Channels, Fall 2016

Channels • 2016 • Volume 1 • Number 1 Page 37 apart from works (4:6)” is equivalent to the one who is blessed for having his sins forgiven and covered (4:7-8). As a result, the one who receives righteousness by faith and apart from works is justified (4:3, 5; 3:20-31), simultaneously having his sins forgiven and “non- reckoned (4:6-8).” This is not merely describing the process of someone to whom was granted the benefit of becoming a member of the covenant but of someone who was made right with God (justified) by having his sins forgiven. Lastly, it is important to highlight that, although the Jewish religion is not founded upon a legalistic system, a work-based salvation religion, one must not exclude the possibility con- cerning the presence of an “ethnocentric legalism” 71 among Second Temple Jews. A founda- tional New Perspective principle which highly influences their interpretation regarding the fragment “works of the law” is the concept of “covenantal nomism.” E.P. Sanders defines it as “the view that one’s place in God’s plan is established on the basis of the covenant (elec- tion by grace) and that the covenant requires as the proper response of man his obedience to its commandments, while providing means of atonement for transgression (parenthesis added).” 72 According to Sanders, Second Temple Jews were not striving to pursue salvation through the obedience of the Law but were fully aware that obedience to God’s command- ments was necessary and functioned as evidence that one is truly a member of the cove- nant. Therefore, it would not have made sense for Paul to have spoken against “works of the Law” as if 1 st century Jews were concerned with attaining salvation by works. Instead, Paul uses the term in order to refute ethnocentric pride by expressing that one is not a member of the covenant by keeping the Sabbath, food laws, and circumcision, but by hav- ing faith in Christ Jesus. In this case, “works of the law” are Jewish regulations that served only as boundary markers, in which their goal was to preserve the distinctiveness of Is- rael’s nation in relation to others. The NPP reasoning seems to be valid, but a question is inevitably raised: Does the fact that Jewish religion is founded on the concept of uncondi- tional election (Abrahamic covenant) rule out the existence of any type of legalism in terms of practice? 73 John Piper makes an interesting argument when he observes that “ethnocen- trism and self-righteousness are morally inseparable.” 74 He claims that it is a futile differen- tiation once they both have the same root, which is self-righteousness. According to Piper, Jesus himself thought that ethnical exclusivism and self-righteousness were connected when telling the parable of the “the Pharisee and the Tax Collector” to a group of Jews who thought “they were righteous, and treated others with contempt (Lk. 18:9).” Piper suggests, based on the parable, that “the exclusivistic treatment of others is one manifestation of the self-righteousness that trusts in its own law-keeping”. In the parable, the Pharisee believed he was righteous based on the fact he was not an extortioner, adulterer, unjust like other 71 Andrew Hassler, “Ethnocentric Legalism and the Justification of the Individual: Rethinking Some New Per- spective Assumptions,” JETS 54.2 (June 2011): 314. {expound here} 72 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 75. 73 Alan P. Stanley, Did Jesus Teach Salvation by Works?: The Role of Works in Salvation in the Synoptic Gospels (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2006), 89. In his book, Stanley affirms that Sanders representation of Ju- daism is regarded by many, including the renowned Jewish Scholar Jacob Neusner, as overly simplistic. In light of the fact that even if Judaism was not legalistic in principle, the presence of legalistic Jews in practice could have been still a reality. 74 Piper, The Future of Justification, 156.