
c. The form in which Jews encounter Godâs basic requirementsâa written law codeâpermits no doubt or discussion regarding their content. âInstructed from the law,â the very âembodiment of knowledge and truth,â Jews âknow [Godâs] willâ; indeed, they consider themselves able to instruct gentiles about the good that God requires of them both (âyou are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of childrenâ) (2:17â20). Without denying that Jews, in possession of the law, are a privileged people, Paul proceeds to press his point: Jews and gentiles stand on the same footing before Godâs righteous judgment. He has shown that gentiles cannot be excused from the requirement of doing what is good, since they too have a God-given awareness of what God demands. Starting at 2:21, he emphasizes that possession of (the written code of) the law does not excuse Jews from the requirement (shared with gentiles!) of actually doing the good commanded by the law.
Jews and Gentiles Stand on the Same Footing
The apostle begins by rhetorically asking an imaginary Jew whether he in fact keeps the commandments he teaches to others: âYou then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?â (2:21â22). Note that Paul is not charging Jews with stealing, committing adultery, or robbing temples;6 his question whether they do so merely stresses that the crucial issue is not what one knows and can teach others but whether one, in practice, measures up to what one knows and teaches.
That Paul is not here charging Jews with transgressing the law but merely reminding them that obedience, not possession, of the law is what matters is apparent from the words that follow immediately: âCircumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law.â The (theoretical) possibility that Jews observe the law is evidently still on the table. So too is the alternative: âbut if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcisionâ (2:25). Here what distinguishes Jews from gentiles is no longer possession of (the written code of) the law but circumcision, the external mark of the people of God. But Paulâs point remains the same: before Godâs judgment, what mattersâfor Jews and non-Jews alikeâis the actual doing of what the law requires: âSo, if a...