Dots and Strokes — A righteous quandry
June 28, 2009
In Deuteronomy 6:25, at the end of a major thematic statement about the nature of the Law and Israel’s obligations towards God, Moses declares,
If we are careful to obey all this law before YHWH our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.
What is the nature of the guarantee Moses asserts here? What does righteousness mean here and what does it mean for this to follow from careful obedience? These questions reach to the heart of the nature of the Old Covenant, and the relation of Jesus to it.
In particular, we need to ask: does righteousness have the same meaning here as it does in Paul’s theology? That is, is righteousness about being “in the right” with God, and so “saved” (I am aware that this is assuming much, but I don’t see a way around a basic meaning of something like this).
Some tricky implications follow if we say yes. Most glaringly, we have to ask how the apostle Paul can say that “by observing the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:20)?
As far as I can tell, we have two options at this point. (1) First, we could say that the guarantee in Deuteronomy 6:25 was a real one, but never realised. That is, obedience to the law genuinely did lead to righteousness, but, as Paul points out, no one ever achieved it. This, however, leads us to a real dilemma when we consider another key factor in this discussion: Old Covenant characters in the Bible who are described as “righteous”. There are several such characters, but Zechariah and Elizabeth are particularly stark examples: “both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly” (Luke 1:6). What do we do with this?
(2) Alternatively, we could say that when Paul said “by observing the law” he meant something different to what Moses meant when he said “if we are careful to obey all this law”. This may seem silly at face value, but it’s possible: Paul seems to emphasise the idea of reliance on the law (e.g. Romans 2:17; cf. Galatians 3:10). Is relying on the law what Moses was talking about? On this reading, Moses’ promise was real and Old Covenant saints like Zechariah and Elizabeth are examples of what it meant: they were truly righteous through obedience to the law. But, can we really say that “relying on the law” is not what Moses was talking about? And, where does this interpretation lead us to in terms of justification? Are we saying they were justified by works?
(3) The alternative to all of this, of course, is to say that no, actually, when Moses said “righteous” he meant something different to what Paul meant by “righteous”. Moses wasn’t talking about salvation or anything, he was talking about something a bit smaller — covenant responsibilities, perhaps. Saying this avoids a lot of the complications we’ve seen above. It would lead to the view that the Old Covenant saints have this righteousness, but that this was not righteousness in the sense Paul was interested in. However, this simplicity comes at a major cost, namely, the consistency of Scriptural terminology across the whole Bible. Do we really want to say that when we read about righteousness in the Old Testament it means something fundamentally different to righteousness in the New Testament? Would the apostle Paul have believed this?
I’m not sure what I think the answer to this one is. I’m not at all happy with option (3), though I know people who are. I’m also not happy with (1) because of what it implies about the law and because of the inconsistency with descriptions of people in the Bible. Though I’m also unclear about (2), I think overall it has the best potential. After all, what did being careful to obey the law look like according to Moses? At least in part it meant to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). This was pretty important for Jesus, too. And I don’t find it too hard to believe that this was not, actually, what Paul was talking about when he said that no one will be justified by deeds prescribed by the law. I wonder if, for Moses, “being careful to obey” the law was not at all a matter of relying on the law?
Hmmmm…
Thanks Andrew, that’s helped me to mark out the options…
Interesting question re:Zechariah and Elizabeth.
what do you reckon luke would have said if, hypothetically, we had met those two after Jesus’ resurrection say in the early chapters of acts. Just say for the sake of argument that they were continuing to be obedient to the laws given to Israel by Moses, but refused to come to the Son for life. Do you think luke could have called them ‘righteous’ at that point?
I think definitely not. From the coming of Jesus, it’s very clear that righteousness belongs to those who trust in him. But maybe for them to have continued in “obedience” to the Laws of Moses but not trusted in the Messiah would have been to fail to truly fulfill the intention of the law.
