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Promise, Law, Faith: Covenant-Historical Reasoning in Galatians
In Promise, Law, Faith , T. David Gordon argues that Paul uses “promise/ἐπαγγελία,” “law/νόμος,” and “faith/πίστις” in Galatians to denote three covenant-administrations by synecdoche (a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa), and that he chose each synecdoche because it characterized the distinctive (but not exclusive) feature of that covenant. For instance, Gordon argues, the Abrahamic covenant was characterized by three remarkable promises made to an aging couple (to have numerous descendants, who would inherit a large, arable land, and the “Seed” of whom would one day bless all the nations of the world); the Sinai covenant was characterized by the many laws given (both originally at Sinai and later in the remainder of the Mosaic corpus); and the New Covenant is characterized by faith in the dying and rising of Christ. As Gordon’s subtitle suggests, he believes that both the “dominant Protestant approach” to Galatians and the New Perspectives on Paul approach fail to appreciate that Paul’s reasoning in Galatians is covenant-historical (this is what Gordon calls perhaps a “Third Perspective on Paul”). In Galatians, Paul is not arguing that one covenant is good and the other bad; rather, he is arguing that the Sinai covenant was only a temporary covenant-administration between the promissory Abrahamic covenant and its ultimate fulfilment in the New Covenant in Jesus. For a specific time, the Sinai covenant isolated the Israelites from the nations to preserve the memory of the Abrahamic promises and to preserve the integrity of his “seed/Seed,” through whom one day the same nations would one day be richly blessed. But once that Seed arrived in Jesus, providing the “grace of repentance” to the Gentiles, it was no longer necessary or proper to segregate them from the descendants of Abraham. Paul’s argument in Galatians is therefore covenant-historical; he corrects misbehaviors (that is, requiring observance of the Mosaic Law) associated with the New Covenant by describing the relation of that New Covenant to the two covenants instituted before it—the Abrahamic and the Sinaitic—hence the covenants of promise, law, and faith. Effectively, Paul argues that the New Covenant is a covenant in its own right that displaces the temporary, Christ-anticipating, Israel-threatening, and Gentile-excluding Sinai covenant.
- GenresTheology
318 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 1, 2019
3 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
T. David Gordon
12 books22 followersDr. T. David Gordon is professor of religion and Greek at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania.
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October 31, 2022
So I was looking for a book which provided a third way between the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) and the older one and I chanced upon this book in a bookstore, and this is truly a hidden gem with a brilliant thesis rigorously argued, yet so obvious and simple in its conclusion, that the wonder is that few saw it.
His main thesis can be encapsulated in Galatians 3:17 "And what I am saying is this: the Law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to abolish the promise."
The "Law" here is rightly capitalised in the LSB because it emphasises that "the Law" which came 430 years later *does not* refer to some timeless eternal moral law of God, or even his moral will, it does not refer to some atemporal "Covenant of Works" from the time of Adam, it literally refers to a time-bound and specific *covenant administration*, specifically the Sinai Covenant/Law which came at a very specific moment in time, 430 years after the Abrahamic covenant. Thus, his main thesis is a thoroughgoing poly-covenantalism and a rejection of general systematic conception of covenants. The only covenants which exist are those with proper names and refer to particular specific space-time covenants, e.g. the Abrahamic covenant, the Sinai covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant. Thus he rejects both monocovenantalism and the common Westminster view that there is an abstract "covenant of works" or "covenant of grace" underlying the covenants with proper names.
Thus, he dubs his approach the "Covenant-Historical" reading rather than "covenant-theological" to emphasise the nature of covenants are referring to specific covenants with proper names rather than covenants of theological construction or abstraction.
