Just like Abraham

I have been seeking to get published an article on Paul’s teaching on justification and his important use of the Jewish exegetical technique of gezerah shavah in Gal 3. It has taken three years so far, but hopefully the article might be out some time in 2025.

In the meantime, here is a short video explaining Paul’s basic teaching on justification, and in particular his use of gezerah shavah to compare and contrast Gen 15:6, Lev 18:5b, and Hab 2:4b: Just like Abraham - Short Version. For a more detailed explanation, here is the longer video: Just like Abraham - Full Version.

It is a brilliant use of Jewish exegetical logic once you understand what Paul was doing with those verses, but I have not come across any scholars so far who have noticed the full salvation-historical significance of Paul’s use of gezerah shavah in Gal 3. We fail to understand the genius of Paul’s argument in Gal 3 if we overlook his use of this form of Jewish exegetical logic.

Paul’s Argument in Galatians and Romans Is Salvation-Historical, Not General in Nature

It is a big statement to make, but I believe that the vast majority of Christian interpreters of Paul’s teaching in Galatians and Romans have failed to understand Paul’s argument in the historical context of his day. The major theological issue for the early church (as the calling of the Council of Jerusalem proves) was the Judaizing issue. The issue was basically: Can Gentiles be saved as Gentiles, or do they have to come under the framework of the Mosaic covenant to be justified?

The key to understanding Paul’s argument in Galatians and Romans lies in realizing that his argument is a salvation-historical argument. That is, Paul was attempting to answer the question: How are people saved now that the new covenant in Christ has come? Reflecting the covenantal particularism of the orthodox Judaism of the day, the Christian Judaizers believed that, even though the new covenant had come in Jesus Christ, the new covenant fit neatly into the framework of the Mosaic covenant, leaving the law of Moses fully intact, and thereby restricting faith participation to those who were members of Israel. This is why they put pressure on Gentile Christians to be circumcised (if male) and to follow the law of Moses (Acts 15:1, 5). Paul’s argument is that the new covenant in Christ is actually co-extensive with the still yet earlier Abrahamic covenant, under which a gentilic faith response to God was possible (as proved by the faith of uncircumcised, gentilic Abraham himself).

In Galatians and Romans, Paul was concerned to contrast the requirement of faith under old covenant with the requirement of faith under the new covenant. The term law was Pauline and Jewish code for the Mosaic covenant, and the expression the works of the law was the standard Jewish way of referring to the covenant faithfulness that God required of Israel under the terms of the Mosaic covenant as per Ps 119:30, where the writer speaks of faith in terms of setting his heart on torah. Paul was primarily contrasting the old way of covenant faithfulness under the Mosaic covenant (which was required as the proper response under the old covenant, but had recently been superseded with the coming of Christ) with new (Abrahamic-type) way of covenant faithfulness to Jesus as revealed in the gospel, which Gentiles could participate in.

Paul sought to prove that the new covenant is more Abrahamic in nature than Mosaic. His main proof at this point was the evidence of word association in the Scriptures that linked the new covenant with the Abrahamic covenant. Employing a common rabbinic method of exegesis, Paul noted (as we see in Rom 1:16–17; 4:3, 9, 22; Gal 3:6, 11) that the word והאמן and he believed is used of Abraham in Gen 15:6, and the related word אמונה faith is used of the new covenant in Hab 2:4 (which is part of an eschatological prophecy). That common terminology allows us to link the Abrahamic and new covenants together, the implication being that, if Abraham could believe in God and be justified as a Gentile (i.e., before he was circumcised), then the same thing applies under the new covenant: Gentiles can be justified under the new covenant apart from submission to the law of Moses. Paul also argued that the Sinaitic covenant was just a temporary, intervening covenant (a kind of narrowing down of the Abrahamic covenant for the purpose of regulating the singular nation of Israel until the coming of Christ). Therefore, with the coming of Christ, the old covenant has been subsumed by the new covenant, thus allowing Gentiles to participate in salvation through faith in the Messiah. The new covenant is not just a continuation of the old covenant. The new covenant actually eclipses and supersedes the old, allowing righteousness to be opened up to the nations, in fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham (Gen 12:3).

Paul’s argument in Galatians and Romans is a salvation-historical argument that deals specifically with the major historical issue for the church in his day: the Judaizing problem. It is not a general argument about believing versus doing (as many Christian interpreters have traditionally taken it). We need to read and understand Paul’s argument in the historical context of his day, which also requires that we appreciate the Hebraic background of the key (Greek) terms that Paul employed. A greater sensitivity to the orthodox Hebraic concepts underpining Paul’s terminology, and a greater understanding of how the Mosaic covenant actually functioned, would greatly aid the Christian church in understanding the genius of this great apostle of faith.

The Imputation of Faith as Righteousness in Genesis 15:6

Imputation has been vigorously discussed by evangelicals in more recent years. The debate between Robert Gundry, John Piper, and Don Garlington, regarding imputation in Paul comes to mind. But something needs to be said for Gen 15:6 in the Hebrew.

The verb ויחשבה in Gen 15:6 contains a feminine singular pronominal suffix. So the second clause in Gen 15:6 literally reads: and he counted her to him as righteousness. The question is: what is the feminine pronoun referring to, and why is it feminine?

There are two options. Perhaps the pronoun is feminine because it refers to the Hebrew word for faith (אמונה), which is a feminine noun. Even though this noun does not appear in the immediate context, it could possibly be implied from Abraham's act of believing, which is recorded in the first clause in Gen 15:6.

The second option is that the feminine pronoun is being used in an abstract way to refer to a concept that has been mentioned in the preceding context. In other words, the her refers to the act of believing in the previous clause.

The difference between the two options is not great. According to option 1 the referent of the pronoun is Abraham’s faith. According to option 2 the referent is Abraham’s act of believing. But despite this, I think that linguistically speaking option 2 is the way to go.

Option 2 is to be preferred on the basis of a similarity with Ps 106:31, which also speaks of the imputation of righteousness. Verses 30–31 recount Phinehas’s zeal in spearing to death an Israelite man and his Midianite wife (see Num 25:6–8 for the gruesome details), and God’s approbation of this act. Verses 30–31 read as follows:

“Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed. And that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.”

The interesting point regarding the Hebrew of v. 31 is that the verb ותחשב is a third person feminine singular verb, literally, and she was counted. Why is the verb in the feminine? Presumably because the feminine singular subject pronoun implied within the verb is being used abstractly to refer to a concept that has been mentioned in the preceding context. The use of the implied feminine singular pronoun in Ps 106:31 to refer to Phinehas’s intervention thus serves as a linguistic precedent for taking the feminine singular pronoun in Gen 15:6 as an example of an abstract use of the feminine singular pronoun in a similar context.

But either way, the Hebrew of Gen 15:6 is saying that Abraham’s faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. That is to say, when Abraham responded positively in accepting God’s word, this was considered by God to be the right response in the context of God’s relationship with Abraham. Responding to God rightly, Abraham was considered by God to be righteous. Genesis 15:6 is talking about the imputation of Abraham's faith as Abraham’s righteousness before God.

The obvious question for the issue of imputation in Paul is: Was Paul aware of the meaning of the Hebrew of Gen 15:6? Trained as he was as a Jewish rabbi, I would find it hard to believe that he was not aware of the meaning of Gen 15:6 in the Hebrew. This obviously has implications for the current debate over the meaning of imputation in Paul.