The Church in the Old Testament

It is fairly common within Christian circles to come across the view that the church is an organization that only came into existence at the time of the New Testament. People believe that the church was established by Jesus, and that before the time of Jesus there was no such thing as the church. This view is understandable, particularly given the use of the word church in our English translations of the Bible. In the ESV translation, for example, the word church occurs 109 times, and all of those uses occur in the New Testament.

The problem at this point is the choice of words that translators have used when translating the Bible into English. Traditionally translators have chosen to translate the Greek word ekklesia (ἐκκλησία) in the New Testament as church. The equivalent of the Greek word ekklesia in the Hebrew Old Testament is the word qahal (קָהָל), but the translators have generally chosen to translate qahal as assembly or congregation rather than use the word church. This is rather strange given that ekklesia and qahal are virtual equivalents in terms of meaning. If the translators had chosen to translate qahal as church, then it would have been obvious to English readers that the Old Testament people of Israel were also a church.

Even though the traditional English translations do not help the reader to understand that old covenant Israel was a church, the first Christians did not encounter such linguistic confusion. The Hebrew word qahal was usually rendered in the LXX (except in the Pentateuch) as ekklesia. We also have the example of Acts 7:38 where Stephen in his final sermon spoke about the ekklesia of Israel in the wilderness. Stephen spoke Greek, and influenced by the language of the LXX, he naturally used the word ekklesia of the people of Israel. It is interesting at this point, however, that, even though ekklesia is normally translated in the New Testament by the word church, the translators of the Bible into English have usually translated it in Acts 7:38 using the word assembly or congregation. The translators may have used a different word than church, but in Stephen’s mind the people of Israel constituted a church in the wilderness. In the mind of the first Christians, ekklesia and qahal were effectively interchangeable.

The church is simply God’s people viewed either as being gathered together or as forming a sacred community together. The people of Israel at the time of the Old Testament were the people of God. As such, they constituted a church, the old covenant church. It is a misreading of the Bible, therefore, to think that the church did not exist prior to Jesus coming into the world. Indeed, it is because Old Testament Israel was a church that the Christian church today can learn lessons from the experience of Old Testament Israel. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Cor 10:11: “these things happened to them [i.e., to Israel] as an example, but they were written down for our warning, on whom the end of the ages has come.” The historical record of God’s dealings with the old covenant church of Israel in times gone by is meant in God’s plan to teach the new covenant church of Christ today many important lessons about God and the proper manner of relating to him.

The Theme of Kingship in the Book of Hosea

Kingship is a rather prominent theme in the book of Hosea. Israel’s kings and princes rejoiced in evil (Hos 7:3). The princes were drunkards and full of treachery and political intrigue (Hos 7:4–7). None of the kings of the northern kingdom had been set up with God’s approval (Hos 8:4).

Hosea preached that judgment was coming against the king of Israel (Hos 5:1). The king of Israel was going to be destroyed (Hos 10:7, 15). Like a twig floating on the surface of a body of water, Israel’s king was going to perish (Hos 10:7). The king of Israel would “be utterly cut off” (Hos 10:15). Following this, Israel would be devoid of a king for a long period of time (Hos 3:4), i.e., during the time of the exile and beyond.

Surprisingly, the king who is acknowledged in the book of Hosea as being “great” and “mighty” is the king of Assyria (Hos 5:13; 10:6)! Israel had sought to overcome her internal weaknesses by turning to Assyria as an ally, but in the end Assyria would not provide any genuine help to Israel (Hos 5:13). Indeed, the tribute paid to foreign nations (particularly to Assyria) would end up making the situation far worse for Israel’s king and princes (Hos 8:10). The idolatrous calf of Bethel would end up being carried off as tribute for the king of Assyria (Hos 10:6). Because of the Israelites' refusal to turn to God, Assyria would be their king (Hos 11:5).

The execution of divine judgment against Israel, however, would cause her to lose faith in kingship (whether divine or human) as an institution (Hos 10:3). This stands in contrast to the false expectations that many Israelites had harbored previously with respect to the ability of human kings and princes to provide salvation (Hos 13:10; see also 1 Sam 8:19–20). The kings of Israel had been permitted by God to reign out of divine anger, and their end also came about as a consequence of God’s wrath (Hos 13:11).

