Paul Among Jews and Gentiles

1. Paul Among Jews and Gentiles

Paul lived his life among Jews and Gentiles. That is not a surprising or particularly controversial statement. As a Jew he had grown accustomed to dividing humankind into those two parts. In some of his letters the very structure of his argument is itself accounted for by that dichotomy. Often, moreover, his reference to "all" is synonymous with "both Jews and Greeks." According to his own words he is the Apostle to the Gentiles; in writing to Rome, he speaks of his obligation to both Greeks and barbarians, yet in fulfilling that obligation he is much aware of the Jews and their role in God's plan (Romans 1:14-16). 'In Acts Paul is programmatically portrayed as the Jew, the' ex-Pharisee who brings the gospel to the Gentile world and that book does not end until Paul has made it all the way to Rome, the seat of power in the Gentile world.

On further reflection, however, the title of this book and this essay-Paul Among Jews and Gentiles-is not quite as innocent or bland as it may appear. It will be my contention in these chapters that the main lines of Pauline interpretation-and hence both conscious and unconscious reading and quoting of Paul by scholars and lay people alike-have for many centuries been out of touch with one of the most basic of the questions and concerns that shaped Paul's thinking in the first place: the relation between Jews and Gentiles.
Especially in the protestant tradition-and particularly among Lutherans-it is Paul's Epistle to the Romans which holds a position of honor, supplying patterns of thought that are lifted into position of overarching and organizing principles for the Pauline material. Paul's presentation of justification by faith has such a role; to some this serves not only as the key to Pauline thought, but as the criterion for the really true gospel as it is to be found in the whole New Testament, the whole Bible, and the long and varied history of Christian theology.

The following chapters will demonstrate how such a doctrine of justification by faith was hammered out by Paul for the very specific and limited purpose of defending the rights of Gentile converts to be full and genuine heirs to the promises of God to Israel. Their rights were based solely on faith in Jesus Christ. This was Paul's very special stance, and he defended it zealously against any compromise that required circumcision or the keeping of kosher food laws by Gentile Christians. As the Apostle to the Gentiles he defended this view as part and parcel of the special assignment and revelation that he had received directly from God. In none of his writings does he give us information about what he thought to be proper in these matters for Jewish Christians. Himself a Jew, but with a special mission to the Gentiles, Paul is never heard to urge Jewish Christians to live like him in these respects. When he admonishes parishioners to imitate him he seems always to refer to himself not using his privilege or freedom to the full (1 Co. 11:1; Phil. 3:17). When he rebukes Peter in Antioch, it is not for Peter's practice of keeping a kosher table but for Peter's changing his attitudes under pressure from Jerusalem (Gal. 2:11ff). For as Paul says in Romans, "Let everyone act with full conviction" (14:5), and "for all that is not out of conviction is sin" (14:23), In respect to his defense of the rights and the freedom of Gentile coverts, Paul has provided ample and full documentation in Galatians, a letter to which we shall return.
All this does not sound much different from what we are used to hearing. How or why then do I claim that in our traditional understanding we have lost touch with the image of Paul among Jews and Gentiles? For one simple reason; while Paul addresses himself to the relevation of Jews to Gentiles, we tend to read him as if his question was: On what grounds, on what terms, are we to be saved? We think that Paul spoke about justification by faith, using the Jewish-Gentile situation as an instance, as an example. But Paul was chiefly concerned about the relation between Jews and Gentiles-and in the development of this concern he used as one of his arguments the idea of justification by faith.

Such a shift in focus and perception blocks our access both to the original thought and the original intention of Paul. It leads to distortions of our historical description of Paul's ministry and to misunderstandings of Paul intended to solve by his observations on faith and law and salvation. The fact of the matter is that if we read Paul's answer to the question of how Gentiles becomes heirs to God's promises to Israel as if he were responding to Luther's pangs of conscience, it becomes obvious that we are taking the Pauline answer out of its original context.

The lost centrality of "Jews and Gentiles" is most clearly to be felt in a study of Romans. What is Romans about? Why did Paul write this letter at that crucial point in his career when he was through with the East, had gathered the collection for the Jerusalem church (cf. Gal, 2:10), and was delivering it prior to setting out for the West via Rome? My guess is that it was not his purpose to write a theological tractate on the nature of justification by faith. No. Here is rather the Apostle Paul among Jews and Gentiles, introducing his mission to the significant, but to him unknown, church in Rome. He wants to make clear to them how his mission fits into God's total plan and scheme. It is of more than passing interest to note how this letter differs from that to the passing interest to note how this letter differs from that to the Galatians. There the discussion was about Judaizers, i.e. Gentiles infatuated with Jewish ways. In Romans, on the other hand, Paul speaks about Jews.