The book itself however is not a general thesis but specifically focused on analysing the reasoning of Galatians. His main argument in relation to the Galatian text is that the words "promise", "law" and "faith" are actually just synecdoches for the Abrahamic covenant, the Sinai covenant, and the New covenant respectively. His contention is that this makes better sense of the Galatians text for example in Galatians 3: 23-25:
//But before faith [the New Covenant] came, we were held in custody under the Law [the Sinai Covenant], being shut up for the coming faith [New Covenant] to be revealed. Therefore the Law [Sinai Covenant] has become our tutor unto Christ, so that we may be justified by faith [the New Covenant]. But now that faith [the New Covenant] has come, we are no longer under a tutor.//
His argument here is that obviously before the inauguration of the New Covenant there was already "faith" in the sense of existential trust/reliance or whatever, Abraham himself trusted/had faith in God, etc. As such, it would make nonsense of the text to speak of a time when where was no "faith", in the trust sense, and then "faith" arriving with Christ. Rather, "faith" here has to be a synecdoche for the New Covenant.
The author would call his thesis the "Third Perspective on Paul" because he provides an alternative to both NPP and the traditional Protestant reading, accepting those parts of both which he agrees with while rejecting them as incomplete.
On the NPP side, the author argues that there is a horizontal dimension in the argument of Galatians in that the Sinai Covenant was *by its very nature* exclusivist. The Sinai Covenant ("the Laws") was given by Moses precisely to create a separate holy people from the rest of the Gentiles. They are to be a holy and separate people from the world by their diet, prohibition of intermarriage, etc, etc. Contra the NPP, Gordon contends that the Jewish converts did not misunderstand the Sinai Covenant requirements to maintain their separation from the Gentiles, that's encoded into the very nature of the Sinai Covenant. However, his contention is that the Sinai Covenant is by its nature temporary, its obligations and requirements did pass away when the New Covenant was inaugurated, when "faith" has come the Sinai Covenant and its requirements for being a distinct people no longer applies and has passed way. Thus, the Abrahamic Covenant ("the Promise") was universal in nature in that it was meant to lead all the world to adoption under the true God the Creator, the Sinai Covenant ("the Law") was a tutor or temporary guardian to maintain the Jews as a separate people, that is, until the inauguration of New Covenant ("faith") when all who believe in Christ can become Abraham's children. The Law was inaugurated to protect the "Seed" of Abraham and the promise annexed to "the Seed" to ensure that the Abrahamic pledge and promise did not perish by intermarriage and dissolution by joining other tribes with their foreign gods. Thus all the ethnic purity laws.
Thus the problem which Paul confronts in Galatia is not that the Galatians are relying on their own works to justify themselves before God or become righteous, the problem is that they believe that the Sinai Covenant or "the Law" is still in effect when it has been, literally, cancelled. The requirements and curses of the Sinai Covenant itself, with its Gentile separating requirements, has been cancelled. When Paul speaks of those who under the Law as under the "curses" of Deuteronomy in Galatians 3:10-15, he did not mean it in the sense that cursed are those who rely on their own good works to justify themselves, he meant it literally in the sense of the 12 curses *literally* written into Deuteronomy and are part of the Sinai Covenant. The Jews were not cursed because they self-righteously trusted in their own performance, they were cursed because they signed the dotted line to be subject to the curses of the Sinai Covenant. However once the New Covenant was inaugurated, the Sinai Covenant *along* with its curses were cancelled.
This is one of his main critiques of the traditional/dominant reading of Galatians as a bunch of legalistic puffed up Christians trying to justify themselves by their own good works, or have misunderstood the "Law's" role in providing righteousness. The Galatians have not misunderstood the Law's role in requiring a separate people and all the gentile separating requirements, they have merely failed to appreciate the significance of the New Covenant which is to fulfil the purpose of the Sinai Covenant and thereby *cancel* it. Once the Seed appeared in the person of Jesus Christ, then there was no need for the Sinai Covenant anymore, which purpose was merely to temporarily protect the Seed from dissolving into the gentile masses.
Gordon on the other hand rejects the NPP claim that justification is about declaring being in the covenant or remaining in the covenant. His argument is that the Sinai Covenant prescribes curses precisely for the covenant people, being in the covenant does not by itself make one righteous or just, thus "justification" as merely declaring that one in the covenant cannot work because merely being in the covenant will not provide righteousness. If anything, the Jews were condemned precisely because they are in the covenant and therefore subject to its curses.
