WTJ 53 (1991) 73-91

"THE BLESSING OF ABRAHAM" VERSUS "THE CURSE OF THE LAW": ANOTHER LOOK AT GAL 3:10-13
JOSEPH P. BRASWELL

N the preface to his commentary on Galatians, Hans Dieter Betz re marks: "Strange as it may be after such long and intensely scholarly efforts, Paul's letter to the Galatians . . . still presents the scholar with a 1 most formidable challenge." The interpretation of this epistle is far from settled; questions, problems, and difficulties yet remain. Progress comes by inches, however, and in this article I wish to consider some aspects and implications of the interpretation of Galatians 3 suggested by David L. Lull.2 Building upon his work, though not necessarily in directions he him self would move, I hope to show what Paul is really arguing in Gal 3:10-13: what he sees as the problem of being , why this state of existence operates under a curse, and how Christ as curse-bearer provides a solution within the framework of the problem-situation of Jew-Gentile relations in the church. Gal 3:10 reads: "For as many as are characterized by oraA-works are under a curse; for it stands written: Accursed is everyone who does not abide within all those things that have been written in the Torah scrolls to do them' " (my translation; for the distinction between torah and Torah, see below). According to Lull, Paul here asserts that all peoples are under the law-curse pronounced in Deut 27:26. In his words: "This question [of why the law was given], to which Paul has given an implicit answer in 3:6-18, namely, to place everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, 'under a curse/ is raised and addressed explicitly in 3:19-25."3 At first this may not sound especially new and original. Indeed, at least prima fade, it might seem to be simply the traditional Protestant Reformational understanding of the verse, a reading within the theological context provided by Romans 1-3.4 In the context of Lull's article, however, an

H. D . Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia;

Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) xiii. 2 David L. Lull, " T h e Law Was Our Pedagogue': A Study in Galatians 3:19-25," JBL 105 (1986) 481-98. 3 Ibid., 481 (emphasis adeed). 4 For example, Calvin remarks on 3:10: T h e law holds all living men under its curse"
{Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians andEphesians, in Calvin's Commentaries [22 vols.;

Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979] 21.88). Heikki Risnen represents a recent advocate of reading

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altogether different sense is intended. For Lull seems to distinguish between 5 being "under a curse" and actually being accursed. The precise significance of this distinctionthough seemingly merely a comment made in passing (albeit a highly suggestive one)is what I would emphasize as the most important part of Lull's thesis relevant to my concerns in the present essay. I would insist, however, that the exegetical fruitfulness of Lull's insight can only come into its own and be further specified and developed after we first take issue with Lull over another part of his thesis, making important modification regarding the precise identity of those who are . I. Those Who "Are of the Works of the Law" It is my contention that Lull's thesis requires an important modification at one crucial point. As can be seen from the above quotation, Lull places both Jews and Gentiles under the curse. This understanding I believe to be a grave error for interpretation, having the potential to ruin an otherwise promising proposal for exegesis. I would propose instead that we under stand as having reference only to Jews. Redemptivehistorically, only the Jewish people were placed under the law;6 only they
Gal 3:10 in light of Rom 1:18-3:20 (Paul and the Law [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986] 95-96). Reformed theology in general has traditionally held that even Gentiles are under the moral law of God as imposed by the creation covenant of works, extending by the analogy of Scripture the application of this curse (even as Paul supposedly does in Romans) to condemn all persons as being guilty transgressors subject to the eternal death penalty for covenantbreaking for their failure to keep the moral law perfectly. Whatever theological merit this view may enjoy, the concern of the exegete is solely with what Paul has in mind in this passage. I shall presently argue that, because Paul refers to the law of Moses, he is making application here only to Jews as those who are under the law and therefore under the curse-threat of the law. What I therefore regard as a theological imposition upon the text from the Protestant Reformational view of the law is responsible for misdirecting exegesis to an unwarranted assumption that Paul is concerned here with the law's unfulfillability. 5 Lull, "Pedagogue," 485. 6 Even were we to assume that the Gentiles are in some sense under obligation to the law (qua universal moral law of the creation covenant), the expression does not capture such a sense of culpability. It rather signifies those whose lives are in some sense characterized by the law (and clearly the law of Moses). To be designated is to have given indication that one's lifestyle reflects a pattern of conformity (at least on some level of external expression via observable behavior) to the law's demands. R. Bertram ("," TDNT 2.646) identifies 'with the rabbinic "works of the commandments" as "works required by God." Gentiles cannot be said to be characterized by such a lifestyle; it is the distinctive mark of the Jews. Nor can we adjust the expression to denote legalism and thereby include all (whether Jew or Gentile) who are seeking a meritorious worksrighteousness. How can such self-justification be equated with "doing what the law requires" when such presumption and boasting is explicitly proscribed by the law as a fundamental form of disobedience? Risnen correctly notes that there is no hint of legalism implied in the expression by stating: "The reference is not to 'self-chosen' works accomplished with the purpose of acquiring a reason for boasting. The 'works of the law' are simply the works demanded by the Torah" (Paul and the Law, 177). See for further extension of the meaning of the references given in n. 7 below.