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hi andrew,
i have the same feelings that you do about option 3, which is (if i have listened carefully and understood) what george was advocating.
at the moment my thoughts are with the difference between the meaning of righteousness in matthew and paul’s letters. matthew’s righteousness is (as far as i can see) submission to the Son. i think that this is a development on deuteronomy where righteousness is submission to the law. i don’t think righteousness in either matthew or deuteronomy encodes sinless perfection – they implicitly assume that this will never be the case.
i do think that this is what Paul (and jesus in the sermon on the mount) is attacking and correcting. it seems to me that the jews had replaced submission to the law (and rejected submission to the Son) with some kind of mastery of the law. they no longer stood under the law, but over it.
thanks for posting your thoughts – we need to think about these things at college
bruce
Thanks Bruce. Yes, I’d love to hear what Paul thinks, too. (For those not in this loop, my apologies: Paul and George are Old Testament lecturers at Moore Theological College, where myself and some of the others commenting here study).
I’m interested in your comment about righteousness in Matthew as being about submission to the Son. What do you think is the relationship, then, between the Son and the law?
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Also interested to think about the relationship between son/law,
but for clarification Bruce: if you go for ‘development’ in terminology aren’t you essentially adopting option 3?
you say: ‘moses meant submission to the law but matthew/paul meant submission to the son’
which seems basically to be ‘when Moses said “righteous” he meant something different to what Paul meant by “righteous”.’
good evening gents,
an e-conversation is still something of a novelty for me.this might be a little lengthy – apologies in advance – i think righteousness for deuteronomy, matthew and paul is right standing with God, but deuteronomy / matthew and paul use the concept of righteousness in different ways. i did a bit of reading and thinking when i was preaching on the sermon on the mount a few months ago – let me know what you think:
there are a few things going on in the sermon on the mount when jesus talks about the law: he isn’t raising-the-bar of righteousness; he is both correcting the religious leaders’ poor understanding of what they should have known and he is completing the revelation of righteousness that was the law (5:17). both these elements can be seen in the statement ‘you have heard … but i tell you’. he not only emphasises the internalisation of the law that the OT required, and also puts himself on an equal place with moses, the mediator of the righteousness of the law. he completes this revelation both in his words, and in his very person, which is why the sermon on the mount equates complete/perfect righteousness with being a ’son of the Father in heaven’ (5:9,45,48). Jesus, as the Son of the Father, is the eschatological, completed revelation of righteousness. the law is no longer the point of reference for righteousness, it is the Son.
Jesus’ teaching on righteousness exegetes his preaching of repentance (4:17). the command to be perfect is not the demand for sinless perfection, as the need for mercy and forgiveness is assumed throughout the sermon on the mount and matthew generally (1:21; 5:7,24; 6:12; 7:11). one is saved by submitting to his command to repent (the implication of 7:21,24). by labelling the religious leaders as hypocrites (ch.7) and stating that their righteousness is insufficient, he shows that they do not submit to the law, but stand over it. Jesus as the new revelation of righteousness is the cross-over point between matthew and paul. my hunch is that Paul assumes repentance in romans in a way similar to the way that faith is assumed in matthew.
Interesting thoughts guys, thanks.
Bruce, I’ll need to think further about your comments on the sermon on the mount. I’m always hesitant about turning all Jesus’ commands into a call to repentance, though I like a lot of your suggestions. I also need to think about the idea of there being a “cross-over point” between Matthew and Paul.
I’m not sure, however, that we’ve yet dealt with the problem this discussion started with.
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sure andrew, i’m still thinking about the whole thing.
at the moment i think it might be fair to say that Elizabeth etc (and especially the Psalmists) were said to be righteous, that it refers to their orientation toward God – they had submitted to his law, and the rightness of their actions prove their submission to God. What Paul is syaing in Gal 3:10 is that when people rely on the law for their own righteousnessis they show that they have not submitted to God. the relation between salvation and righteousness in the pentateuch is probably key in this discussion; that the giving of the law comes after the exodus and before entry to canaan is significant.
with the sermon on the mount, i’m not saying that Jesus’ commands are a call to repentance as much as they explicate his preaching of repentance. i’m not sure if i actually responded to ruben directly: i think that righteous means the same thing across the board, but the terms of reference i think are demonstrably different in matthew and paul, and i am still thinking about their relationship to deuteronomy.
hope you’re all enjoying your break