This is not the place for an extensive analysis of Romans, but it may be helpful to remember how Paul's apologia, his presentation of his mission, becomes a panoramic view of how his Gentile mission fits into God’s total plan, and how that perspective finally brings him to the point where he sees that Christianity is on its way to becoming a Gentile church. Simultaneously he sees that God has mysterious and special plans for the salvation of Israel. This, the mystery of Israel’s separate existence, Paul proclaims to the Gentiles “lest you be conceited” (Room. 11:25) in an uncalled for feeling of superiority.

To me the climax of Romans is actually chapters 9-11, i.e. his reflections on the relation between church and synagogue, the church and the Jewish people-not “Christianity” and “Judaism,” not the attitudes of the gospel versus the attitudes of the law. The question is the relation between two communities and their coexistence in the mysterious plan of God.

It should be noted that Paul does not say that when the time of God’s Kingdom, the consummation, comes Israel will accept Jesus as the Messiah. He says only that the time will come when “all Israel will be saved” (11:26). It is stunning to note that Paul writes this whole section of Romans (10:17-11:36) without using the name of Jesus Christ. This includes the final doxology (11:33-36), the only such doxology in his writings without any Christological element.

Such random observations about Romans make it quite clear that in this letter Paul’s focus really is the relation between Jews and Gentiles, not the notion of justification or predestination and certainly not other proper yet abstract theological topics.

It is tempting to suggest that in important respects Paul’s thought here approximates an idea well documented in later Jewish thought from Maimonides to Franz Rosenzweig. Christianity-and in the case of Maimonides, also Islam-is seen as the conduit of Torah, for the declaration of both monotheism and the moral order to the Gentiles. The differences are obvious, but the similarity should not be missed: Paul’s reference to God’s mysterious plan is an affirmation of a God-willed coexistence between Judaism and Christianity in which the missionary urge to convert Israel is held in check.

It goes without saying that Paul’s focus on Jews and Gentiles was lost in the history of interpretation, and when it was retained, the church picked up the negative side of the “mystery”-Israel’s “No” to Jesus Christ-but totally missed the warning against conceit and feelings of superiority. Once this mystery became inoperative in the central thinking of the church, the Jews being written off as God-killers and as stereotypes for wrong attitudes toward God, the road was ever more open for beautiful spiritualizations of Pauline theology. Romans became a theological tractate on the nature of faith. Justification no longer “justified” the status of Gentile Christians as honorary Jews, but became the timeless answer to the plights and pains of the introspective conscience of the West. And Paul was no longer seen “among Jews and Gentiles” but rather as the guide for those perplexed and troubled by the human predicament. His teaching was now detached from what he had seen as his task, his mission, and his aim-to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Once the human predicament-timeless and exercised in a corpus christianum-became the setting of the church’s interpretation of Paul’s thought, it also became less obvious that there was in fact a great difference of setting, thought, and argument between the various epistles of Paul. As his teaching of justification was removed from its setting within the relationship between Jew and Gentile and became part of his teaching about salvation, the differences between Jews in Romans and Judaizers in Galatians also came to have little interest. Further, it became difficult and irrelevant to notice that the Corinthian or the Thessalonian correspondence had a yet totally different vocabulary, problematic and intention. It was possible to homogenize Pauline theology since the common denominator could easily be found in generalized theological issues, and the specificity of Paul’s arguments was obscured. In I Corinthians, however, we have a fascinating window into “Paul among the Gentiles.” In the chapters that follow we shall note with some precision how rich and varied Paul’s thinking is, and how such awareness requires attention to the setting as to Jews and Gentiles.

Yet the question arises: How can letters which Paul directed to specific churches in specific situations be the word of God for the church at large and in all times? It is intriguing to recall that one of the earliest discussions that has survived, that of the Canon Muratori, a Latin list of the New Testament books deemed to be in the canon (usually dated in the second century, but recently placed in the fourth by Albert Sundberg), recognizes the problem involved in designating letters written to individual congregations as the word of God for all. Its solution is ingenious. In the Muratorian Canon it is noted that Paul addressed seven churches, and in the Revelation of John seven churches are addressed (Chs.1-3), as if addressing the church at large. It seems to follow that we can accept Paul’s epistles as Scripture, on the basis of an analogy to the seven churches in the Book of Revelation. This is obviously a subsequent rationalization, but it explains how the mind of the church in Rome tried to explain itself what was already a fact-that the collection of Pauline epistles was included in the canon, In a way the number seven was seen as being in conscious conformity to the pattern of God’s own revelation in the Johannine Apocalypse, ergo Paul’s letters are intended for the whole church having a catholic (general) intention.