The restoration of Israel, however, would see Israel turning back to Yahweh, which would involve at the same time Israel’s turning back to the Davidic king (Hos 3:5). This is significant because the northern kingdom had been in rebellion against the Davidic king (i.e., the king of Judah) since the days of Rehoboam. At this time, Israel would rightly lose faith in the false saving abilities of Assyria and human military might (Hos 14:3).

The Monoethnic Nature of the Mosaic Covenant

One of the “problems” with the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai (i.e., the old covenant) is its monoethnicity. We need to be clear about this: the Sinaitic and Deuteronomic covenants were made with one nation, the nation of Israel.

The monoethnic nature of the Sinaitic covenant can be seen in the following verses in particular:

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, but you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:5–6);

“You shall be holy to me; for I, Yahweh, am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine” (Lev 20:26).

The Deuteronomic covenant, being an expanded renewal of the Sinaitic covenant, was also exclusively made with Israel:

“For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as Yahweh our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?” (Deut 4:7–8);

“For you are a people holy to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deut 7:6);

“you are a people holy to Yahweh your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, Yahweh has chosen you to be his treasured possession” (Deut 14:2);

These are the terms of the covenant Yahweh commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: “... You shall keep the terms of this covenant, and do them, so that you may prosper in everything you do. All of you are standing today before Yahweh your God—your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, together with your children and your wives, and the foreigners living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water—in order to enter into the covenant of Yahweh your God and his oath, to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and it is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath, but with those who are standing here with us today before Yahweh our God, and also with those who are not here with you today” (Deut 29:1–2, 9–15).

Understanding the ethnic particularity of the Mosaic covenant helps us to understand the need in God’s plan of salvation for a new covenant. The Mosaic covenant is “problematic” from the perspective that God’s plan involved bringing blessing to the nations as part of a covenant relationship (Gen 12:3). This is something that the Apostle Paul came to realize. Comparing the monoethnic nature of the Mosaic covenant to the Abrahamic promise in Gen 12:3 led Paul to understand that there had to be, in the purposes of God, a new covenant which would open up the door of righteousness and salvation to the Gentiles, and which would fulfill, subsume, and thereby supercede, the Sinaitic and Deuteronomic covenants that God had made previously with Israel.

Thus Paul contrasted the Abrahamic promise with the Mosaic covenant:

The law [of Moses], introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise (Gal 3:17–18).

Paul also understood that it was through Jesus Christ, as proclaimed in the Christian gospel, that the Abrahamic promise of blessing to the nations had been realized:

Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you” (Gal 3:8);

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:26–29).

Or as Paul has written in Eph 2:11–16, 19, concerning how the dividing wall of the law of Moses was “destroyed” through the death of Christ on the cross, thereby allowing Gentiles to be members of God’s covenant people:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision”—which is done in the body by human hands—that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law [of Moses] with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility … Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.

Being limited to one nation, the Mosaic covenant cannot by definition bring salvation to the nations. Only one covenant can: the multiethnic, new covenant in Christ Jesus.

The Central Concern of the Old Testament

The central concern of the Old Testament (or the Hebrew Bible) is God’s relationship with Israel. The fact that the most frequent nouns in the Hebrew Bible are יהוה Yahweh (6,828 times), אלהים God (2,601 times), and ישראל Israel (2,514 times), attests to this.

The Pentateuch is primarily concerned with the historical background to, and the establishment of, the Sinaitic and Deuteronomic covenants, which functioned to define and regulate Yahweh’s exclusive relationship with Israel.

Following on the from the Law, the Prophets (i.e., the Former and Latter Prophets) are primarily concerned to trace the historical failure of the covenant relationship between God and Israel, and God’s response to this relational breakdown.

All in all, the Old Testament is a case study in the failure of a nation to keep covenant with God. It is a case study in what happens to human beings and human society when God’s word is ignored, a record of one nation’s reversion to darkness, chaos, and death.