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not the Gentileswere made recipients of the divinely revealed covenant torah through Moses. Possessing this law was one of the marks of their special status as a peculiar people (Deut 4:6-8). It constituted their covenantal status as the chosen people of God. Paul affirms this unequivocally elsewhere (Rom 2:12-3:12; 9:1-5) and there is no textual reason to assume he intends a different significance here. w On the contrary, his use of the "we"/"you distinction in Gal 3:23-4:7 (cf. also "us"/"Gentiles" in 3:13-14 and the "we who are Jews" as distinguished from "Gentile sinners" in 2:15-16) provides a strong contextual case for the same limitation of reference, especially when we consider his use of "we 7 Jews"/"you Gentiles" language in his other epistles. Certainly it would create a most strange reading of Gal 3:17-19 if we were to imagine that Paul sees the special revelation of the law through Moses as being to all peoples rather than only to those regarded as the corporate seed of Abra ham, who regarded themselves as the seed to whom the promise referred. The sphere of the law's dominion and authority therefore extends only to the Jews and it is only those who are under the law who could be under a curse pronounced by that law. The people who are those whose way of life is characterized by foroA-worksare those who are Jews (or Jewish proselytes), those whose manner of life, in distinction from the Gentiles, is distinctively Jewish according to the tokens of (Mosaic) cove nant identity. It is they who are somehow found on the other side of the "fence" from the sphere in which the Abrahamic blessing upon the nations is operative. II. The Curse-Threat of Covenantal Jmism With this modification of the Lull thesis we can now paraphrase Paul as saying: You Judaizers think that form the law's fence, demarcating the identity and boundary of covenantal nomism as a sphere in which the Abrahamic blessing operates. Far from blessing, it is a sphere operating upon the principle
Gf. for a fuller discussion the treatment given in T. L. Donaldson, "The 'Curse of the Law' and the Inclusion of the Gentiles: Galatians 3:13-14," NTS 32 (1986) 95-97. Lull ("Pedagogue," 481 n. 1) appeals to thefirstperson plural pronoun ("us") in Gal 3:13 precisely as evidence fir inclusion of the Gentiles among those "under a curse" (see also Risnen, Paul and the Law, 19-20), though this interpretation would seem to imply that Paul has now classified himself with the Gentiles in v. 14. It seems preferable, however, to view the relevant issue-context determinative of this usage as arising from the problem of division (the "us against them" mentality) which structures the entire controversy and which has already been explicitly introduced in 2:15 (wherein Paul identifies himself with the Jewish group in distinction from the Gentiles). The Gentiles only come into salvation-historical focus in 3:14 as recipients of the Abrahamic blessing contemporary with the redemption of the Jews from the law.
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of curse-threat. The fence imprisons you and serves as a barrier to your inher 8 itance of that blessing. It is this startling Pauline thesis (which invokes those questions concerning the seed-referent and the promised blessing of Abraham) that must be discussed and answered in the remainder of Galatians 3 (w. 15-29). According to the interpretation I am proposing then, "under a curse" is parallel to the later expressions "under law" (3:23; 4:4) and "under tutors and governors" (4:2).9 Related (but not equivalent) to these are "under sin" (3:22) and "under the elements" (4:3, 8).10 All of these expressions describe spheres of power and dominion to which the people therein enclosed are made subject and under whose sway, reign, and jurisdiction they live. The are not said to be accursed; they are merely under a curse (-threat) as those living within the sphere in which the curse principle is operative. The curse reigns as the power which enforces the law's boundaryfunction of keeping the Jews within the fence as a peculiar people set apart from the nations.11 What we find in v. 10 is an enthymeme, and the missing premise in Paul's argument here is simply the tacitly assumed, quite uncontroversial, and readily granted proposition that the (Jewish people) are under the torah. This implicit premise, coupled with the stated premise that the torah threatens a curse (the Deut 27:26 citation), yields the conclusion: "As many as are are under a curse." Being "under a curse" therefore refers (if Lull is correct) to the situation of living with the real and abiding possibility of becoming accursed. This curse-threat looms overhead like the sword of Damocles, ever ready to fall and realize its full maledictory potential upon those who stand beneath it. This state of existence results from being "under the law," for it is the torah
8 This view of the torah as a fence to protect the people and identify them as those who abide within the sphere of covenant life is central to what is referred to as "covenantal nomism." On the concept of covenantal nomism, see E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) passim, but esp. pp. 422-23. Cf. also the helpful discussions of as particularistic identity-markers, defining and setting covenantal identity and boundary for the Jews as the peculiarforaA-people,in Joseph P. Tyson, " 'Works of Law' in Galatians," JBL 92 (1973) 423-31; J. D. G. Dunn, "Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law (Galatians 3.10-14)," NTS 31 (1985) 523-42; and T. David Gordon, "The Problem at Galatia," Int 41 (1987) 32-43. As James A. Sanders states: " . . . Torah was by the time of Christ and Paul the symbol par excellence, incomparable, indestructible and incorruptible, of Ju daism. It meant Judaism's identity and way of life" ("Torah and Christ," Int 29 [1975] 381). 9 See also the significance accorded to these patterns in Donaldson, "Curse of the Law," 95. Donaldson in turn credits the setting forth of this pattern to R. B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ (SBLDS 56; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983) 86-121. 10 Betz, Galatians, 144 n. 54. 11 Cf. F. F. Bruce's comment on Deut 27:26: "By their Amen' the people as a whole disassociate themselves from such evil actions and those who practise them; the curse thus involves exclusion from the covenant community" (Commentary on Galatians [NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982] 158). Dunn especially emphasizes this sociological function of the as identity and boundary ("Works of the Law," 524-26).

