The New Perspective on Paul

In the latest issue of Christianity Today, Simon Gathercole offers a somewhat appreciative but also critical evaluation of the new perspective on Paul. For me, the new perspective’s major conclusions (such as that “the works of the Law” in Paul’s writings were not good works in general but symbols of the separateness of the Jews as God’s chosen people over against the Gentiles) seem completely sound conclusions that are right on target. This is not merely because Paul affirms judgment by works in Romans 2, nor because whenever he talks about “works of the Law” he tends to then shift into discussion of Jews and Gentiles. If one thinks about circumcision, the work of the Law that Paul uses as an example most often, it is absolutely the worst example Paul could have chosen if he had in mind those works people do to earn favor with God. Circumcision is done when a Jewish male is 8 days old, and is done to rather than by him. As I always tell my students when we cover this subject, I don’t remember being concerned to earn my salvation when I was 8 days old (although I also admit my memory of that time in my life is spotty), and I also emphasize that if they learn nothing else from the class, it should be not to give sharp objects to babies!

The classic Lutheran interpretation had the effect that, when I first read Galatians, and arrived at the point where Paul lists the works of the flesh and says “those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God”, I thought either I had misunderstood or Paul was not being consistent. When I read James D. G. Dunn’s work on Paul’s writings, suddenly they made sense.

One might perhaps ask why, if Paul had in mind the ‘ritual’ laws that distinguished Jews from Gentiles, he didn’t use precisely such a distinction as some of his later interpreters have between ‘moral’ and ‘ritual’. The answer is simple: he didn’t because he couldn’t, not merely because moral and ritual overlap in laws such as that regarding the Sabbath, but also because the covenant was a whole and one could not simply pick and choose from it. But, having set it aside so as to incorporate the Gentiles, and for that reason alone, one could still look to the Law for moral guidance, since its moral principles were the same as those under the new covenant. And so it is that Paul cites the Law as authoritative on moral matters and even says what are otherwise incomprehensible things like “circumcision doesn’t matter – keeping the commandments does”. All of this makes sense from the perspective of the “new perspective”.