The Rise of the Monarchy in Israel Viewed in the Light of the Concept of Kingship in the Old Testament

The rise of the monarchy in Israel needs to be viewed in the light of the broader concept of kingship presented in the Old Testament. The primary theological point relating to the issue of monarchy in Israel is the consistent teaching of the Pentateuch and the books of Joshua and Judges that kingship is first and foremost an attribute of God. God is presented in the Pentateuch as being the King of creation. God appears in Gen 1 as the King whose word of command established the boundaries and content of created reality (compare Ps 148:5–6). Even though God’s kingship is not frequently mentioned in an explicit way in the Pentateuch or in Joshua and Judges, God’s rule over creation is the presupposition upon which the content of these books rests. What is presupposed and implicit for the most part in the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges becomes more explicit in the biblical books from 1 Samuel onwards. The royal psalms in particular link God’s work of creation and his subsequent work of providence for creation with his “honor and majesty” and “glory” (e.g., Ps 19:1; 95:3–5; 104:1–32). Such psalms make explicit the theology of kingship that is implicit in the Pentateuch and the books of Joshua and Judges. The Old Testament teaches that one of the reasons that God created the world was so that his universal kingship might be acknowledged by all his creatures (Ps 96:1–10; 99:1–3; 145:10–13; 148:1–13; 150:1–6).

Even though kingship is supremely an attribute of God, Gen 1–3 indicates that God created human beings in his royal image. The significance of being created in God’s image is linked in Gen 1:26–28 with humanity having “dominion … over all the earth” and over all the creatures of the earth. By giving humanity dominion, God established humanity as having authority as kings over creation. Humanity was given the task of filling and subduing the earth. In other words, God engaged humanity in the work of helping to bring about the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. Once the whole of the earth had been brought inside the boundaries of the garden of Eden, then humanity’s work would be finished, and the kingdom of God complete. To be successful in this task, however, it was necessary for human beings not only to work after the pattern of God himself (hence, the significance of the Sabbath commandment in Exod 20:8–11) but also to submit to God by keeping his commandments. The Pentateuch makes it very clear in a number of ways that humanity’s royal authority was to be exercised under the higher authority of God himself. The fact that Adam was placed under divine command shows that Adam and his descendants were to submit themselves in obedience to God (Gen 2:16–17). The subsequent episodes of God’s judgment of Adam and Eve, the judgment of Cain, the destruction of the flood at the time of Noah, and the judgment of the builders of the tower of Babel all serve to show God’s authority over humanity and/or the whole of creation.

Even though God is the King of the entire world, it is also important from the perspective of the Old Testament to recognize that God chose to realize his kingship over the world through the nation of Israel. Thus, God is seen in the Old Testament to be the King of Israel in particular. The covenant of circumcision established the idea that God would be the God of Abraham’s descendants (Gen 17:7). Abraham’s descendants for their part had the responsibility to “keep [God’s] covenant” (Gen 17:9; 18:19). God promised Abraham that there would be “kings” among his descendants (Gen 17:6). Jacob prophesied that royal authority would be exercised by Judah on a worldwide scale (Gen 49:10). God considered Israel to be “[his] people” (e.g., Exod 3:7; 5:1; 15:16). God’s redemption of Israel out of Egypt further established God’s claim of possession over Israel (Exod 15:13, 16; 20:2). This was also symbolized through the rite of the consecration of the firstborn (Exod 13:1–2, 11–16). After the exodus, the relationship between God and Israel was formalized in a covenant ceremony at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:1–24:11). This was an exclusive relationship which demanded Israel’s faithfulness or loyalty to God. Even though “all the earth is [God’s],” the other nations were excluded from this special relationship with God (Exod 19:5–6). Israel willingly submitted to the covenant that that God offered to them at this time (Exod 19:8; 24:3,7). This covenant, also known as the old covenant (as per 2 Cor 3:14), formally established God’s kingly rule over Israel. The condition for Israel to benefit from this special relationship was covenant obedience, i.e., a commitment to serving God through keeping the law of Moses (e.g., Deut 6:1–3).

It is significant that one of the benefits of Israel keeping covenant with God was that Israel would be constituted as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6). Given that the word kingdom in the phrase a kingdom of priests parallels the word nation in the phrase holy nation, the expression a kingdom of priests and a holy nation speaks of Israel as a nation consecrated to the service of God. In other words, Israel would only be a kingdom before God to the extent that the nation submitted itself to the rule of God. What submitting to the rule of God involved for Israel was subsequently spelled out in great detail in the Mosaic law. Even though the context suggests that the kingdom in view in Exod 19:6 is Israel as a divine monarchy rather than Israel as a human monarchy, the books of Samuel and Kings in particular show that the divine and human aspects of the monarchy in Israel were intertwined in God’s plan, with the success of the institution of human monarchy within Israel dependent upon how well the institution of divine monarchy was respected. Israel submitting to the rule of God would mean the restoration of the kingdom ideal that existed in the garden of Eden but which was lost after Adam’s rebellion.