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which pronounces the threat of curse. The missing premise can be tacitly assumed simply because it implies no more than that the one "under a curse" lives within the sphere of the law's jurisdiction. He is, in other words, a Jew, one whose life is marked by those tokens of covenant (i.e., torah) identity that distinguish and separate Jew from Gentile. Therefore, if I am correct in my proposed modification of the Lull thesis, those who are "under the law"the who are "under a curse"are sim ply (all and only) thetomA-people,since it was only to the Jews that the oracles of God were entrusted through Moses. The reference is not to le galists, Judaizers, or all of unredeemed humankind, but to Jews in their special identity and distinctiveness provided by a torah lifestyle. III. The Law Is Mot of Faith 1. Opposed Principles or Different Economies? Paul has used the authority of Torah and an uncontroversial premise to justify a controversial thesis: that Jews, far from being guaranteed the Abra hamic blessing, must face the live possibility of a curse. This implication had certainly not been drawn by the Judaizers, nor by most Jews. Even if granted, this thesis raises several issues that must be dealt with by the apostle. Before he turns to these issues, however, Paul chooses to buttress further his provocative and controversial thesis by another argument stated in w. 11-12. The do not provide a way of justification because "the just shall live by faith." Hab 2:4 is thus used to reinforce his previous allusion to Abraham's justification by faith (v. 6 and its citation of Gen 15:6). Thus far the argument is sufficiently uncontroversial. Next, however, Paul sets Lev 18:5 over against the Habakkuk citation, apparently to con trast sharply two disparate spheres of life before God. "The law is not of faith," he concludes, because to do the law is to live within its sphere. From this Paul proceeds to conclude that no one can be justified by the law. What exactly has Paul intended in this argument and what has it established in support of his previous argument in v. 10? Lev 18:5 epitomizes the principle of covenantal nomism.12 In covenantal nomism the law is viewed as a fence or boundary within which Jews must faithfully abide as a holy people. Paul, however, argues that this fence, inside of which the Jews find themselves, is actually the wall of a prison in
G. K. Barrett argues that most OT citations in chap. 3 (Gen 15:6 in v. 6, Gen 22:18 in v. 8, Deut 27:26 in v. 10, and Lev 18:5 in v. 12) are actually the prooftexts of the Judaizers which they marshalled to make their case for covenantal nomism ( T h e Allegory of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar in the Argument of Galatians," in Essays on Paul [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982] 158-59). N. A. Dahl argued for allusions to midrashim throughout 3:1-4:7, based on considerations of style (as cited by T. Gallan, "Pauline Midrash: The Exegetical Background of Gal 3.19b,M JBL 99 [1980] 550).
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which they are held under the sway of the curse-threat. Over against the governing idea of covenantal nomism, Paul contends that remaining within the sphere of the law does not assure the blessing of righteousness but rather presents the risk of curse. To do the law is to live within its sphere of 9 jurisdiction (Lev 18:5) and thus to be enclosed within the locus of the torah s curse-threat. We may therefore understand Paul's argument as follows: Faith guarantees the promised blessing of righteousness. The promise cannot have reference to those under the law since the threat of curse destroys the certainty of blessing. Therefore, the law cannot be "of faith" (for either faith would not make bless ing certain or the law would not threaten that certainty). Therefore, ifjustification is by faith (Gen 15:6; Hab 2:4), and the principles of faith and the law are mutually exclusive, no one is justified by the law.13 What precisely does Paul have in mind when he speaks of this faith that excludes the law? The context presents Abraham as paradigmatic for those who are "of faith" and thus justifies the qualification of this faith as spe cifically Abrahamic faith: faith placed in the seed-promise. The seed to whom the promise referred, through whom blessing would come, must be kept as the central focus. Furthermore, at issue is the universal scope of the promise (all nations) versus the particularism of the Mosaic torah (to the Jews only). Faith in the promise would transcend the exclusivism of covenantal nomism and embrace Gentile believers without requiring them to become Jews. The Torah narrative therefore enjoins faith in the universal extent of the gospel from those who would be counted as true children of Abraham (v. 7). In my construction of Paul's argument I make for clarity's sake an im portant distinction between Torah and torah. The former (capitalized) refers to the Pentateuch; the latter (lower-cased) to the covenant prescriptions. Paul uses in a variety of senses, as Bultmann notes.14 Indeed, we have one instance in Galatians where he is clearly using it with the sense of Torah, for in Gal 4:21 Paul appeals to the Abraham narrative of Genesis 21 as . I contend that he is doing the same thing in Gal 3:10 to extend the curse of Deut 27:26 over the whole Torah, including the paradigmatic Abra hamic "law of faith." Evidence for this is provided by the alterations Paul has made in the LXX text when he quotes Deut 27:26, alterations which
13 Donaldson makes the observation: "Since 'justification' has been equated with 'blessing' (v. 8), an argument that the law cannot bring justification is equivalent to an argument that it brings a curse" ("Curse of the Law," 111 n. 69). He assumes, however, that "under a curse" is equivalent to being accursed. I would invert his observation and maintain that an argument that the law pronounces a curse as a real possibility is an argument that the law cannot be the vehicle of unconditionally guaranteed blessing (= justification). 14 See R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (New York: Scribner, 1951) 1.259-60, for a discussion of Paul's use of to designate the Pentateuch, or even the entire OX

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seem to stress what "is written in the book of the law." Thus, a passage which may have been a prooftext of his Judaizing opponents for covenantal nomism places them in an inescapable dilemma wherein disobedience seems unavoidable. The Torah enjoins both law and faith. If I am correct in my construction of Paul's argument, his thesis appears to create a tension in the law (Torah): an antithesis between faith and law (torah). The law is not of faith but the law nonetheless enjoins faith, all the while erecting a curse-barrier that blocks the way to blessing. The cove nantal nomism enjoined by torah demands exclusivity, separation; the par adigmatic case of Abraham (cited from the Torah) requires as a "law of faith" inclusivism. The Jews quite literally seem "damned if they do and damned if they don't," for on the horns of this dilemma disobedience seems inevitable. The only way to blessing is through the curse, across the fence. It is quite understandable, therefore, that someone might raise the question: "Is the law against the promise of God?" (Gal 3:21). However, Paul is emphatic in his reply: ! 16 There is no real antithesis. Christ redeemed the Jews from this dilemma of the curse. Christ was born a Jew, "under the law," and therefore under the curse. By himself becoming accursed on behalf of the Jews ( ), Christ has given Jews in him safe passage through and beyond the boundary of into the sphere of Abrahamic blessing to the nations. But this solution to the Jewish dilemma provides no explanation for Paul's emphatic , why there can be no real law/promise antithesis. Indeed, Christ's deliver ance of the Jews through the nomistic boundary-barrier, from curse to
15 This emphasis seems far more justified than the emphasis placed on the text by the traditional Protestant reading. Since is a given of the LXX text, there is no particular warrant for assuming that it is being given special significance by Paul in his argument. His own additions are far more significant for understanding where his emphasis lies. I do not find arguments that Hellenistic Judaism (hence the LXX and allegedly Paul) was more legalistically oriented than Palestinian Judaism (e.g., H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in Light ofJewish Religious History [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961] 213-15) to be particularly impressive. Even assuming that such neat, hermetically sealed categories as these had any basis in the real situation or that Paul was closer to the Hellenistic side of the spectrum (both assumptions being unwarranted in my opinion), in its OT canonical context Deut 27:26 cannot be understood as demanding absolutely perfect lawkeeping, nor is there any evidence that any branch of Judaism in Paul's time understood it this way (cf. . P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 137,426-28). The demand is rather for allegiance and consecration. Trans gression of the covenant is not the same as transgressing a single commandment. For the latter, atonement could be made by sacrifice; for the former, a sin of presumption, no trespass offering was possible and the covenant-breaker was to be cut off, because such transgression, consid ered as rebellion and apostasy, struck at the heart of covenant faith-commitment to the Lordship of Yahweh.

As Charles Gosgrove points out, has an absolute sense of unequivocally emphatic denial in Paul's usage elsewhere and ought to be given that same significance here. According to Gosgrove, however, the traditional Protestant reading of w. 11-12 demands that some qualification be placed on Paul's denial ( T h e Mosaic Law Preaches Faith," WTJ 41 [1978] 154-55).

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blessing, would seem to presuppose that a real and irreconcilable tension in fact exists between law and promise. This problem necessitates our post poning any discussion of redemptive mechanism (how Christ effected the Jews' deliverance) until we address Paul's (textually subsequent) treatment of the role and purpose of the law in redemptive history. If the law did not demarcate the sphere of covenant blessing, what was its function relative to the promise? Paul clearly considers the law to be addressed to the Jews but he calls into question the idea that the Abrahamic promise directly and immediately addresses the Jews (v. 16). Paul thereby denies the very heart of Judaism's view of the law's purpose and function.17 Law and promise therefore do not share the same set of referents. Indeed, with the exception of Christ as seed of promise born under the law, these sets do not intersect. It is only if the loci of law and promise were identical or overlapped that the tension be tween them could be real. Only then could one guaranteed the blessing by immutable promise find it contingent upon curse-avoidance and the un certainty following from this. The promise is only in Christ; it was never in torah. Thus the law is not against the promise because sons of torah are not as such sons of promise and one can abide in one sphere without any right gained thereby to claim membership in the other. The Judaizers have merely created a false dilemma, fabricating a problem where none actually exists. A problem does appear to exist, however, if we are not careful to read Paul's argument within a redemptive-historical framework. After all, the Torah, which enjoins Abrahamic faith, is addressed to the Jews. It would seem then that they, throughout their covenant history, are caught in this tension between law and promise, that they are inevitably accursed as covenant breakers by the dilemma Paul has presented. Yet this is not so, for Paul has something more in mind when he says that the law is not of faith.18
See Sanders (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 422-23) on the pattern of religion of covenantal nomism in Judaism. The heart of this pattern was the belief that abiding in the covenant constituted one righteous (i.e., a Jew maintained his right relation to God by obeying the terms which defined that relationship). Paul is emphatic in his insistence that such cannot be the case (2:15-16,21). Jews and Gentiles are righteous as they abide in Christ, in the sphere of the Spirit, not in torah. 18 This possibility was first suggested to me by Dr. Vern Poythress of Westminster Theo logical Seminary in a 1987 letter. On this interpretation the redemptive-historical senses of "law" and "faith," explicitly developed in w. 19-25, are already anticipated in v. 12. I offer the following argument in defense of Poythress' fruitful suggestion. Already in the preceding context (w. 6-9) Paul has connected the Gen 15:6 passage with the blessing promise to the seed given in Gen 12:3; 22:18, etc., because the promise which Abraham believed involved his seed (Gen 15:5). It is this faith that characterizes the children of Abraham who are blessed with faithful Abraham (see also below on the possible significance of oi ). This indicates that Paul already intends by something other than a psychological faculty of trust, a subjective disposition (as is certainly obvious in his usage in w. 19-25). Abraham belonged proleptically to the class of (which Donaldson ["Curse of the Law," 101], following Hays [Faith ofJesus Christ, 157-76], distinguishes from ), but this class
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The promise comes into effect only when the seed comes (3:16, 19); this is when faith comes (3:23, 25) and the 7oraA-enjoined obligation to embrace the promise with Abrahamic faith comes into force. This time is coterminous with the ending of obligation to the torah (3:19, 23-25). Paul's thesis therefore presents no problem for old covenant Jews. The problem of irreconcilable loyalties to law and promise is applicable only to the Judaizers with their attempted synthesis of Christ and torah, and it is a problem of their own making. The Judaizers have created their own dilemma because Christ has provided a way for sons of torah to become sons of promise. The Judaizers are proposing that the Gentile sons of promise become sons of torah and that the Jewish sons of promise remain devoted and loyal sons of torah. Of course, from their perspective they are asking Gentiles to become sons o torah as a prerequisite to becoming true sons of promise, for in their understanding the Messiah has come to effect the promised blessing to those who are in the covenantal locus defined by lawkeeping. Paul has attacked this idea by maintaining that Jews must abandon Mosaic covenantal nomism (with its particularism) and step outside the torah-fcnce in Christ and that Gentiles have no relation to the law whatsoever. To be in Christ is to be outside of torah, but the Judaizers have a divided allegiance which sets Christ and torah in competition as rival lordships. From the divine perspective upon redemptive history, the promise comes into effect with Christ and the law was until Christ. The law is no longer divinely operative. The Judaizers are attempting to rebuild what God in Christ has torn down and this is what confronts them with the false dilemma of unavoidable disobedience and consequent accursedness (2:18-19). 2. Faith versus Works: Haggadah and Halakah In light of this exegesis, it does not appear that Paul is contrasting works and faith in the traditional Protestant manner. Faith is not a subjective disposition but rather has specific reference to the seed and, through him, the blessing of all nations; it is correlated to the gospel of Jesus Christ and thus has redemptive-historical reference to "the fulness of time" and the coming of Jesus Christ.19
of those characterized by (the special redemptive-historical sense of) (in contrast to the old covenant people characterized as thetoraA-people)comes into existence only with the coming of Christ and the . Thus, the law is not of faith because the law-economy no more belongs to the time of this faith-economy than the time of "the faith of Christ" belongs to the time of law, as he states in the succeeding context (w. 19-25). See further Donaldson's comments ("Curse of the Law," 101) and his citation there (n. 62) of R. B. Hays on Abrahamic faith (Faith of Jesus Christ, 232). 19 See G. M. Taylor's first four points (esp. #3) on the ( T h e Function of in Galatians," JBL 85 [1966] 67). His thesis on the fidei commissum provides an interesting possibility relevant to Paul's ascription of "faith" to the time of fulfillment.

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Indeed, in my opinion the tendency to read Galatians in terms of Luther's contrast of works and faith leads exegesis astray.20 While blunting the contrast significantly, James A. Sanders still attempts to cast the debate between Paul and his opponents in terms of their respective emphases on mythos (haggadah) or ethos (halakah).21 The debate, however, is not over abstracted 7oroA-ethics (i.e., removed from their grounding in the recital of God's mighty deeds of salvation and covenant words of promise) versus the 7orA-story (qua Heilsgeschichte).22 Paul's controversy with the Judaizers involves rather his opposition to their misplaced stress on the Torah-mythos as though it were something alongside (and therefore in competition for loyalty with) the gospel-narrative of Jesus Christ. J. C. Beker correctly refers to the Judaizers' message of lawkeeping in its salvation-historical sense of signifying the distinctive covenantal identity of the Jewish people.23 In this self-understanding, the member of the covenant community believes himself to be an heir of the promise because his identification with covenant people (and the holy history in which they are involved) means his participation in the seed-line understood as the sphere of promise.24 In other words, the significance of circumcision, diet, sabbath to the Jews (and Paul's Judaizing opponents) lay in their signification of the Torah-mythos. Their emphasis on "works" was sim ply a concern with the means of incorporation into the locus of blessing, which covenantal nomism understood to be defined by the torah (Lev ).25
I will return to this point to offer substantiating evidence in the conclusion. Sanders, Torah and Christ," 375. 22 E.g., John Murray, in commenting on Rom 10:5, sees Paul as battling an interpretation of the law which abstracts it from its covenantal context in which it is grounded in promise and calls for obedience as response to God's grace and salvation (The Epistle to the Romans [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975] 2.249-50). Thus, according to Murray, Paul cites Lev 18:5 out of context to illustrate the bare law (ethos in abstraction from mythos), not cov enantal torah. Supposedly, the Jews had legalistically reduced the Torah to abstract ethos. 23 J. C. Beker, The Apostle Paul: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980) 43-44. 24 Thus, we could speak of a controversy over competing participationist soteriologies: should one be involved in the corporate seed (the Jewish people) or the individual seed (Jesus Christ)? Note that R. B. Hays sees participationist soteriology as structuring Paul's whole argument in 3:1-4:7, esp. 3:16, 26-29 (Faith of Jesus Christ, as cited in Donaldson, "Curse of the Law," 101-2). 25 But were Judaizers full-blown covenantal nomists or compromisers? Gal 5:3 and (esp.) 6:13 may indicate that neither were they advocating to the Gentiles nor were themselves concerned with the full demands of true covenantal nomism. Indeed, circumcision and kosher diet seem to be their main (if not only) concerns. Dunn has argued that these had a partic ularly sociological function in marking off the Jews as a distinct people with their own peculiar (covenantal) identity ("Works of the Law," 524-27). These external rites qua identity-markers signified participation in the /oreA-community. Among godly Jews these rites marked the recipient/practitioner as an adherent to the Mosaic law, abiding in the covenant sphere of life and blessing (the faith of covenantal nomism), but the evidence suggests that the Judaizers were not so serious in their commitment to covenantal nomism. R. Jewett suggests that the
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Paul, on the other hand, refuses to coordinate Torah and Christ. Torah is subordinate (the argument of 3:19-25: temporary, administered by angels, having a function analogous to that of a household slave). Indeed, Paul sees the Torah-mythos as taken up into, recapitulated by, and fulfilled in the 1 Christ-event. Hence, for Paul, the 7oroA-story has been exhausted and su perseded by the gospel-story. Shadow and substance cannot be placed on par. Participation in Abrahamic lineage is involved in the state of being Christ and is therefore a given to those in Christ.26 At best, therefore, a distinct act of incorporation into the Torah-story would be superfluous, but such incorporation could well (depending upon the attitude and perception of the candidate concerning the significance of this act) usurp the glory and lordship of Christ, setting up a rival dominion with demands (exclusivistic particularism) contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

IV. The Divine Pedagogy We have seen why the law was not inherently opposed to promise and how the Judaizers' error succeeded in creating a false law/promise tension. Paul has demonstrated that the law was not the way to the Abrahamic blessing. Now he must tell the Galatians what the law was intended to do. If it did not bestow inheritance rights upon the corporate seed (the torahpeople), as Paul argues once more in 3:17-18, what was its intended func tion in the history of salvation? It is to this question that Paul directs his attention in 3:19-24. Why the law? To prepare the corporate seed for the coming of Christ, that they might become heirs of the promise in him (3:23-24). Whether the law was added in order to provoke transgressions,27 or to curb the existing problem of transgressions (as Lull suggests),28 the giving of the law to the corporate seed of Abraham served to advance the progress of redemptive history. In a situation in which all ( Jews and Gentiles) were confined under the power and dominion of sin, it marked off the Jews for a special purpose by creating a fence around them, whether to keep sin out or to imprison them inside a sphere of intensified sin.
Judaizers advocated circumcision and other such sociologically identifying symbols of Jewishness because of the intensified concern with separation and national identity caused by zealot pressure groups ("The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation," NTS 17 [1970-71] 198-212). R. G. Hamerton-Kelly provides further substantiation for this thesis ("Sacred Vi olence and the Curse of the Law [Galatians 3:13]: The Death of Christ as Sacrificial Travesty," NTS 36 [1990] 105-8). 26 See n. 24 above on participationist soteriology in 3:16, 19-25. 27 This view, which takes as purposive, is capably set forth by Bruce (Galatians, 175-76), to give but one representative advocate of what is by far the predominant scholarly opinion. 28 Lull, "Pedagogue," 483-85.

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Lull has made an excellent case for understanding w. 19-25 as saying that the law served to protect the people from sin, to guard and keep them by restraining sin and shutting out bad influences.29 When we look at various statements about the purpose and function of the law that Paul made in his epistle to the Romans, however, Lull's interpretation seems untenable.30 There it is said that the law increases transgressions, provides experimental knowledge of sin, and works wrath.31 Can these negative statements be reconciled with a reading of Gal 3:19 that presents the law v in a positive light? I would suggest that the answer lies in the fact that the law can be viewed from different perspectives. Paul's letters are occasional and must be read as such. The specific, concrete problem-situation that occasions his writing must be taken into account in the interpretation of his writings. Paul's letters are answers to problems and/or questions which have arisen in his churches, and these responses will not make sense in a vacuum, out of their context. They are relative to the situations addressed rather than exhaustive theological treatments. Therefore, we cannot simply assemble seemingly parallel passages abstracted from different Pauline letters without giving due consideration to this relativity.32 Many allegations of contradictions33 or simplistic and artificial harmonizations often result from the interpreter's failure to note this occasionalism. Once we acknowledge that a different situation may warrant a different perspective, an emphasis on a different aspect which is seen in light of an approach from a different angle, our apparent problem in harmonizing Galatians with Romans disappears.34
Ibid., 488-96. Bruce, again quite representatively, appeals to Romans for understanding Paul's meaning in Galatians (Galatians, 175-76). Lull argues that we not make appeal to other contexts in interpreting what Paul has in mind in Galatians ("Pedagogue," 483-85). 31 Rom 3:20; 4:15; 5:20; 7:5. Also cf. 1 Cor 15:56. Gal 3:19 seems most parallel to Rom 5:20. 32 This is not to say that all appeals to apparent parallels are wrong (note the qualification). Internal coherence, however, is more reliable for interpreting a literary unit (such as one of Paul's letters) than is external consistency (harmonizing the interpretation with statements made in other Pauline letters). In other words, I put more stock in making his argument in Galatians coherent than I do in bringing all that he has said into harmony, because internal coherence seems better suited to occasional literature. If importing parallels can shed some genuine light on otherwise ambiguous passages without sacrificing the coherence of the total interpretation, well and good, but the use of Rom 5:20 does not provide a coherent understanding of Gal 3:19 within the total framework of the interpretation of Paul's argument (and its total coherence, self-consistency, and explanatory/predictive fruitfulness provide for me ample justification for assigning little value to the apparent parallels when these threaten the total interpretation; the discrepancy this move supposedly creates in Pauline theology can be handled in another manner). 33 E.g., this charge is made by H. Risnen, Paul and the Law, 94-96, 109. 34 Gf. Calvin's perceptive remarks on Gal 3:19 in his Galatians, 99-100: T h e law has manifold uses, but Paul confines himself to that which bears on his present subject The definition here given of the use of the law is not complete, and those who refuse to make any other acknowledgement in favour of the law do wrong." Noting the highly polemical nature
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Therefore, rather than letting Romans dictate to us what Galatians can and cannot mean (a luxury the Galatians surely did not have), we must allow Galatians to speak to us with its own integrity. Doing that, I at least am persuaded by the case Lull has made for understanding the law's func tion in a positive light, as a temporary measure for dealing with the prob lem of transgressions, protecting and guarding (even if sometimes by harsh 35 means) the underage children. To set forth in summary fashion Lull's interpretation, we should understand Paul to be saying in w. 19-24 some thing along the lines of the following paraphrase: What, then, was the purpose for which the law was given? It was added in order to deal with the problem of transgressions through punishment and deterrence until the coming of the seed of Abraham to whom the promise had reference.. . . Is the law therefore contrary to the promise? Absolutely, unequivocally, and emphatically not! The law was not intended to confer righteousness and life by the way of covenantal nomism (as if the law were a cure that definitively erad icates sin, delivering us from its power). Rather, in the situation in which the whole world was divinely confined under the dominion of sin's reign, the law served the Jews as a protective fence to mitigate somewhat this situation until the revelation of faith as the real solution to the problem. The law was our pedagogue until the time of Christ.36 The law's purpose was not one of provoking sin, or entrapping the Jews in sin, but one of restraining sin and keeping the Jews until Christ came. It was, as the Jews believed, a fence, and their concern with boundary (separation) was good and proper in the divinely appointed time-frame. The Judaizers' mistake was one of confusing law and promise, of absolu tizing the law.37 They thought the law in itself conferred righteousness and
of this epistle, one cannot expect qualified statements. Paul is not giving a complete and balanced treatment but is very singlemindedly focused on the issue at hand. 35 Although I cannot argue it here, I believe that this positive approach to the law's function puts Paul more in harmony with the picture of the law presented by OT theology. We need only look at the state of the Hebrews in Egypt (many forsaking the covenant of circumcision and succumbing to idolatry) or during their wanderings to understand the necessity of the law as a . 36 Particular exegetical problems on the interpretation of w. 19, 22, and 23 (e.g., whether is telic or causal) are dealt with by Lull in "Pedagogue," 483-88. 37 In much of the Judaism of this period there was what Paul would have considered a confusion of type and antitype. The law had been idolatrously absolutized into the eternal torah, exalted to a place of honor beside God as a Wisdom/Logos hypostasis. Paul opposed such as usurping the place of honor that rightfully belongs to the Son alone. The issue is not whether Jews before Christ were right with God in practicing the obedience of faith expressed in true covenantal nomism. The text simply does not address this matter and it is illegitimate for us to direct such a question to this text. Rather, at issue is whether covenantal nomism provided a definitive and permanent solutionreally bestowing righteousness in and of itself as the true locus of the promiseor whether it was just a temporary means of dealing with sins until the promise found fulfillment on the stage of redemptive history. At issue is an understanding of the torah which set it in competition with Christ. There can be no divided loyalty and alle giance; the torah cannot have a dominion usurping the fyrios.

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life to those who remained within the bounds it set. Instead it only pronounced a curse upon those who transgressed those boundaries, those who "jumped the fence."38 It was a restraining force, not a cure. V. The Curse-Bearing of Christ If the interpretation I have offered above is correct, we now know why the law was given: to protect and guide the underaged children until they could be adopted as full heirs (4:1-5). This sets the stage for understanding what it means that Christ vicariously bore the curse for the Jews. Somehow, the death of Christ removed the curse-barrier of the nomistic boundary. In so doing, that death made possible movement outside the exclusivistic sphere defined by the torah, breaking down the middle wall of partition that separated Jew and Gentile. With the removal of the torais boundary-barrier the blessing of Abraham could extend to all nations and Jews could exercise Abrahamic faith in the universal scope of the promise. Again, the Jewish notion of the torah as a fence is important to the understanding of the problem to which the death of Christ provided the solution. The fence was protective in nature, keeping out evil influences by separating the Jews from the Gentile "sinners."39 The way it kept check upon the full manifestation of sin, however, was the deterrent involved in its threat of punishment (the curse), not by a bestowal of righteousness as a definitive cure to the enslaving power of sin. The sins of the nations were kept out of Israel to some extent because the Jews were kept in the protective custody and under the supervision of a babysitter. In this sense, the Jews were imprisoned; the fence prevented them from wandering outside, in harm's way, because to cross over was to bring down the curse. Separatism was thereby enforced from the inside. Jesus the Jew was born into this covenantal situation, under the law and, hence, inside the fence of covenantal identity and boundary. His crucifixion, however, was (as Paul argues) the bearing of a curse according to Deut
The noncurative nature of the torah captures the contrast between the old and new covenants in Jer 31:31-33 which Paul recognizes in 1 Corinthians 3-4. The law did not have the power to free men from the powers that bound them in slavery. 39 On the meaning of "sinners" in Gal 2:15 as covenantally determined by the torahboundary, see Bruce (Galatians, 137) and Betz (Galatians, 115). Calvin also recognized this. Commenting on 2:15 (Galatians, 66), he notes that "sinners" denotes the Gentiles as those outside of God's covenant (profine as opposed to the holy status of the Jews) and, hence, alienated from God. It does not mean simply those who sin in the sense of breaking a commandment. Had Calvin followed through on this insight (and what he also says here about the Jews: MWe are born holy: not by our own merit, but because God has chosen us to be his people"), he would have understood the crucial distinction between nomism and legalism and his own interpretation (and with it, perhaps the history of Reformed exegesis) of the epistle would have been altered significantly, for he would have understood that the controversy was over particularism, not meritorious works.
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21:23 (Gal 3:13). This ignoble death put him outside the sphere of the covenant as one cut off, disinherited from the promised land. He was regarded as though he were a Gentile "sinner," handed over to the Gentiles for execution, believed to be rejected by God and under divine judgment (accursed) as a covenant breaker. The barrier between Jesus and the Gentiles was thus broken down; Christ was outside the fence as a curserecipient, no longer under the law because now dead to it. To confess Jesus as Lord was to identify in faith with his lot, to belong to him and therefore to be united to and participate in this accursed state as one cast out, cut off, disinherited. Those Jews who confessed this Jesus were, in him, found outside the boundary of nomistic distinctions. They had renounced in principle their torah identity. This was an implicit recognition that there was no difference between them and the "sinners of the Gentiles" (2:15-17).41 It is on this basis that Paul at Antioch convinces Peter that separatism is wholly inconsistent with the gospel of justification. If Jews find justification in Jesus Christ, they must admit more than their need for atonement and forgiveness; they must reject the heart of the covenantal nomist position and concede that they cannot be "righteoused" by abiding within the torahfence. God's way of redemption made it clear that covenantal nomism was not the way of justification. If God raised Jesus from the dead, he has thereby vindicated this one which the torah pronounces accursed; he has declared this Jesus to be the accepted and beloved Son-heir through whom the blessing comes. Not to follow Christ beyond the barrier by faith, not to renounce covenantal nomism as a failure for righteousness, is in principle to say that Jesus died in vain (2:21), to deny the meaning of the resurrection, and thus (adopting the perspective of covenantal nomism) to call Jesus "accursed."
40 Cf. the discussion of this text in M. Wilcox, "Upon the TreeDeut. 21:22-23 in the New Testament," JBL 96 (1977) 94-99. 41 One view found among Protestant interpreters understands Gal 2:17 to be saying that, because justification in Christ exposes the problem of the human condition (all have sinned), since a solution (justification) presupposes a problem (sin), some might conclude that this implies that Christ serves the cause of sin. Such a conclusion is so obviously a non sequitur that I seriously doubt Paul would have taken it seriously enough to refute (w. 18-20). Indeed, Jews (or Judaizers) would not entertain such an argument, for by analogy it is as absurd as their reasoning that the sacrifices of atonement (which, by their performance presupposed the need for atonement: the sins of the people) are also servants of sin! What Paul really intends in 2:17 is best disclosed within the framework of interpretation I am proposing in this article. Bearing in mind the Jewish meaning of "sinners" in v. 15 (a label not applicable to Jews practicing covenantal nomism), ifjustification in Christ has indeed broken down the barrier between Jew and Gentile (hence, table fellowship is allowedw. 11-14), those Jews who follow Christ are already outside the sphere defined as holy by covenantal nomism. They are already in the same position, relative to thetoreA-fence,as the Gentiles. Hence, Christ seems to have made them "sinners" no different than the Gentiles from the perspective of covenantal nomism, since Christ has transferred them outside of the covenantal boundary set by the law. Christ therefore seems to be a minister of sin, for he has destroyed the sphere of the holy. This is the charge that Paul answers by developing the idea of participation in Christ as a new covenantal sphere of life in the Spirit.

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Having died to the law in the curse-bearing of Christ, the Jewish believer finds sonship and inheritance, not in the law but in the resurrection-life of Christ bestowed by the Spirit which has made him a new creation. In Christ, he has been transferred out of the sphere of life under the law (hence, under the curse), crucified to the world, delivered out of this present evil age into the inheritance of a Jerusalem above. To attempt to erect the broken wall, as the Judaizers did, was to become a transgressor against the law of Christ and its Mnew-covenantal nomism."42 It was to blaspheme the Lord!43 The Spirit, not the torah, defines the new community; the new identity-marker is baptismal faith in Christ and the fruit of the Spirit. VI. To the Jew First Up to this point we have been concerned with the redemption of the Jews \ from their curse (3:10-13), but 3:14 connects the blessing of Abraham upon the Gentiles with the redemption of the Jews. They must be blessed to gether. The Jews' redemption set them upon the stage where this blessing was to take place, beyond the fence and among the nations.44 The Jews could not be blessed while trapped inside the sphere of particularistic law, since the blessing was directed to all the nations. The Gentiles, hpwever, could not be blessed without the Jews45 (a salvation-historical point Paul
In the last days, the nations are to flock to an exalted Jerusalem "above the hills" to be instructed in the law (Isa 2:2-3). Paul may have in mind in Gal 4:24-31 a tradition that contrasts the role of the Zion-torah with that of the Sinai-toraA. See Hartmut Gese, T h e Law" (chap. 3 in Essays on Biblical Theology [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981]) 60-92, esp. 81-85 and 89-92. 43 Hamerton-Kelly cites S. Kim (Origin of Paul's Gospel, 47): "Paul must have judged the Christian proclamation of the crucified Jesus as Messiah to be a blasphemy against G o d . . . . So Paul, the 'zealot' for God's honour, was compelled to persecute the Christians. Deut 21.23 must have been a catch-phrase of Paul when he went around persecuting the Christians'* ("Sacred Violence," 105 n. 17). After his conversion Paul came to regard his formerly torahzealous attitude as blasphemy against the Lord Jesus Christ, a blasphemy necessarily following from the perspective of the nomists. Therefore, covenantal nomism is inherently opposed to the gospel, since no one by the Spirit calls Jesus accursed, but this is exactly the blasphemy involved in the nomisi understanding of Jesus' death "upon the tree." 44 Cf. Jub. 16:17-18. Paul has simply argued for redefining the fence between the Jewish "Isaac-seed" and the Gentile sons, extending the logic of Jewish particularism to the exclusivity of the singular seed. Thus, Jew and Gentile are located together outside, since the new bound ary is drawn around Christ as the one holy "Isaac-seed" through whom the blessing comes to all who enter into the sphere of Christ/Spirit through the new identity/boundary markingfunction of baptismal faith. On Christ as the antitypical Isaac, see n. 46 below. 45 Cf. Donaldson, "Curse of the Law," passim. I agree with Donaldson (p. 101), who cites Hays (Faith of Christ, 232), that Paul does not mean that the time between Abraham and Christ was not Hesgeschichte. Paul does not consider this period to be & frozen time; for him, participation in the seed (Christ) was the presupposition all along. The Jews were children (4:3) and were confined by the law unto the faith to be revealed in the fullness of time. The law's role as presupposes the Jews' relation to the blessing-promise, and Paul sees the redemption of the Jews to be necessary for the blessing of the Gentiles. Paul develops these
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develops at great length in Romans). By removing the curse-threat, God brings Jew and Gentile together in Christ to die to this world and be delivered as a new creation out of this present evil age. All the children of the "father of many nations** must be included, so the freeing of the Jews opened the gate for Gentile justification. VII. Conclusion The law's purpose was to mitigate for a select group the problem of the worldwide reign of sin. This group was the seed-line through whom the seed-heir par excellence would come, and they needed the law's protection. The instrument of this protection was the restraint imposed by the cursethreat, forming a fence that few would dare to cross. The law could not solve the root problem of sin as a power that has dominion over this present evihage; it treated the symptoms onlywhat Paul calls transgressions in 3:19. It was a temporary measure, in place only until the fullness of time. With the coming of the seed-heir, the law's purpose has been served and the Jews must be set free from the reign of the law so that they may partake of the definitive cure in Christ with the Gentiles. This cure is deliverance from sin's dominion in the power of the liberating Spirit. Using the two-age framework ofJewish apocalyptic, Paul insists that the law has reference only to this present evil age of sin's worldwide rule. It was added (but not as a covenant codicil) because the world-order was con signed under sin and transgressions must be restrained among the seed-line (3:19, 22). Therefore, the law belongs to the class of the elementary prin ciples of this present world-order and has no reference to the new creation (3:19; 4:2-3, 9; 6:15). Its reign ends with death, with the end of life in this world. The deliverance of the Jews from the reign of the law and across its fence comes with deliverance out of this present evil age (cf. 1:4) into the sphere of new creation (6:15) as those who have died to the law in Christ (2:19; 6:14) and share in the new life of him whom God has raised from the dead (1:1; 2:20). While the curse-bearing of Christ was a disinheritance according to the law (3:13; Deut 21:22-23), the resurrection establishes his Sonship, his rights as heir to receive the blessing as the antitypical Isaacseed.46 Those Jews who confess Jesus as Lord have in principle renounced the barriers erected by the , following Christ outside the fence,
themes more fully in Romans; his apparently contrary attitude in certain statements in Gal 3:15-25 are due to the unqualified and often hyperbolic nature of heated polemic. What he intends is merely that the enjoyment of the promise is mediated through Christ, not inde pendent of him as though the torah-mythos has salvation-historical meaning and significance outside of Christ, as though Abrahamic lineage was intrinsically the locus of salvation-history. 46 As I see it, the Aqedath-haAC model still provides the best means of understanding Paul's argument about the curse-bearing of Christ in the context of Abrahamic promise and the Isaac-seed of promise. On this model, see H. J. Schoeps, Paul, 141-43, and M. Wilcox, "Upon the Tree," 97-99.

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and are equal in status to the Gentiles. The wall of partition is thereby broken and God's Spirit defines the new boundaries for his people in Christ. In Christ there is neither Jew or Gentile. One of the benefits accruing to this interpretation of the message of Galatians is that it eliminates the numerous "contradictions" that scholars like Heikki Risnen find in the more traditional Protestant approach to 3:10-13 in terms of Luther's law/gospel contrast.47 Those who accept what Schoeps has called "the tacit underlying assumption" of Paul's argument in 3:1048that t he missing, implicit premise is that no one can fulfill the demands of the law adequately enough to escape the cursesimply play into Risnen's hands at this point. Paul becomes incoherent in his use of mutually inconsistent, ad hoc arguments that are merely designed to attack the law by any and all means at hand. I can here simply catalog some of the more serious problems which arise within the traditional interpretation. If we assume the ProtestantReformational exegesis of 3:10-12, we find Paul first asserting that those who do what the law requires (i.e., render obedience!)49 are accursed. However, the reason given for this condemnation is that the law pronounces its curse on the disobedient (reading in an allegedly implicit premise that no one truly fulfills the law).50 Whether or not Paul's supposedly legalistic antagonists would grant this tacit premise, or even agree with this strict interpretation of Deut 27:26,51 Paul later contradicts himself in 5:14 (cf. also Rom 8:4; 13:8-10). Moreover, the implication of Paul's reference to Deut 27:26 (further supported by his use of Lev 18:5 in v. 12) is that, were the law kept perfectly, the blessing ofjustification unto life would follow by the way of works, for those who do the law will live therein. Yet Paul weaves into this argument the wholly incompatible thesis of v. 11 that the are accursed simply because they are not of faith; law and faith are
Risnen, Paul and the Law, 94-96, 109. Schoeps, Paul, 176. This viewpoint is also expressed by Calvin (Galatians, 89), E. D. Burton (The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians [ICG; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1921] 164), R. Y. K. Fung (The Epistle to the Galatians [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988] 142), J. B. Lightfoot (The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians [London: Macmillan, 1865] 137), and Bruce (Galatians, 159). This view is also held by Risnen (Paul and the Law, 95). It is rejected by E. P. Sanders (Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983] 20-23, 127), Betz (Galatians, 145-46), Dunn ("Works of the Law," 534), and Daniel Fuller (Gospel and Law: Contrast or Continuum? [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979] 90-93). 49 See the discussion in Fuller, Gospel and Law, 89-93. However, I find Fuller's attempt at a positive solution to be untenable (see my discussion in n. 6 above and references provided there). 50 Cf. Phil 3:6. The law itself provided for imperfection by giving place to repentance and providing trespass offerings to make atonement. Paul would be dealing with a thoroughly unconvincing abstraction of ethos from its covenantal context which includes mercy and forgiveness, and all major branches of Judaism would have recognized the weakness of Paul's alleged point. See E. P. Sanders' exhaustive treatment of this in his Paul and Palestinian Judaism, passim. 51 See the discussion in ibid., 137, 426-28.
48
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mutually exclusive principles and the just live by faith. Therefore, imper fection in lawkeeping has nothing to do with the reason for their condem nation. Life cannot come by the law (3:21). Besides, Lev 18:5, which at first seems to support the argument of v. 10, is actually adducedin conjunction with Hab 2:4to prove this inherent impossibility, not to establish a hy pothetical works-principle of justification for the perfectly obedient, and this puts it in tension with the argument of v. 10. Nevertheless, despite the radical antithesis of law and faith asserted in w. 11-12, Paul emphatically denies ( !) any such opposition. But if these perplexities are not enough to destroy the cogency of Paul's argument, the Judaizers (as pro fessed Jewish-Christians) can appeal to the atoning sacrifice of Christ as the divine provision for imperfect lawkeeping (thereby escaping the force of Paul's argument in v. 10) and to the intrinsic compatibility of faith with doing what God requires (Jas 2:14-26). This does seem to be a contradic tory and incoherent mess, as Risnen charges. What Risnen fails to consider, however, is that these alleged contradictions are more likely to be anomalous counter-instances to his interpretive model, indicative of its inadequacy and incorrectness. Paradigm failure is a more probable explanation than imputing to Paul such blatant contradictionsoften within the space of one paragraph. My proposal effectively eliminates these "contradictions," thus finding confirmation in its greater explanatory power and its coherence. While this does not prove my thesis, anymore than it disproves the traditional Protestant interpretation (for there may be other ways within that paradigm to explain away the so-called contradictions Risnen finds in Paul's theology), it at least lends credence to it as a coherent interpretation, able to deal with the context of Paul's polemic (the Jew-Gentile problem), and providing the promise of solution to a host of otherwise thorny exegetical problems. 4954 S. W. 91 Avenue Cooper City, Florida 33328

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