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.

Paul's Use of Habakkuk 2:4 in Romans 1:17: The Righteous Will Live by Faith

Habakkuk 2:4 is a key Old Testament text for understanding Paul’s theology. Paul says in Rom 1:16–17 that the saving righteousness of God is revealed through the gospel “as it is written” in Hab 2:4: “the righteous will live by faith.”

Habakkuk 2:4 has often been taken as espousing a pan-historical principle of salvation by faith, but this overlooks the fact that Hab 2:4 is a prophecy of the end times. In order to understand this better, we need to pay attention to the flow of the book of Habakkuk.

Habakkuk can be divided into six sections. After the introduction in 1:1, in we have in 1:2–4 Habakkuk’s complaint about wickedness in Israel. Yahweh’s answer is given in 1:5–11. The Lord says that he will punish wickedness in Israel by sending the Babylonians to punish them. In response to this, in 1:12–2:1 Habakkuk complains a second time. How can God solve the problem of evil in Israel by using a nation of idol worshipers who is more wicked than Israel? How can God solve wickedness by wickedness? In 2:2–20 we are given Yahweh’s answer to Habakkuk’s second complaint, and this is followed by a prayer of Habakkuk in 3:1–19 in which he remembers and rejoices in the saving power of God despite the prospect of calamity.

Habakkuk 2:4 occurs in Yahweh’s answer to Habakkuk as to how he could use wicked Babylon to judge Israel. This answer is actually a vision that is to be written down (2:2). According to 2:3, it is a vision that concerns the time of the end. In other words, Hab 2:2–20 is an eschatological prophecy. The core of the vision is Hab 2:4. At the time of the end, there would be someone whose soul was puffed up and not upright. In the context, this seems to refer to Babylon in its eschatological manifestation. It is interesting in this regard that Babylon becomes a symbol in the New Testament for the enemies of God’s people (Rev 16:19; 17:5; 18:2–24). What is implied in Hab 2:4a, therefore, is that God would deal with the problem of using instruments of wickedness to solve the wickedness of Israel by bringing judgment upon those instruments.

In contrast to the arrogant enemy, at the time of the end there would also be another class of person, namely, the righteous: “the righteous will live by his faith” (2:4b). It is important to understand that the Hebrew word translated as faith in Hab 2:4 ordinarily means faithfulness, as the translators of the TNIV acknowledge. Emunah includes within its semantic domain the idea of constancy and persevering loyalty. Emunah is the idea of faith that exists within a perfect marriage (Hos 2:20). The idea that the righteous would live by his faithfulness is a truth that an orthodox old covenant Israelite would have viewed as applying under the Mosaic covenant. The author of Ps 119, for example, can describe the law of Moses as being the way of emunah (Ps 119:30). But the emunah that is spoken of in Hab 2:4, while retaining its standard meaning of faithfulness, is transformed into an eschatological concept by virtue of the context in which it is found.

Apart from the mention of the end in 2:3, Hab 2:6–19 is a series of five woe oracles that prophesy judgment against the eschatological enemy of God’s people. Associated with this judgment is the idea of the earth being “filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea” (2:14). The connection of the language of Hab 2:14 with Isa 11:9 confirms the eschatological nature of this vision. Habakkuk 2:2–20 is clearly an eschatological prophecy, and this is exactly how Paul understood it.

Paul understood Hab 2:4 as being a prophecy of the new covenant, a prophecy of the time of the end when righteousness would be defined in terms of eschatological faithfulness instead of faithfulness to the Mosaic covenant (as per Deut 6:25), which was impotent to bring about righteousness for the nation of Israel, because of the hardness of the hearts of the spiritually uncircumcised majority in Israel. In Paul’s thinking, the emunah in Hab 2:4 matches with the aman root of the verb translated as believed in Gen 15:6, the implication being that the righteousness of eschatological covenant faithfulness would be something that faithful Gentiles would graciously be able to participate in (hence the idea of both Jew and Greek in Rom 1:16, and the law-keeping of the Gentiles in Rom 2:14–15, 26–27).

In conclusion, the truth of Hab 2:4 is not a general principle in its original context, but an eschatological truth that replicates the pre-Mosaic justification of (Gentile) Abraham by faith. In its original context it speaks of eschatological faithfulness rather than a kind of faith that excludes faithfulness as part of its meaning. It is this which led Paul to understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the eschatological torah or word of God that, written in human hearts, brings the fullness of justification, salvation, and life to Jew as well as Gentile, who, through the presence and power of the Spirit of God, are led in the paths of righteousness and faithfulness. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel that brings the righteousness of faith to the nations, because the gospel functions in this way in complete fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.