God’s intention for Israel, therefore, involved the development of human rule under the ultimate rule of God. This human rule would also be focused in a particular human being who would also be called the king of Israel. That God’s theocratic rule over Israel would incorporate a human king is indicated in Deut 17:14–20. This passage sets out the divine laws regulating human kingship within Israel. Even though Deut 17:14 is effectively a prophecy that Israel’s motivation for asking for a human king would not be proper (in that it would be motivated out of a desire to imitate the kind of government found in the surrounding nations), the fact that the law of Moses made provision for a human king indicates that human kingship was an integral part of God’s plan for Israel from the beginning. Israel would have a human king, but the one appointed as king had to be the one “whom Yahweh [their] God [would] choose” (Deut 17:15). The king was to be an Israelite, and should not acquire many horses, or wives, or excessive silver and gold (Deut 17:15–17). He was obligated to have his own copy of the Mosaic law to study in order to “keep … all the words of [God’s] law” (Deut 17:18–19). Thus, Mosaic law clearly placed the human king of Israel under the authority of God and his law. Indeed the length of the king’s dynasty is connected in Deut 17:20 with how well the king would follow “the commandment,” i.e., the law viewed as a whole. The idea of human kingship in Israel was, therefore, built into the Mosaic law. The law made provision for a human king but proscribed the authority of this king. The human king was to be subject to the authority of God, the King of kings.

Given what has been observed above, we have to conclude that there was nothing wrong with the concept of human kingship per se operating in Israel. In fact, the evidence strongly favors the conclusion that human kingship was one of the purposes that God had had in mind for humanity and Israel from the very beginning. God has given humanity the privilege of dominion over the earth. For this dominion to be legitimate, however, it must be exercised in submission to the greater authority of God, for God is King over all.

From Wilderness to Promised Land: The Experience of Adam, Israel, and Jesus

Most Christians are familiar with the idea that Adam was expelled from the garden of Eden to live effectively in the wilderness, but the idea that Adam commenced his life outside the garden is not so well known. Adam was not created inside the garden! This observation highlights some important biblical theological truths.

Firstly, to prove that Adam was indeed created outside of the garden. Thankfully, this is not too difficult to prove. The creation of Adam occurs in Gen 2:7, and the planting of the garden and Adam’s placement therein occurs in the next verse, i.e., in Gen 2:8. The NIV translation of ויטע and he planted into the English past perfect he had planted suggests that the garden was planted by God prior to the creation of Adam. But this is unlikely from the point of view of the original Hebrew. The most natural reading of the Hebrew is that the preterite verbs in Gen 2:7–8 (וייצר and he formed ... ויפח and he breathed ... ויהי and he became ... ויטע and he planted ... וישם and he placed) should be understood in the typical Hebrew manner as being temporally sequential.

In other words, Adam was not only created outside the garden of Eden, but he was created even before the garden had come into existence. This means that Adam was not only conscious of his “wilderness” origin—Genesis 2:5; 3:23 allow us to use the term wilderness of the land where Adam was created—but we can also assume that Adam would also have witnessed God planting the garden. He was, after all, conscious at the time. Imagine it from Adam’s perspective: after seeing God planting and getting everything ready, all of a sudden he is led by God into the garden that has been prepared almost as if it were specially for him. Imagine being led through a tree-lined entrance into the heart of a magnificent garden oasis. Adam knew the difference between the wilderness and the garden! He knew what it was to be the recipient of God’s (non-redemptive) grace from the very beginning.

Furthermore, noticing that Adam was created outside of the garden helps us to see that the important from wilderness to promised land theme of the Bible was something that was in operation from the very beginning. Just as Adam was led from the wilderness into the “promised land” of the garden of Eden, only to be expelled; Israel too would repeat this sequence. From the wilderness, John the Baptist proclaimed the arrival of the true Adam and the true Israel in the person of Jesus. Like with Adam and Israel, Jesus’ ministry began in the wilderness. There he was baptized, and there he was tempted; but unlike forgetful Israel, Jesus remembered the lessons of the wilderness (Matt 4:1–10): that “man [does] not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (a quotation of Deut 8:3 read in the light of Deut 8:2); that “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Deut 6:16 read in the light of Deut 6:10–12); and that “you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” (Deut 6:13 also read in the light of Deut 6:10–12). Knowing the lessons of the wilderness, Jesus would not repeat the mistake of his forefathers, and the cycle of wilderness to promised land to wilderness was broken. Through his death, resurrection, and ascension, permanent human habitation of the promised land has been achieved.

The Law Came in to Increase the Trespass: The Story of Two Falls in Romans 5:20

What does Paul mean in Rom 5:20 when he says that “the law came in to increase the trespass”? A common interpretation of this explains Paul as saying here that God’s law functions to give us a standard against which we rebel. Another common interpretation says that, once the condemnatory function of the law is understood, God’s law makes us realize how sinful we are.

Charles Spurgeon is an example of someone who interprets Rom 5:20 in the second way described above: “When once God the Holy Ghost applies the law to the conscience, secret sins are dragged to light, little sins are magnified to their true size, and things apparently harmless become exceedingly sinful … The heart is like a dark cellar, full of lizards, cockroaches, beetles, and all kinds of reptiles and insects, which in the dark we see not, but the law takes down the shutters and lets in the light, and so we see the evil. Thus sin becoming apparent by the law, it is written the law makes the offence to abound” (http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0037.htm). Spurgeon obviously understood Rom 5:20 as describing the psychological effect of divine law on the conscience.

These common interpretations of Rom 5:20 are consistent with the truths of systematic theology, but it seems to me that they pay scant attention to the actual context of Rom 5:12-21, which is the immediate context of Rom 5:20. We need to ask the question: What law is Paul talking about in Rom 5:20? Is he talking about the law of God in general, or the law of Moses? The answer to this question is found in the context. Romans 5:13 talks about sin being in the world before the law was given. Even though “there [was] no law” (Rom 5:13), “death reigned from Adam to Moses” (Rom 5:14). Surely the law in question here is the law of Moses. The time frame corresponding to “before the law was given” is the period of time “from Adam to Moses.” So the law that comes on the scene in Rom 5:20 is not God’s law in general; it is specifically the law of Moses! Paul’s argument here is really about the place of the Mosaic law in salvation history, not about the psychological effects of God’s law on individual sinners throughout history.

A further question: What is the trespass that Paul mentions in Rom 5:20? Psychological interpretations of this verse say that the trespass is the concept of sin in general. Either God giving commandments made rebellion against him possible, and even more likely in that a knowledge of what is right and wrong in God’s sight actually leads to more sinfulness on the part of unregenerate individuals; or else, God spelling out his standard of right and wrong brings our consciences to a knowledge of sin, once the significance of the law is understood. But we need to ask: What is the meaning of the trespass in the context of Rom 5:12-21?

The context gives us the answer. The trespass of Rom 5:20 is nothing other than the trespass mentioned in Rom 5:15, 17, 18, namely, the trespass of the one man, Adam. The trespass that Paul has in mind in Rom 5:20 is the trespass of Adam, not the concept of sin in general! Once again, Paul’s argument is a salvation-historical one. In effect, he is saying that the law of Moses was given to Israel with the express purpose in God’s salvation-historical plan of compounding the problem of sin in Adam through Israel’s disobedience to the Mosaic covenant.

Romans 5:20 shows us that Paul understood the story of Israel in the Old Testament as a story of failure. In other words, the Old Testament is basically a story of two falls. We have the fall of humanity in Adam, and the fall of Israel in Moses. If the “sinning [of those from Adam to Moses] was not like the transgression of Adam” (Rom 5:14), whose was? Adam disobeyed the commandment; Israel disobeyed the law. The sin of Israel “was … like the transgression of Adam.” So Adam is not only a contratype of Christ (Rom 5:14), but he is a type of Israel. The fall of Israel compounds the problem of the trespass of Adam by pointing out the terrible effects of rebellion against God in a much more dramatic and wide-ranging way than the story of the expulsion of Adam from the garden of Eden does. Think about the tragedy of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians: the fear, the starvation, the pain, the suffering, the cannibalism, the sickness, the death and destruction. Surely the tragic history of old covenant Israel speaks poignantly of the awful consequences of sin!

But there is a polemical edge to what Paul is saying in Rom 5:20 as well. Far from ameliorating or solving the problem of human sin, the law of Moses compounded the problem of sin, because the majority of Israel did not have the law written on their hearts, and disobeyed God as a consequence. Paul’s Jewish opponents thought that Mosaic torah could liberate them from sin, but Paul understood that its function in the purposes of God was actually the opposite for the nation considered as a whole. Mosaic torah actually functioned primarily to bring condemnation and death to Israel.

The fall of Israel in Moses compounded the problem of the fall of humanity in Adam, yet this does not mean that God’s intentions for Israel and the world are primarily negative. The failure of Adam and Israel was part of God’s plan for highlighting the grace of God in Christ! Just as darkness makes us appreciate light, it is failure that makes us appreciate success. Similarly, it is in the context of death that we truly appreciate life. In God’s wisdom, he has chosen to move in history from darkness to light, from chaos to order, from death to life. Without the negative, we cannot appreciate the positive. In this way the failure of Adam and Israel forms the historical backdrop against which the grace of atonement and empowerment in Christ can be appreciated for the astounding superabounding hyper-reality that it is.

A Summary of Paul's Understanding of Salvation History

The table below is a summary of the major epochs in salvation history according to the Apostle Paul, and how he characteristically described the key soteriological aspects related to these epochs.

A salvation-historical covenantal approach to Paul suggests that Paul used different terms to describe the word of God, and the required response of covenant faith, in different salvation-historical epochs; but that underlying the differing terminology, salvation has always been through faith, i.e., through the reception of God’s word into the heart thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit.

In effect, Paul has reserved the language of faith solely to the faith of “Gentile” Abraham (on the basis of Gen 15:6) and to faith in the new covenant proclamation of the gospel (on the basis of Isa 28:16 and Hab 2:4). For the faith of godly people under the Mosaic covenant, he uses the term the works of the law instead of faith. He does this, reflecting the predominant way in which faith was denoted in the Pentateuch (i.e., it was spoken of in a holistic way as doing torah), in order to highlight how Mosaic faith was a temporary stage in salvation history, and that salvation in the new covenant age is opened up to the Gentiles, the implication being that it is not right for non-Christian Jews to reject Jesus Christ in the name of faithfulness to Moses, nor for Christian Judaizers to force Christian Gentiles to be circumcised (if male) and to keep the law of Moses, as if only Jews could be saved.

The point of Paul’s argument in Galatians and Romans is that the Mosaic covenant compounds the problem of sin and death in Adam, but the fullness of blessing and life is made available only in the new covenant in Christ. The faith response in the new covenant age mirrors that of Gentile Abraham, meaning that in the new covenant age Gentiles can participate in salvation as part of the people of God, just as Gentile Abraham could. In other words, the new covenant doctrine of justification by faith means that the Mosaic doctrine of justification by the works of the law no longer applies. This means that salvation in the new covenant has nothing to do with following Moses, but with submission to the lordship of Christ.

The pattern of salvation history according to Paul is basically:

abAB

where a = disobedience and death through Adam, b = obedience and life through Abraham, A = disobedience and death through the old covenant, and B = obedience and life through the new covenant.

It also needs to be pointed out that abA has been turned into B only through the righteousness and obedience of the one man, Jesus Christ (Rom 5:18-19), so perhaps the pattern of salvation history is best written as:

abACB

where C = the cross of Christ.

SALVATION-HISTORICAL EPOCH	PAULINE TERM FOR THE WORD OF GOD	PAULINE TERM FOR FAITH RESPONSE	HISTORICAL RESPONSE	HISTORICAL RESULT
Adam in the garden	the commandment	obedience	disobedience	death for Adam and for all humanity born of Adam
“Gentile” Abraham	promise	faith	faith	inaugurated partial blessing
Israel under law	the law	the works of the law	disobedience on the part of Israel as a whole	death for the nation as a whole
the church under grace	the gospel	faith	faith on the part of mainly Gentiles but more Jews after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in	inaugurated fullness of blessing and life now leading to consummated fullness of blessing and life for believers at the return of Christ