The Relationship of Jewish and Gentile Believers to the Law Between A.D. 30 and 70 in the Scripture

153 the gospel. 25 An Evaluation This understanding does allow a more positive view of the law as one which encouraged faith and was based on God's grace and yet it is subject to several of the criticisms of the previous view. In reality it is even less viable than the traditional Lutheran understanding because of the way it trivializes the cross. According to Galatians 3 the cross work of Christ was necessary to redeem men from the problem of the works of the law. If the problem was a misuse of the law, then all they really required was better teaching not substitutionary atonement. 26 If the cross is the solution then the problem must have been more than incorrect knowledge. Jewish Exclusivism vs. Human Faith Since the work of Sanders has seriously questioned the existence or at least the influence of a legalistic Judaism 27 a "new perspective on Paul " 28 had to be found. That is, if 25 Daniel P . Fuller, Gospel and Law: Contrast or Continuum ? (Grand Rapids : Eerd– mans, 1980), 99. Fuller argues that understanding "law" in this way "would remove all need for making a contrast between gospel and faith on the one hand, and the revelatory law of Moses on the other," Ibid. He says in the forward to his book, "I realized that if the law i , indeed, a law of faith, enjoining only the obedience of faith and the works that proceed therefrom . . . then there could no longer be any antithesis in biblical theology between th law and the gospel . I then had to accept the very dra tic conclu ion that the antithe i bet e n law and gospel established by Luther, Calvin, and the covenant theologian could no long r tand up under the crutiny of biblical theology," Ibid . , xi. 26 Moo , " ' Law,' 'Work of the Law,' and Legali min Paul ,'' 100. al th th t k pin nt n r m int n n , n t th m ritm