Thus, Gordon does accept the standard Protestant account of justification in relation to ethical/moral standing before God and forgiveness, etc. He also accepts the standard Lutheran distinction between the "Law" and "Gospel" in that he sees the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant as both purely unilateral "promises", it does not curse nor require the performance of any works. It is simply God's oath to do something for Abraham and his seed, whereas the Sinai Covenant is conditioned on works and comes with curses.
There are however some weakness in the book such as some rambling remarks about how since there is no Jewish nation, having been abolished, Christians should not involve themselves with national polity questions or issues, remove the American flag from churches, etc. I think here he hasn't really given much thought about what morality and ethics, especially political morality, might look like outside of the Sinai Covenant since his main thesis is its cancellation.
Overall, I think this thesis does make sense of Galatians and Paul's reasoning overall. Although this is technically an academic book which contains a lot of untranslated Greek terms, but his arguments could still be followed even if one does not understand the Greek, although it is a work to be read carefully as his arguments are very tight.
I think this is a definite must read book for appreciating the best insights of NPP while retaining the core of the Protestant justification by faith doctrine.
His main thesis can be encapsulated in Galatians 3:17 "And what I am saying is this: the Law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to abolish the promise."
The "Law" here is rightly capitalised in the LSB because it emphasises that "the Law" which came 430 years later *does not* refer to some timeless eternal moral law of God, or even his moral will, it does not refer to some atemporal "Covenant of Works" from the time of Adam, it literally refers to a time-bound and specific *covenant administration*, specifically the Sinai Covenant/Law which came at a very specific moment in time, 430 years after the Abrahamic covenant. Thus, his main thesis is a thoroughgoing poly-covenantalism and a rejection of general systematic conception of covenants. The only covenants which exist are those with proper names and refer to particular specific space-time covenants, e.g. the Abrahamic covenant, the Sinai covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant. Thus he rejects both monocovenantalism and the common Westminster view that there is an abstract "covenant of works" or "covenant of grace" underlying the covenants with proper names.
Thus, he dubs his approach the "Covenant-Historical" reading rather than "covenant-theological" to emphasise the nature of covenants are referring to specific covenants with proper names rather than covenants of theological construction or abstraction.
The book itself however is not a general thesis but specifically focused on analysing the reasoning of Galatians. His main argument in relation to the Galatian text is that the words "promise", "law" and "faith" are actually just synecdoches for the Abrahamic covenant, the Sinai covenant, and the New covenant respectively. His contention is that this makes better sense of the Galatians text for example in Galatians 3: 23-25:
//But before faith [the New Covenant] came, we were held in custody under the Law [the Sinai Covenant], being shut up for the coming faith [New Covenant] to be revealed. Therefore the Law [Sinai Covenant] has become our tutor unto Christ, so that we may be justified by faith [the New Covenant]. But now that faith [the New Covenant] has come, we are no longer under a tutor.//
His argument here is that obviously before the inauguration of the New Covenant there was already "faith" in the sense of existential trust/reliance or whatever, Abraham himself trusted/had faith in God, etc. As such, it would make nonsense of the text to speak of a time when where was no "faith", in the trust sense, and then "faith" arriving with Christ. Rather, "faith" here has to be a synecdoche for the New Covenant.
The author would call his thesis the "Third Perspective on Paul" because he provides an alternative to both NPP and the traditional Protestant reading, accepting those parts of both which he agrees with while rejecting them as incomplete.
