Session 2.26: August 23, 2024
Scripture Reading: Acts 13:13-52
13:13 Then Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia, but John left them and returned to Jerusalem. 13:14 Moving on from Perga, they arrived at Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. 13:15 After the reading from the law and the prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent them a message, saying, “Brothers, if you have any message of exhortation for the people, speak it.” 13:16 So Paul stood up, gestured with his hand and said,
“Men of Israel, and you Gentiles who fear God, listen: 13:17 The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay as foreigners in the country of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. 13:18 For a period of about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. 13:19 After he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave his people their land as an inheritance. 13:20 All this took about four hundred fifty years. After this he gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. 13:21 Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man from the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. 13:22 After removing him, God raised up David their king. He testified about him: ‘I have found David the son of Jesse to be a man after my heart, who will accomplish everything I want him to do.’ 13:23 From the descendants of this man God brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, just as he promised. 13:24 Before Jesus arrived, John had proclaimed a baptism for repentance to all the people of Israel. 13:25 But while John was completing his mission, he said repeatedly, ‘What do you think I am? I am not he. But look, one is coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the sandals on his feet!’ 13:26 Brothers, descendants of Abraham’s family, and those Gentiles among you who fear God, the message of this salvation has been sent to us. 13:27 For the people who live in Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize him, and they fulfilled the sayings of the prophets that are read every Sabbath by condemning him. 13:28 Though they found no basis for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 13:29 When they had accomplished everything that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and placed him in a tomb. 13:30 But God raised him from the dead, 13:31 and for many days he appeared to those who had accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem. These are now his witnesses to the people. 13:32 And we proclaim to you the good news about the promise to our ancestors, 13:33 that this promise God has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son; today I have fathered you.’ 13:34 But regarding the fact that he has raised Jesus from the dead, never again to be in a state of decay, God has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you the holy and trustworthy promises made to David.’ 13:35 Therefore he also says in another psalm, ‘You will not permit your Holy One to experience decay.’ 13:36 For David, after he had served God’s purpose in his own generation, died, was buried with his ancestors, and experienced decay, 13:37 but the one whom God raised up did not experience decay. 13:38 Therefore let it be known to you, brothers, that through this one forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 13:39 and by this one everyone who believes is justified from everything from which the law of Moses could not justify you. 13:40 Watch out, then, that what is spoken about by the prophets does not happen to you:
13:41 ‘Look, you scoffers; be amazed and perish!
For I am doing a work in your days,
a work you would never believe, even if someone tells you.’ ”
13:42 As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people were urging them to speak about these things on the next Sabbath. 13:43 When the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who were speaking with them and were persuading them to continue in the grace of God.
13:44 On the next Sabbath almost the whole city assembled together to hear the word of the Lord. 13:45 But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and they began to contradict what Paul was saying by reviling him. 13:46 Both Paul and Barnabas replied courageously, “It was necessary to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we are turning to the Gentiles. 13:47 For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have appointed you to be a light for the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ” 13:48 When the Gentiles heard this, they began to rejoice and praise the word of the Lord, and all who had been appointed for eternal life believed. 13:49 So the word of the Lord was spreading through the entire region. 13:50 But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high social standing and the prominent men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and threw them out of their region. 13:51 So after they shook the dust off their feet in protest against them, they went to Iconium. 13:52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
Outline
Paul’s Speech at the Synagogue
A message of exhortation for the people
Hear me Men of Israel, and Gentile God Fearers
The God of Israel chose our ancestors
God made the people great in Egypt and led them out
God endured the people in the wilderness
God gave the people the land
God gave the people judges
God gave the people a king
God removed the bad king (Saul) and gave the people a good king (David)
From the David came Jesus the Savior
John the Baptist announced repentance and Jesus
Like the prophets predicted, the people did not recognize Jesus and killed him
Jesus was crucified, buried, and then appeared to many
So, “we proclaim to you the good news about the promise to our ancestors,” the promise has been fulfilled
The Son shall never see decay
Through the Son there is forgiveness of sins
Through the Son there is the justification the law of Moses could not bring
So, do not scoff and believe
From the Law to the Messiah
With minor modifications, the explanations below come from Jason A. Staples’ Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites.
The law (Torah) was never going to work—it was never going to be followed
Deuteronomy 31:16–18
31:16 Then the LORD said to Moses, “You are about to die, and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they are going. They will reject me and break my covenant that I have made with them. 31:17 At that time my anger will erupt against them and I will abandon them and hide my face from them until they are devoured. Many disasters and distresses will overcome them so that they will say at that time, ‘Have not these disasters overcome us because our God is not among us?’ 31:18 But I will certainly hide myself at that time because of all the wickedness they will have done by turning to other gods.
Deuteronomy 31:24–30
31:24 When Moses finished writing on a scroll the words of this law in their entirety, 31:25 he commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the LORD’s covenant, 31:26 “Take this scroll of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God. It will remain there as a witness against you, 31:27 for I know about your rebellion and stubbornness. Indeed, even while I have been living among you to this very day, you have rebelled against the LORD; you will be even more rebellious after my death! 31:28 Gather to me all your tribal elders and officials so I can speak to them directly about these things and call the heavens and the earth to witness against them. 31:29 For I know that after I die you will totally corrupt yourselves and turn away from the path I have commanded you to walk. Disaster will confront you in the days to come because you will act wickedly before the LORD, inciting him to anger because of your actions.” 31:30 Then Moses recited the words of this song from start to finish in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel.
Deuteronomy 30:1–6
30:1 “When you have experienced all these things, both the blessings and the curses I have set before you, you will reflect upon them in all the nations where the LORD your God has banished you. 30:2 Then if you and your descendants turn to the LORD your God and obey him with your whole mind and being just as I am commanding you today, 30:3 the LORD your God will reverse your captivity and have pity on you. He will turn and gather you from all the peoples among whom he has scattered you. 30:4 Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. 30:5 Then he will bring you to the land your ancestors possessed and you also will possess it; he will do better for you and multiply you more than he did your ancestors. 30:6 The LORD your God will also cleanse your heart and the hearts of your descendants so that you may love him with all your mind and being and so that you may live.
A new covenant is coming
Jeremiah 31:31–34.
31:31 “Indeed, a time is coming,” says the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 31:32 It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the LORD. 31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land,” says the LORD. “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.
31:34 “People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” says the LORD. “For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”
This passage presumes the following three premises:
(1) Israel’s covenantal infidelity: The passage explicitly states that the reason a new covenant is needed is that Israel has broken the covenant made at the exodus from Egypt through infidelity and injustice.
(2) The curse of the covenant: Israel consequently no longer stands in a relationship of covenantal favor with YHWH. This is made explicit in Hosea.
Hosea 1:9
Then the LORD said: “Name him ‘Not My People’ (Lo-Ammi), because you are not my people and I am not your God.”
Like the other nations, Israel now stands under God’s wrath rather than under covenantal favor until the covenant is renewed.
(3) Future restoration: YHWH will nevertheless renew his covenant with Israel and Judah, reelecting and readopting Israel as his people and restoring them to covenantal relationship and favor: “I will be their God and they will be my people” (Jer 31:33).
God promises not only to return and restore Israel but also to rectify the root cause of Israel’s present plight: the infidelity and injustice that brought Israel under the covenantal curse in the first place. That is, whereas the broken covenant had been contingent on Israel’s obedience to external written instructions (Torah), the new covenant will involve YHWH writing his Torah on the heart of Israel, who will then naturally fulfill the parameters of the covenant.
Of course, while the specific language and imagery of the new covenant prophecy is unique, the idea that Israel’s restoration will be accompanied by Israel’s transformation into a just people is by no means unusual in the prophets. On the contrary, it is a biblical commonplace that since Israel’s exile was the result of Israel’s infidelity, Israel’s restoration will necessarily involve renewed fidelity and righteousness. Restated in more familiar Pauline vernacular, Israel’s restoration requires Israel’s justification—that is, for Israel to be restored, Israel must become a righteous people who live according to YHWH’s stipulations. This ethical transformation will then ensure that the restoration is permanent, a sentiment reflected in the prophetic declaration, “Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever” (Isa 60:21).
The new covenant shall come about by divine transformation—new hearts
Ezekiel 11:17–21
11:17 “Therefore say: ‘This is what the sovereign LORD says: When I regather you from the peoples and assemble you from the lands where you have been dispersed, I will give you back the country of Israel.’
11:18 “When they return to it, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. 11:19 I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them; I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies and I will give them tender hearts, 11:20 so that they may follow my statutes and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. 11:21 But those whose hearts are devoted to detestable things and abominations, I hereby repay them for what they have done, says the sovereign LORD.”
Ezekiel 36:24–31
36:24 “ ‘I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries; then I will bring you to your land. 36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. 36:26 I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. 36:27 I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations. 36:28 Then you will live in the land I gave to your fathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. 36:29 I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and multiply it; I will not bring a famine on you. 36:30 I will multiply the fruit of the trees and the produce of the fields, so that you will never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. 36:31 Then you will remember your evil behavior and your deeds which were not good; you will loathe yourselves on account of your sins and your abominable deeds.
2 Corinthians 3:1–6
3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? 3:2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone, 3:3 revealing that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts.
3:4 Now we have such confidence in God through Christ. 3:5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 3:6 who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Paul emphasizes divine transformative activity in 2 Corinthians 3, where he explains that Messiah has written on the Corinthians themselves, “not with ink but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (3:3). They have thereby been incorporated in “a new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit—for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (3:6). This passage is especially important not only because it explicitly invokes the new covenant and heart transformation of Jeremiah 31 but also because it reveals how Paul links that promise with Ezekiel’s declaration that YHWH would “give you a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26), connecting the new covenant with the spirit language that so permeates the Pauline epistles.
Remarkably, the prevalence of these very concepts of spirit, heart transformation, justification by grace, and new creation in the Pauline epistles have frequently been understood as evidence that Paul has departed from a traditional Jewish covenantal framework.
This is a puzzling claim in light of other early Jewish evidence that strongly associates the reception of the spirit with the new covenant. Based on that evidence and Paul’s own conflation of “new covenant” and “spirit” in 2 Corinthians 3:3–6, it is apparent that Paul’s emphasis on receiving the spirit does not signal a departure from traditional Jewish covenantal theology but instead demonstrates exactly the opposite. In the Prophets, the promise of the spirit is all about Israel being empowered to obey, and Paul’s references to the gift of the spirit, circumcision of the heart, and other related concepts are ways of saying that the new covenant has been initiated. This is why Paul writes to the Thessalonians of his confidence that “you yourselves are taught by God to love one another” because God has “given his sacred spirit to you”—that is, the new covenant promise of intrinsic divine instruction and ethical transformation has come to pass.
The law (Torah) is a curse not because it is bad but because it is good but it was not (and will not be) followed
Romans 3:19–23
3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 3:20 For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. 3:21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed—3:22 namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Deuteronomy 30:15–18
30:15 “Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other. 30:16 What I am commanding you today is to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. 30:17 However, if you turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods, 30:18 I declare to you this very day that you will certainly perish!
This framework helps explain Paul’s assertion that those “from works of Torah are under a curse” (Galatians 3:10) and his strident insistence on the inability of the “letter” or “works of Torah” to make God’s people righteous. The Torah itself prospectively declares Israel’s infidelity to be inevitable because even as the new generation prepared to enter the Promised Land, YHWH still had not given them “a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear to this day” (Deut 29:3). Consequently, when (not if) the covenant has been broken and the people have fallen under the curse, Israel’s God will be vindicated for his dealings with his people (Deut 31:16–22). YHWH’s justness is all the more demonstrated in that even after Israel’s inevitable infidelity, he will yet redeem them, at which time he finally will circumcise their hearts, enabling them to keep the (renewed) covenant henceforth (Deuteronomy 30:1–14). The Book of the Torah is therefore given to Israel “as a witness against you” (Deuteronomy 31:26), in anticipation of Israel’s covenant-breaking, thereby vindicating YHWH in light of what will come. That is, later hearers and readers will be able to recognize that Israel has been unfaithful despite YHWH’s fidelity.
The knowledge of sin is revealed through Torah precisely because sin had not been removed from the heart of Israel when the Torah was given. But without a command to transgress, that sin lay latent, present but hidden: “where there is no law, there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15). The command is therefore necessary to awaken and reveal sin in order that sin may be dealt with. This is what Paul means when he says “I would not have known sin except through the law” (7:7). Consequently, although “the Torah is sacred, and the command is sacred and just and good” (7:12), because of the presence of sin in the flesh, it is nevertheless an administration of death (2 Corinthians 3:7), since “the command which was for life, the same was for death” (Romans 7:10).
The problem is not with the command but with the inclination of the people, and the command reveals that problem precisely by “bringing about my death through what is good so that through the command sin would become utterly sinful” (Romans 7:13). That is, since the Torah is good, the fact that the command resulted in death reveals the true source of that death—sin dwelling in the “fleshly” inclination of those to whom the command was given, who are not only unable to keep the command but inclined to rebel against it (7:8–9, 14; 8:7).
While the command reveals that sinful inclination, it cannot remove it. That removal, Paul argues, must take place pneumatically, on the same “spiritual” plane as the Torah itself, through the circumcision of the heart by the spirit.
Does faith nullify the law? No!
Romans 3:31
3:31 Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! Instead we uphold the law.
It is in this respect that Paul can argue that his gospel in no way “discontinues Torah through fidelity” but rather “establishes Torah” (Rom 3:31). He is not arguing that the Torah has been eliminated, nor does he argue against “legalism” or “law-keeping.” Instead, he argues for a particular understanding of the written Torah’s function. “The works of Torah,” he argues, are not a means through which the covenant can be kept or reestablished – the covenant has been broken and cannot be renewed in that manner. Instead, the written Torah, in its proper function, simultaneously serves as a witness to God’s justness and fidelity over and against Israel’s infidelity and injustice while also pointing forward to the ultimate pneumatic justification of God’s people via the new covenant after passing through the curse for disobeying the command – that is, after the age of wrath.
The Spirit of Christ is God’s glory revealed
2 Corinthians 3:7–18
3:7 But if the ministry that produced death—carved in letters on stone tablets—came with glory, so that the Israelites could not keep their eyes fixed on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face (a glory which was made ineffective), 3:8 how much more glorious will the ministry of the Spirit be? 3:9 For if there was glory in the ministry that produced condemnation, how much more does the ministry that produces righteousness excel in glory! 3:10 For indeed, what had been glorious now has no glory because of the tremendously greater glory of what replaced it. 3:11 For if what was made ineffective came with glory, how much more has what remains come in glory! 3:12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we behave with great boldness, 3:13 and not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from staring at the result of the glory that was made ineffective. 3:14 But their minds were closed. For to this very day, the same veil remains when they hear the old covenant read. It has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away. 3:15 But until this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds, 3:16 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. 3:18 And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Paul presents the Torah revealed through Moses (the “letter”) as a mediated and attenuated version of the unmediated, heavenly, spiritual, eternal Torah revealed to Moses. It is the latter Torah—the “Torah of fidelity” (Rom 3:27)—that Paul understands as written on the hearts of new covenant members, who no longer must look to “Moses” to see the glory of God filtered through the veil because they now see what Moses himself saw.
The Messiah has put an end to the age of wrath—he has atoned for the people and changed their hearts
In summary, when Paul speaks of deliverance “from this present evil age” (Galatians 1:4; cf. Romans 12:2) and proclaims that now is the “season of good favor” (2 Corinthians 6:2), he is operating from within the same framework as his contemporaries who referred to “the age of wrath.”
Israel is under the ongoing reality of the Deuteronomic curses, of which death itself is the ultimate curse. For Israel to overcome death, God himself will have to provide the solution to Israel’s chronic infidelity. This traditional connection between Israel’s restoration and justification (that is, becoming a righteous and just people) explains why justification is so central to the gospel. The messiah died to put an end to the age of wrath characterized by sin and to inaugurate a new era of God’s favor characterized by fidelity mediated through the spirit and resulting in the blessings promised to God’s people of old. Whereas Israel’s moral impairment and inclination to sin meant the Torah could never grant what it promised (Romans 8:3), God has acted to fulfill that promise, providing a new heart and new spirit capable of exceeding the justness that could be accomplished through the written Torah (Romans 8:2–4, 9–17; 2 Corinthians 3:4–18).
But the end of the age of wrath does not mark a discontinuation of Torah (Romans 3:31). In the death of the messiah who fulfilled the Torah’s requirements to end the wrath brought about by disobedience to Torah (cf. Romans 4:15; 3:19–31), the Torah has come to its telos (Rom 10:4): the curse of death followed by the renewed life promised by the Torah itself. Those who have received the spirit are therefore no longer “under Torah but under favor” (Rom 6:14–15), having moved beyond the age of wrath into the age of favor.