But once the individual letters were acknowledged as Scripture they quickly suffered homogenization. In the last section of this essay we shall have reason to reflect further on the value of keeping these letters distinct, at least for the purpose of making sure what questions the Apostle intended to answer. Even the divinely right answer is not heard aright if it is applied to the wrong question. In what follows I have taken the risk of coining some slogan-like titles by which I hope to unmask Paul’s original intentions. When I speak in this adversative form-“Justification rather than Forgiveness,” “Weakness rather than Sin,” or “Call rather than Conversion,” etc.-I am not suggesting that Paul explicitly or implicitly was against, say, forgiveness. I am only using the word-study approach in a quite elementary fashion which is available to any Bible reader. And I use it for the purpose of showing how some of the things that we often seem to hear and perceive in Paul either are not there or are there for a very different reason or purpose than we assume. That is all. Thus I have used a method which is far from esoteric. My hope is that readers of the Bible will be able not only to follow the argument, but to take it and continue on their own. Our vision is often more obstructed by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge. It is with that conviction that this book will be short on erudition and dogged in its insistence on a simple reading of the text.

2. Call Rather Than Conversion

Paul's experience on the Damascus Road is usually referred to as his conversion. In Acts there are accounts of this episode (9:1-19; 22:4-16; 26:9-19),and there is material in Paul's own Epistle to the Galatians (1:11-17). From reading these accounts it Seems reasonable to speak of the event as a "conversion" Since that our usual term for such an occurrence. It appears Christians, himself becomes a Christian through a sudden and overwhelming experience. Yet a closer reading of these accounts, both those in Acts and those by Paul himself, reveals a greater continuity between “before” and “after.” Here is not that change of "religion" that we commonly associate with the word conversion. Serving the one and the same God, Paul receives a new and special calling in God’s service. God’s Messiah asks him as a Jew to bring God’s message to the Gentiles. The emphasis in the accounts is always on this assignment, not on the conversion. Rather than being converted,” Paul was called to the specific task made clear to him by his experience of the risen Lord—of apostleship to the Gentiles, one hand-picked through Jesus Christ on behalf of the one God of Jews and Gentiles.

On the assumption that what a man reveals about himself is on the whole more accurate than what is recounted by others, let us first examine Paul’s own account of his call to this particular mission. After Paul says that he received the gospel through a revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1: 12), he adds: "For you heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it; and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my father. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles" (Gal. 1:13-16). This is the most explicit reference made by Paul about what we are accustomed to refer to as his conversion. If this passage is read in the standard edition of the Greek text (Nestle-Aland) one notes certain indications that Paul has alluded to Old Testament passages in this account. Most English translations with footnotes or cross references also _make this clear. Paul says that God has set him apart from his mother's womb, called him through grace, and given him a mission to the. The prophet Isaiah writes, The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name" (Isa. 49:1), and "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth" (Isa. 49:6). The call of the prophet Jeremiah is similar, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" i.e. the •Gentiles, goyim_ (Jer. 1:5). Thus in Galatians Paul describes his experience in terms of a prophetic call similar to that of Isaiah and Jeremiah. He felt hand-picked by God after the prophetic model to take the message of God and Christ to the Gentiles. In Philippians, he stresses that he is "a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law blameless" (Phil. 3:5-6). Yet without casting doubts as to the worth of his background but pointing out that his former values great though they were, are as nothing in light of his knowledge and recognition of Christ, he continues, "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I suffered loss of all things and count them as refuse in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not• having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is faith in Christ, the righteousness of God that depends on faith" (Phil. 3:7-9). It thus becomes clear that the usual conversion model of Paul the Jew who gives up his former faith to become a Christian is not the model of Paul but of ours. Rather, his call brings him to a new understanding of his mission, a new understanding of the law which is otherwise an obstacle to the Gentiles. His ministry is based on the specific conviction that the Gentiles will become part of the people of God without having to pass through the law. This is Paul’s secret revelation and knowledge.

Of course Paul's account of his call to apostleship has its own particular and necessarily apologetic slant. There were those, possibly in the Jerusalem church, who would reject his direct apostolic authority and demand \hat such apostleship must be granted him by higher human authorities. Paul vigorously denies this and asserts his direct calling, "I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came from a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:11-12).

In Acts the notion of a “call” is still dominant although more details are given concerning Paul’s experience. His call is mediated to him, in Acts 9 by Ananias who is told by the Lord that Paul is a “chosen instrument” (Acts 9 .15). Her in Luke's narrative the image of the Lord’s chosen agent also recalls Jeremiah 1:5 (cf. 1:10) and Isaiah 49: 1. But the event is not seen as conversion from one “religion” to another, but as a call to that specific mission of which Ananias is told, “For the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel" (Acts 9: 15). In Acts 22 it is again Ananias who tells Paul, "The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Just One and to hear a voice from his mouth; for you will be a witness for him to all men .of what you have seen and heard" (Acts 22:14-15). Then Paul in a trance hears the Lord say, "Depart; for I will send you far away to the Gentiles" (Acts 22: 21). The account in Acts 26 differs somewhat from Acts 9 and 22 in that Paul sees a light from heaven and hears the voice of the Lord saying, "rise and stand upon your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and witness delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me" (Acts 26: 16-18). In this passage the vision and call of the prophet Ezekiel are recalled, virtually a direct reference to Ezekiel 1: 28, in which there is visionary experience, prostration, and subsequently the voice of the Lord saying; " stand upon your feet I send you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels" ( Ezek. 2:1,3). Paul's commission to go to the Gentiles also recalls Jeremiah,"to all to whom I send you shall go, and whatever I command you shall speak" (Jer. 1:7). Furthermore, what Paul is to accomplish for the Gentiles (Acts 26:18) is a reflection of the prophecies that the eyes of the blind shall be opened-(Isa. 35:5; 42:7,16) and that salvation will come. (Isa. 61:1).

While the accounts in Acts, especially in chapters 9 and 22, to some extent take the position that Paul had to have his experience interpreted to him, both Galatians and Acts nevertheless reflect a similar tradition, namely that of a prophetic call. If, then, we use the term "conversion" for Paul's experience, we would also have to use it of such prophets as Jeremiah and Isaiah. Yet we do not speak of their conversion, but rather of their call. Paul's experience is also that of a call—to a specific vocation—to be God’s appointed Apostle to the Gentiles. The mission is the point. It is a call to mission rather than a conversion. And this call is the greater since it is the persecutor who becomes the apostle.

We often hear that the change in Paul's life caused by his conversion was so great that he was given a new name: Saul became Paul. But that is not how Acts sees it. Actually, the change of name in Acts is quite instructive in the context of discussing call rather than conversion. To begin with, there are three and not two names in the Greek text: Saulos (Saul) through 13:9; and Paulos (Paul) from 13:9 on, except for the transliteration of the Hebrew name, Saulos in the actual accounts of the call, used both by the Lord and Ananias (9:4,17; 22:7, 13; 26:14). Thus it is obviously not the call conversion that triggers the name change. The crucial editorial seam (13:9) has the following setting: Saulos is on Cyprus, competing with a magician, a Jewish prophet, Bar Jesus/Elymas before a Roman proconsul by the name of Serguis Paulus. Then verse 9 reads: "But Saulos, who is also called Paulos, filled with the Holy Spirit said" And from that point on the book of Acts calls him Paul. Why? This is •Paul's first encounter with, Roman officials, and if the purpose of Acts is to show then gospel's way from to Rome (cf. Acts 1:8), then it is clear that the name change symbolizes the change of focus. From now on Rome is “magnet”. The mission is in focus—therefore the call, not the conversion.

What, then, is the difference between a call and a conversion? Perhaps not too much, but without quibbling, let us focus on the proper distinction between the words. Most of us in the Western tradition have come to think of Paul's development as conterminous with what we commonly describe as a conversion experience. But this leads to two difficulties for a right understanding of Paul. In the first place, the term “conversion” easily causes us to bring into play the idea that Paul “changed his religion”: the Jew became a Christian. But there is a ample reason to question such a model. To begin with people in those days did not think about “religions.” And; furthermore, it is obvious that Paul remains a Jew as he fulfills his role as an Apostle to the Gentiles.

In the second place, by using the idea of conversion we are apt to separate Paul, a person with a highly specific experience, from the general religious experience of that encounter with Christ which convinces and which creates faith. And since Paul's conversion experience was deep and of such a quality that it even made him a missionary and apostle, we separate his being Christian from his being an apostle. But the texts (Acts and Paul's own letters) agree in quite another image: the persecutor was called and chosen to be an apostle with a very special mission which focused on how the gospel should reach the Gentiles. Again and again we find that there is hardly through of Paul's which is not tied up with his mission, with his work. The "I" in his writings is not "the Christian" but “the Apostle to the Gentiles." That is why I say call rather than conversion.

Here is a point at which it is equally important to discern the differences between Paul and Luther. Paul's experience is not of than inner experience of conversion which Western theology has taken for granted. What is behind this distinction is something very serious. It is that we all, in the West, and especially in the tradition of the Reformation, cannot help reading Paul through the experience of persons like Luther or Calvin. And this is the chief reason for most of our misunderstandings of Paul. In Luther, for example, we have a man who labors under the threatening demands of the law—a man in despair, a man for whom the theological and existential question is "How am I to find a gracious God?" He was a person who recognized that the harder he tried, the more he fell short, a person who precisely in his piety reached the very depths of the abyss of futility and shortcomings before God, a person who walked to the very gates of Hell; a person who knew guilt in its most introspective intensity. And this young man Luther found in Paul and in his words on how "the righteous shall live by faith” and in similar sayings, the message of God which lifted him out of despair and placed him in that mighty fortress of grace about which he wrote his stirring hymn.

Contrast Paul, a very happy and successful Jew, one who can, even when he thinks about it from his Christian perspective, say in his Epistle to the Philippians " as to the righteousness under the law ( I was ) blameless" (Phil. 3: 6). That is what he says. He experiences no troubles, no problems, no qualms of conscience, no feelings of shortcomings. He is a star pupil, the student to get the thousand dollar graduate, scholarship in Gamaliel's Seminary, if we can trust Acts ( 22: 3)—both for character and for achievements of scholarship—a very happy Jew. Nowhere in Paul's writings is there any indication that he had any difficulties in fulfilling what he as a Jew understood to be the requirements of the law. We often quote and preach wonderful sermons about the words of Paul, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on” (Phil. 3:13 ff). But few are those who can read their Bibles with sufficient simplicity as to understand what it is that Paul forgets: his achievements, not his shortcomings. It is all those achievements which he now says appear like rubbish (Phil.3:8). There is no indication that psychologically Paul had some problem of conscience with which he bad had, or was to have any major difficulties. As a Jew he had never been down in the Valley of Despond. He went from glory unto glory. The fact that past glories led him to become a persecutor of the church caused him some remorse after his call (1 Cor. 15:9), but there is no indication of such remorse or doubts prior to his call to the mission. In the three accounts in Acts we are also struck by the lack of any note of incrimination or self-incrimination when Paul the persecutor is mentioned. That the persecutor became the Apostle makes only for more glory to God.

These accounts strike me as quite different from the “tower experience" of Luther, and from the whole tradition of the Reformation. And especially is this so in the latest existentially psychologized stages of that tradition marked by the attempts of us Christian preachers to outdo the psychologists, not to say the psychiatrists, in our morbid and masochistic ability to describe the futility and the shortcomings of all human attempts and hopes.

But does not Paul ever speak of himself as a sinner? He certainly does. But the only concrete sin qua sin in his life, the sin which he mentions, is that he had persecuted the church (1 Cor. 15: 9). To recognize that kind of sin does not require an introspective conscience. And he also says, quite frankly that he has made up for that sin and, moreover, he is proud of the extent to which he has made up for it: “... I have worked harder than any of them (the other apostles) ...” ( 1 Cor. 15:10) who had not committed that awful sin. Of course, it was not he who accomplished this: “It was not I, but the grace of God which is with me” (1 Cor. 15: 19). Paul is confident that he has made up for the only sin which speaks about concretely. Here is a man with a quite robust conscience. Here is a man not plagued by introspection. The difference between Paul and Luther and perhaps, modern Western man is precisely at that point. It certainly sounds strange to us when in 2 Corinthians 5:10-11 Paul protests his ultimate goodness and innocence, and says, “For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done…” And he goes on to tell the Corinthians that even in the presence of that judgment and with that fear of God before his eyes, he has been cleared (2 Cor.5:11). Then he adds that he hopes that they have as favorable an impression of him. That does not sound very modest. That does not sound like a man who is conscious of the fact that he is at the same time justified and sinner, simul Justus et peccator. So something seems a skew in our reading if we think that Paul was troubled by sin.

It is important to sharpen these perceptions as we look at Paul's own letters. We have already pointed to two factors J which may explain our sense of strangeness in this confrontation. Primarily it is our own Western introspective thinking that leads us astray. But then we ask: Is Paul speaking about his “clean conscience” (1 Cor.4) as a missionary rather than as a private citizen? Or is it, rather, that Paul, the Christian, is just as sure of himself as Paul, the Jew—or vice versa? I think that his conscience seems robust. This is surely reflected in 1 Corinthians 4:1-5:

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be Judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself, but I have not been justified by this, but it is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God.

Here he pleads for time-even as he occupies the position of the underdog .

What we are touching upon here is one of the most complicated issues of biblical interpretation, the study of Scripture and the Christian life: that it is perhaps not totally true, as we sometimes say that man is the same through the ages. Usually we allow all sorts of odd sayings to be applied to be applied to any situation in any time. The issue, of course, is what is meant by man being “the same.” We usually say, “basically the same” or “essentially the same,” It is quite clear that in the very basic understanding of man’s predicament there is a gulf not only between Paul and us, but between the New Testament and our time. We must somehow recognize in this chapter that Paul's message was related not to some conversion from the hopeless work righteousness of Judaism into a happy justified status as a Christian. Rather the centre of gravity in Paul’s theological work is related to the fact that he knew himself to be called to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, an Apostle of the one God who is Creator of both Jews and Gentiles (cf.Rom.3:30).

All this follows from that rather sophisticated distinction between a “call” and a “conversion”, a distinction related to one of the classical problems of Pauline studies. Scholars of the West are shocked to find that for at least three hundred years after its writing and distribution the basic insight of Paul's theology—justification by faith (alone), without the works of the law—seems to have been more or less lost in the teaching and thinking of the church. Paul was certainly quoted—after all, he was an apostle, and he was accepted by the church in the canon of sacred Scripture. He was cited with veneration, but as a sort of collection of "golden sayings" which can be found in any decent religious literature. Seldom if ever, however, do we find anyone who had grasped Paul's doctrine of justification.

It was not until Augustine, more than three hundred years after Paul, that a man was found who seemed to see, so to say, what made Paul “tick”, and who discerned the center of gravity in Pauline theology: justification. Now the reason for this strange state of affairs is that the early church seems to have felt that Paul spoke about what he actually spoke about, i.e. the relationship between Jews and Gentiles—and that was no problem during those centuries. There was no communication no ongoing debate of any serious and open kind that touched upon the matter of Jews and Gentiles and hence Paul's sayings were, in a way, irrelevant. This was rather the time when the very perspective from which Paul saw this relationship was swallowed up in self-serving Christian anti-Judaism, if not anti–Semitism—i.e., the victory of the very attitude which Paul began to detect and combat in the eleventh chapter of Roman Augustine, who has perhaps rightly been called the first truly Western man, was the first person in Antiquity or in Christianity to write something so self-centered as his own spiritual autobiography, his Confessions. It was he who applied Paul’s doctrine of justification to the problem of the introspective conscience, to the question: “On what basis does a person find salvation?” And with Augustine, Western Christianity with its stress on introspective achievements started. It developed in the Middle Ages—with penitential practice and guidance for self-examination coming increasingly to characterize both monastic and secular life-and man became more and more clever in analyzing his ego. Man turned in on himself infatuated and absorbed by the question not of when god will send deliverance in the history of salvation, but how god is working in the innermost individual soul. The black Plague, the Black Death, added pressure, and in the piety of the late middle Ages there were many honest souls. We should not picture this piety only as running around shopping for indulgences and becoming ever more superficial. There were those who took the Word seriously, and they suffered. And one of those who suffered most was Martin Luther, Who—not by accident-was an Augustinian. In the grapplings of his introspective conscience, he picked up Paul and found in him God’s answer to his problem, the problem of the west. It is instructive that homiletical material and Works on edification from the Greek Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the all of which read their bibles faithfully, some in languages close to the original tongues of Jesus or of the early versions—contain little of this interest. The introspective conscience is Western development and a Western plague. Once the introspective conscience came into the theological bloodstream of Western culture, it tended to dominate the scene far beyond its original function. It reached its theological climax and explosion in the Reformation, and its secular climax and explosion in Sigmund Freud. But Paul himself was never involved in this pursuit.

A classic example of the use or, indeed, misuse of Paul may be se •comparison of two English translations of Galatians 3:24— both quite permissible from the Greek, yet one Obviously biased theologically, and hence for years uncontested since it could be well used in the service of the problem of the introspective conscience. The King James Version of Galatians 3:24 reads, “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” This translation renders the Greek paidagogos as "schoolmaster." (often quoted as "tutor"), and uses eis (‘Christon') as a spatial preposition, "unto." Theologically this is a very useful way of demonstrating that the law inducing guilt by its fierce commands makes one seek the grace and forgiveness of new life by coming to Christ. Yet the same Greek can be translated in a different way and, indeed, more accurately in terms of the use of paidagogos in and before Paul’s time. Thus the Revised Standard Version reads “the law was our custodian until Christ came” The word paidagogos did not mean schoolmaster, tutor or teacher but rather a “slave” or “strict custodian” who protected a child on the way to school to see that he came to no harm and was not molested. And eis Christon could be translated temporally, i.e., until Christ came. Thus, although the Greek allows for both, the translations reflect very different theological stances. It is also to be noted that in the King James Version our custodian seems to imply Paul and all the Galatians Christians, while the RSV clearly intends our to apply to Paul and his fellow Jews. Thus, we have two radically, drastically, and absolutely opposed understandings of the same Greek phrase, and the RSV is doubtlessly right both on the basis of the older meaning of the Greek and on the basis of the context of the passage (see especially verse 23 with reference to "before").

Now let us examine this passage in its whole context because it bears precisely on the issue at hand. The context is the situation in Galatia, concern over the question whether Gentiles could join the church without first being circumcised. Circumcision is at the centre of the discussion (2:3; 5:2; 5:11; 6:2). Paul's argument is that one does not need to go through Judaism into Christianity, but that there is a straight and direct way to Christ for the Gentiles apart from the law. So far I think Paul's argument is a familiar one. Perhaps the issue also dealt with dietary laws, but it came to its climax in the matter of circumcision. And this is very important. We must constantly look for what Paul is really discussing, because whenever we hear about Jews or Judaism or law or circumcision or dietary laws or feast days or calendars, we say, "Oh, he is dealing with the problem of legalism." But it is very clear that Paul solves the problem of circumcision in a much more radical way than in his treatment of the problem of dietary laws. The circumcision of Gentiles is under no circumstances to be accepted. In regard to food laws, however, if the weaker brethren must have some restrictions in order not to stumble, the issue should not be pushed too far. And if we, in our Protestant mood, simply see all these issues as examples of legalism in a general sense, we just do not get the message. This, indeed, might be the reason why we differ so much in Christendom when we face the matter of legalism.

In order to make his point clear Paul must say something about the law. He does so from the perspective of traditional Jewish thought as it was known to him. In that strand of Jewish teaching the law was eternal at both ends, it existed prior to creation and was to last for eternity.

In this passage in Galatians Paul seems to take special pains in proving from the law (quoting only the Pentateuch) that this view is incorrect. Torah for Paul means both the Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses in the Old Testament and also the law in a more general sense. It is instructive to note that in Galatians 3 and 4 almost all the scriptural passages on which he bases his arguments against the eternal validity of the Torah are taken from the Pentateuch itself. Paul is proving with the law something about the law. He is proving with the Torah something about the Torah. And what is he saying? He is saying that the law came in 430 years after the promise to Abraham, so it is quite clear that the Torah is not eternal. First came the promise to Abraham and his seed-and Paul held that this “seed” refers to the Christ who was to come. The thrust of Paul's argument is that the law came 430 years after the promise and that promise was given when the testament on covenant with Abraham was irrevocably signed. Thus the promise stands and the law was added later.

Paul follows this in Galatians 3:19 by enumerating a great many points which belittle the law. First, it was added for transgression's sake. While there is discussion about this, I am quite convinced that it refers to what was a common teaching in both Judaism and in Christianity: that the law received on Sinai was actually a second and revised edition because of what had happened when the first tablets were brought down-they were smashed by Moses in anger because of the golden calf. So Moses went up again to the mountain top to receive a second edition of the law which, say the exegeses, was actually a law which took into account the transgressions of the faithless and disobedient people. And hence this was not the real, pure, ultimate law, but rather a law which was as all our laws are tainted by the civil reality it had to counteract. Something like this is probably what is meant when Paul says that the law was added for transgression's sake.

Secondly, the law was given with a time limit-until the coming of the seed ("till the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made," RSV). Thus it is not eternal at the future end either.

Thirdly, “it was ordained by angels through an intermediary.” It was communicated by angels-so there had been 'middlemen. This was usually a point which in the Jewish tradition glorified the law, but Paul turned it the other way around. He even pursues the matter by saying that there was not only one set of middlemen; there was also another middleman, Moses. Thus the law was given not without mediation but through mediators and "Now an intermediary implies more than one; but God is one" (Gal. 3:20). By this argument it is not so strange that this law is seen as something other than the ultimate, absolute and immediate manifestation of the salvation of God.

Further, this law was not given in order to give life, for "then righteousness would indeed be by the law" (Gal. 3:21). If a law had been given which would give life, then of course we would be justified by the law. But that is not what the law came for, according to Paul's argument. What did the law come for? Paul says, "the scriptures consigned all things to sin, that what was promised to faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe" (Gal. 3: 22). The law came, says Paul, as a harsh baby sitter to see to it that the children of Israel did not raid the refrigerator before the great party at which the Gentiles should also be present. Or to speak in more biblical language, "Now before faith came, we (Jews) were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed" (Gal. 3: 23). In other words, Scripture put everything under lock and key-under sin-in order that the promise should depend on faith in Jesus, the Messiah, and should be given to those who believe in Jesus Christ.

The expressions “until faith should be revealed” (3:23) and “but now that faith has come” (3:25) show an interesting use of the word "faith." We could just as well read "Christ," i.e., "until Christ should be revealed" or "until Christ has come." We are thus led to say that "faith" in the New Testament is not merely a theological attitude; faith is not just having our minds turned toward God and grasping his promises. Faith is totally defined by its content, and when we read “until faith should be revealed” it means until the coming of that Messiah in whom one could believe. But one could believe in him before he came because, for Paul, to believe means to accept the messianic claim of Jesus. So before that became possible, which to Paul occurred with the resurrected Lord, the Jews were shut up under the law, “kept under restraint until faith (Christ) should be revealed.” Thus the law was our (i.e., Paul’s and his fellow Jews) paidagogos until Christ came.

As we have already noted, a "pedagogue" for us is a super-teacher, but in ancient Greek and to Paul it was a person less than a teacher. In ancient Greece or Rome it meant a sort of ambulant baby 'Sitter, a slave who took children to school, taught them outward manners, saw to it that they did not fall into sin and difficulties, as, for example, homosexual relations, and otherwise looked after them before leaving them at the door where their true education took place. In the Greek comedies and on Roman reliefs, the paidagogos is always described as a harsh, uneducated slave, who, for example, holds a little school boy a couple of inches above ground by his ear. Thus “custodian” is a more adequate and accurate translation than “tutor”. They law in this argument served as such a custodian until the coming of Christ. And why? Because—or since Paul always saw things from the point of view of how God drives his history forward, bina, “in order that,”—“the law was our custodian until Christ came, (in order) that we might be justified by faith” (3:24). To be justified by the faith is a possibility only in Christ. “But now that faith (Christ) has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ” (3:25-27). Note the shift from “we” (Paul and his fellow Jews) to “you” (the Galatians).

Paul by this reasoning concludes that all are one m Christ and that there can be no divisions between Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; all are heirs to the promise to Abraham ( 3:28-29). This is pretty plain language, and it expresses quite precisely what I intend by my almost flippant image about the refrigerator. The strange thing is, however, that in the whole history of the Western tradition, particularly since Augustine, this passage has been read to mean absolutely the opposite of what Paul said. What do we mean in our dogmatic traditions when we say that the law is "our tutor unto Christ"? We mean that every Christian, to become a .Christian, has to be tutored by the law in order to recognize his shortcomings, his guilt, so that he might thus really recognize that he needs Christ, a Savior, a Messiah. But this is really to turn the whole thing upside down. When Paul says that the law has come to an end, he is arguing for the possibility of coming straight to Christ, not through the tunnel and funnel of the law.

How then did we arrive at our introspective, clever Western interpretation? Because we thought that when one reads the word of God, one should perceive the message 'as coming directly to us, and when the Bible says "we" and "our", we had better take it personally. The law, it says, was or is "our tutor" or "our custodian. "Who am I then to say," The Scripture says 'our,' but in this case it refers to a time back there, and not to me. " But " our in this text means, “me, Paul, with my Jewish compatriots,” and nothing else. It is totally wrong to apply that “our” to us Gentiles. Of course, when we read in Acts “And then we sailed to Crete," very few preachers suggest that "we" should be understood as dealing with persons now, but as soon as such a pronoun occurs in a theological context, we fall into the pattern of applying it to ourselves. Many of Paul's uses of "we" and "our" are that stylistic plural by which he, really means only himself, but in many cases, much more serious and difficult to detect, the uses of “we”—“we Jews”—stand in direct contrast to “you Gentiles.” Romans 3:9 is a case in point: here the RSV translates the Greek “we” by “we Jews.” It is important to develop sensitivity to these distinctions. If one reads Paul as the called—not the converted—Apostle among Jews and Gentiles, not simply concentrating on him as the greatest theologian of the New Testament and the Protestant hero of deep theological thought, one might even be able to read the Bible and come to a more accurate understanding of what he wrote in his own time and to his own situations. That is the first condition for subsequent applications to our own times and situations.

3. Justification Rather Than Forgiveness

If one looks into a Greek concordance to the New Testament one is struck by the fact that in the Pauline epistles "justification" (dikaiosune) and the words related to it e.g., "to be pronounced and treated as righteous," "be acquitted" (dikaiousthai), and "righteous," or just (dikaios)-are pervasive in certain strata of Paul's thought. But the word "forgiveness" (aphesis) and the verb "to forgive" (aphienai) are spectacularly absent from those works of Paul which are authentic and genuinely of his own writing. A form of “to forgive" occurs only once within the main epistles of Paul (Rom. 4:7) and in that case poor Paul could not avoid using a verbal form, "were forgiven," because he had to quote Psalm 32:1 in which it occurs. He hastens on in this passage, however, avoiding the reference to forgiveness and using instead his favorite term.