On the NPP side, the author argues that there is a horizontal dimension in the argument of Galatians in that the Sinai Covenant was *by its very nature* exclusivist. The Sinai Covenant ("the Laws") was given by Moses precisely to create a separate holy people from the rest of the Gentiles. They are to be a holy and separate people from the world by their diet, prohibition of intermarriage, etc, etc. Contra the NPP, Gordon contends that the Jewish converts did not misunderstand the Sinai Covenant requirements to maintain their separation from the Gentiles, that's encoded into the very nature of the Sinai Covenant. However, his contention is that the Sinai Covenant is by its nature temporary, its obligations and requirements did pass away when the New Covenant was inaugurated, when "faith" has come the Sinai Covenant and its requirements for being a distinct people no longer applies and has passed way. Thus, the Abrahamic Covenant ("the Promise") was universal in nature in that it was meant to lead all the world to adoption under the true God the Creator, the Sinai Covenant ("the Law") was a tutor or temporary guardian to maintain the Jews as a separate people, that is, until the inauguration of New Covenant ("faith") when all who believe in Christ can become Abraham's children. The Law was inaugurated to protect the "Seed" of Abraham and the promise annexed to "the Seed" to ensure that the Abrahamic pledge and promise did not perish by intermarriage and dissolution by joining other tribes with their foreign gods. Thus all the ethnic purity laws.
Thus the problem which Paul confronts in Galatia is not that the Galatians are relying on their own works to justify themselves before God or become righteous, the problem is that they believe that the Sinai Covenant or "the Law" is still in effect when it has been, literally, cancelled. The requirements and curses of the Sinai Covenant itself, with its Gentile separating requirements, has been cancelled. When Paul speaks of those who under the Law as under the "curses" of Deuteronomy in Galatians 3:10-15, he did not mean it in the sense that cursed are those who rely on their own good works to justify themselves, he meant it literally in the sense of the 12 curses *literally* written into Deuteronomy and are part of the Sinai Covenant. The Jews were not cursed because they self-righteously trusted in their own performance, they were cursed because they signed the dotted line to be subject to the curses of the Sinai Covenant. However once the New Covenant was inaugurated, the Sinai Covenant *along* with its curses were cancelled.
This is one of his main critiques of the traditional/dominant reading of Galatians as a bunch of legalistic puffed up Christians trying to justify themselves by their own good works, or have misunderstood the "Law's" role in providing righteousness. The Galatians have not misunderstood the Law's role in requiring a separate people and all the gentile separating requirements, they have merely failed to appreciate the significance of the New Covenant which is to fulfil the purpose of the Sinai Covenant and thereby *cancel* it. Once the Seed appeared in the person of Jesus Christ, then there was no need for the Sinai Covenant anymore, which purpose was merely to temporarily protect the Seed from dissolving into the gentile masses.
Gordon on the other hand rejects the NPP claim that justification is about declaring being in the covenant or remaining in the covenant. His argument is that the Sinai Covenant prescribes curses precisely for the covenant people, being in the covenant does not by itself make one righteous or just, thus "justification" as merely declaring that one in the covenant cannot work because merely being in the covenant will not provide righteousness. If anything, the Jews were condemned precisely because they are in the covenant and therefore subject to its curses.
Thus, Gordon does accept the standard Protestant account of justification in relation to ethical/moral standing before God and forgiveness, etc. He also accepts the standard Lutheran distinction between the "Law" and "Gospel" in that he sees the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant as both purely unilateral "promises", it does not curse nor require the performance of any works. It is simply God's oath to do something for Abraham and his seed, whereas the Sinai Covenant is conditioned on works and comes with curses.
There are however some weakness in the book such as some rambling remarks about how since there is no Jewish nation, having been abolished, Christians should not involve themselves with national polity questions or issues, remove the American flag from churches, etc. I think here he hasn't really given much thought about what morality and ethics, especially political morality, might look like outside of the Sinai Covenant since his main thesis is its cancellation.
Overall, I think this thesis does make sense of Galatians and Paul's reasoning overall. Although this is technically an academic book which contains a lot of untranslated Greek terms, but his arguments could still be followed even if one does not understand the Greek, although it is a work to be read carefully as his arguments are very tight.
I think this is a definite must read book for appreciating the best insights of NPP while retaining the core of the Protestant justification by faith doctrine.
June 17, 2022
Superb!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews