Matthew J. Thomas | Paul's Works of the Law in the Perspective of Second Century Reception
3:03PM Dec 17, 2021
Speakers:
Jonathan J. Armstrong
Matthew J. Thomas
Keywords:
works
paul
augustine
luther
calvin
early
perspective
god
standpoint
law
book
question
ignatius
century
faith
debate
thinking
justification
reading
new covenant
Today we're thrilled to be speaking with Dr. Matthew J. Thomas. Dr. Thomas is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at the Dominican school of philosophy and theology in Berkeley, California. He's also an instructor in theology with his region College in Vancouver. And he's the author of this text that we're really looking forward to just speaking about today. The title is Paul's works of the law in the perspective of second century receptions available 2020 from IVP academic Dr. Thomas, thank you so much for spending some time with us today.
Thank you very much, Jonathan. Very well done with the long book title. Not everybody can do that as well as you did. I know I can't do it as well as you did. So that was fantastic.
Hey, and not only is it a cool book that we have some really cool things on the front end T right says theologically explosive. How did you get him to do that? Alister McGrath wrote the preface to this piece of form, which is, of course a huge honor I was. This was a couple years ago, I was at Wickliffe. Hall, I was a researcher for them, and then later one of their teachers. This is in Oxford University. And I was prepping for a lecture on the new perspective on Paul and I came across Alister McGrath's piece on the history of the doctrine of justification. This was about 2007, that edition, I flipped through it, see, hoping I can find out what Alister McGrath would say on the doctrine of justification or the the new perspective of Paul, he just gave a few sentences to the topic in that that book at that edition. But in his preface to your piece, he says, no interpreter of Paul should be allowed to overlook this book. Amazing. When did you first become interested in this as a research show? Yeah, well,
I should first say just a word in sort of gratitude to Alister, if, I mean, if you want to have sort of a model for the kind of work that I aspire to, you know, Alister wood would probably be the person that you you've looked to, in that, if you look at his justification book. He's not, it's not a partisan work. It's a work which is trying to give, as even handed in as fair, a telling of the story of the doctrine of justification, the way that it's been understood by different parties throughout history. And, of course, he doesn't always get that perfect at every point. I mean, the book is in its fourth, fourth, fourth revision now, but that's what he's aspired to do, from from the beginning, is to go into just, you know, to tell the truth as accurately as he can, and to try to see issues from a number of different lenses and to see how it is that, you know, different different parts of Scripture make sense in different kinds of ways, depending on who's reading what and when. And I've just always really appreciated the model that he said, and also his willingness to continue to refine his own his own knowledge. I mean, this, the fourth edition that he came out with is a really thorough revision of the of the entire work. And I think, from a scholarly standpoint, there's not many, I think, instances that come to mind of somebody who has gone back on so much of what they've put in print before and said, Hey, a lot of that actually, was not totally accurate. And so you should go and not rely on those earlier editions. And this is what you should do. There's a kind of scholarly humility that's there. That I just think is fantastic. And that I, you know, aspire to as well. So anyway, it's, I can, I can tell you also have an appreciation for his work. He's somebody who has a big step. For me a really valuable model as well. So
cool. Well, now we got to hear the full story. So this release came out in this beautiful edition by IVP. Academic but originally you developed it as your D. Phil dissertation at Oxford University. And Marcus Botamo. Course teaches at Oxford University and Alister McGrath and NT writer sort of floating around this project, they of course, float around Oxford University to you better tell us the Genesis story of this book,
please. Yeah, absolutely. So it's probably not where you would expect. My background is not in any kind of academic Theology at all. And I wasn't even originally from a Christian background, in that I wasn't from a Christian family. But I became a Christian at a fairly young age from, you know, a somewhat challenging kind of young, you know, younger life. And so the faith was always something that made a big difference in my own life and my own story, but there are certain things that I always had difficulty figuring out how they It made sense. And one of them was the sort of the traditional way the dichotomy was presented to me of sort of being justified by faith, you know, apart from apart from work. So apart from works of the law, which was, I mean, the typical way I heard that was, you go to heaven, because you, you know, you say that you believe this thing, because you pray this prayer and which is unrelated to, you know, your subsequent actions, etc. And I just always remember having difficulty in and squaring that with the rest of the Bible. I just, it was a challenge. And even if it was just trying to square that paradigm, internally with Paul, I would often find him as like, this doesn't seem like what Paulo means here. And so I just, I had a lot of difficulty growing up. And, you know, Bible meant a lot to me, because I didn't really have a whole lot of strong church background.
But I struggled to figure out how that paradigm worked. And it was something that, you know, growing up, it really caused a lot of damage in my in my own faith, because I just couldn't figure out how this was intelligible. If you fast forward a bit after college, I, I sense this call into into going into ministry, specifically on into inner city ministry, which for me was fantastic. And just as far as being able to work with young people who were also from, you know, challenging backgrounds as well. It, it was honestly, something that that fit better, I think, than any church, I had been a part of that at that point. And so as part of that I would teach just like, you know, a Bible verse or two in the beginning for all the kids that we had as part of this after school program. And in the process of doing this, I, you know, end up exploring a lot of these things in Scripture that I've been wrestling with for a long time, and never really quite figured out how they all go and fit together. And so in the context of doing this, somebody had turned me on to NT Wright's work. And I somehow ended up listening to his, his Romans in a week class that he gave at Regent college way back in like, I want to say was, like, 1991, or something like that. And so I was listening to this, just as I was driving, you know, into into Oakland to go, you know, work with these kids. And he gets to a point where he says, you know, they're trying to translate, you know, faith of Christ or faithfulness to Christ, whatever he says, we're not really sure I do is because this word pistis. In Greek, it's, you know, it means both faith and faithfulness. And so, we're not really sure translators to say this, you know, should we translate this one way or the other. And I remember, I darn near crash the vehicle at that point, because growing up, I had always heard, and they would always been taught to me that, you know, faith and faithfulness are kind of like opposites when it comes to you know, Paul, you know, faith is what you believe faithfulness is works, that's what you do. And you're saved by, you know, kind of one and not, not the other. And that's one of those is really the consequential thing for Paul. And I just remember thinking, Wait a second, if the Greek word for this is the same word, then the way that I have been taught this dichotomy, how does that how does that match up? Because it kind of seems like you have the same thing on both sides of the dichotomy. Um, and so this, this is odd, if if faith itself means something broader, and you might say, more like well rounded, then just sort of a belief in a kind of cognitive sense if it means fidelity, like the kind of fidelity that you know, the Abraham goes, goes in models, which made a lot of sense to me was like, Okay, on the one hand, I could really see how that goes and matches up a lot with what you get in Scripture elsewhere. But then the other question is, well, what is Paul reacting against with works of the law, because it would then seem that works as a law would be more specific as a target than anything that anybody could possibly do it any sort of sort of moment, which was basically the way that I, you know, had had encountered it growing up. And so, um, long story short, I ended up going from from there, to Regent college and studying this. And this, this was a paper that I wrote, which is I take a class with, with Jay packer and wrote a paper on justification that really formed a lot of my thinking is back in the day when the sort of the the debates between anti right and John Piper are still kind of, you know, raging back back and forth. And so I was really, you know, trying to get my mind around the old perspective and new perspective and how they fit together. And then I was reading a follow up to this, which was saying, really zeroing in on the question works a lot because it seemed like between your old new perspectives, it seemed like this was where they were talking past each other more than anything else. They were just really on. Just totally different, different pages. And so, I was reading a paper on this, and I was reading Calvin's commentary on Romans and I got to the bit in Romans 320, where he goes into talks about, you know, you know, we reckon are ones justified by faith apart from works of the law. And it's really interesting because I had gotten used to the way that Calvin writes from taking packers class. And so I'd spent a lot of a lot of time in his writings. And I got so used to the way that Calvin always goes and brings the fathers along with him in any kind of, you know, disputed question. He always goes and CITES, you know, Augustine, or Chris Austin, or Jerome, etc. And so it's really interesting, because here is like, you know, clearly a very big, big question. And so he has this little bit where he says, like, what, here's what works to the liar. And he says, you know, some so origin Chris Austin, and Jerome, they were led by the, you know, the the addition of the word law to refer this to the ceremonies of the Jewish law. And so he goes and says, here's what they said, and here's why they're wrong. And then he goes on and says, I'm not unaware that Augustine has a different position from my own position. And he goes in and says, with the Augustine position is, which is that these are all works that are done apart from God's grace, but not the works that are empowered by God's grace, which obviously views as actually justifying. And then you go says, that's why, you know, here's why Augustine is wrong as well. And then he goes, and he gives his own position. And I just remember thinking, this is odd. Because Calvin, I hadn't come across a time like this, where he would sort of he went it alone in the same kind of way. And so here's the funny thing is, I'm thinking Calvin, is your old perspective guy, this is the way that all the nomenclature works is he's the old one. But here you have Calvin in the 16th century, looking back at the things that are old from his perspective, and saying that they're incorrect, and explaining why they're incorrect, and not actually giving a, you know, a father who has precedents for his own position, which, just judging by the way that he presents, it seems in a sort of historical standpoint to be, you know, novel, relatively speaking. And so I just remember thinking, this is really interesting. I wonder, if you looked back at the early fathers, what they would say, because this position that he was describing that he was rejecting that origin, you know, croissants and Jerome are holding to, it seems similar to what I'd seen in NT, right and focusing on you know, the things that belong to the Jewish law specifically says Sabbath through laws, etc. And so I basically changed change this paper, and I started looking at early fathers. And in doing this, it was, I mean, I'll never forget, I was, I was, you know, reading things like Justin Martyr to dialogue with trifle and just thinking, Did NT right, find a time machine and send himself back to the second century, because
they're the things that I was doing there, they seemed like they were just off the page of an anti write book, but it's from, you know, just a martyr riding around 150 ID. So that's what the the genesis of the project was, was finding this, this Hinton Calvin, that the way that we're seeing in conceptualizing kind of your old new perspective, debate actually might be upside down. If you broaden the scope and look in the full kind of 2000 years of church church history. It's been falling Calvin's lead, I've been started looking the father's and I've basically been doing that for the past decade now. And so that led to Oxford and then to, to the book and everything that follows from that.
Remarkable Oh, my goodness. So this is the term paper that grew into a really significant book and and brought you to the other side of the world. This is an amazing story. Yeah. Justification, the core, the Christian message, how do we experience salvation in the Christian worldview? This is really important stuff. We better stop. I better have you better ask you to explain. For our listeners f me what exactly is this new perspective on pole? And what what would have been the old perspective on Paul just so we get that?
Yeah, absolutely. So the old perspective, within these kind of modern debates is usually traced back to Luther and Calvin. And so Luther and Calvin and you know, the things that you have associated with their writings and actions and their particularly their interpretation of Paul. And if you're looking at the question of work as a law, the way that I break this up, is looking at it in terms of meaning, significance, and then opposition. So meaning, what works of what law? Are we talking about? What's what's actually under discussion for Paul? And then significance? What are you trying to do when you practice these words? What's like, what's the significance of doing it? And then finally, opposition like why, why are these problematic from a Christian standpoint? What's Paul's problem with them? Luther and Calvin are interesting in that both of them regard works of the law in a really broad sense, but they also have different reasons for their for why they think Paul's opposing them, which then gets really interesting in the kind of broader history of, you know, the the Lutheran and reformed traditions and their own distinct theological emphases, which is something that I honestly I didn't know as much about until I really got into the dissertation and seeing some of the distinctions between Luther and Calvin, even though we both we group them both as as old perspective, they really have quite different logic when it comes down to what's what's problematic about them. And so both of them, see, you know, the Torah is the initial thing that Paul is talking about. But really, the main issue is works in general. And so when we're talking about, you know, being justified by faith apart from works of the law, both of them regardless in the most expansive way possible, including works that are done that are inspired by the Holy Spirit, which are empowered by the Holy Spirit, which is where they sort of break ranks with with St. Augustine, the significance of doing this, you can say one of the ways I found helpful to conceptualize it is, they regard these works as done individually, they have an individual's significance in that it's something that I myself, as an individual are doing to try to set myself right before God, or to try to sort of earn my salvation in some some kind of way. So that's what that's what these words are doing when it comes to opposition. It's interesting, Calvin mostly focuses on human inability. It's just it's because of humanity's depravity, that, you know, we just can't You can't do it. And so it's not that the it's not that the problem is trying to be justified by works. The problem is, you can't go in, you know, do enough to actually, you know, for God to recognize because God demands is kind of perfect obedience. Luther is interesting, because Luther actually goes the opposite direction here and says, actually, the attempt to be justified by works of the law is itself the epitome of sin. It's the worst kind of sin, because what you're doing is you're trying to make yourself into the Savior, you're trying to save yourself, which is you're trying to become God, because only God can be your Savior. And so it's interesting, the way that Luther standpoint, this isn't just idolatry, which is, you know, you know, this kind of worst of sense, but it's self idolatry, you're putting yourself in God's place, which is really interesting, and not really the way that, you know, the reformed tradition tends to tends to look at it. And so that's the old perspective, which within, you know, Biblical Studies has been, I guess, probably the dominant view over you know, the past centuries, which part of it is just because, you know, Biblical Studies, as an academic discipline is fundamentally, you know, one with Protestant roots. And so I think that that that makes sense. The new perspective goes and get started with Sanders and why this is 1977, on Palestinian Judaism. And he basically says, what Luther and Calvin are saying he focuses mostly on Luther, the things that he's saying about Jews and Paul's day, it's really difficult to find Jews in Paul's day that actually give historical evidence of saying things like this, that just doesn't sound this kind of way, as far as being justified by by works in this kind of individual level. And he says, what this does sound like is it sounds like, you know, the late medieval Catholics that Luther was arguing against, and from standard standpoint, he thinks that Luther has basically projected the conflicts that he was having whether you agree with those or disagree with his vision, he has projected those conflicts on to Paul and his interlocutors. And so it's just viewed from a historical standpoint in a way that's anachronistic from Sanders standpoint and then falling, you know, you know, Jimmy Donna into right, who are the main three figures in the new perspective that I engage with? The line question is the Torah. So the Mosaic Law, which is, you know, given kind of after Mount Sinai is, Paul goes and says, For 30 years, after the promises to Abraham, so that a little bit in Galatians, and the specific works that seem to always show up are Sabbath food lies, you know, keeping the particular calendar calendar days, and then circumcision is your is your big one that just shows up everywhere. And the reason that these things show up is because of the significance of practicing them, which is not an individual, I'm trying to earn, you know, my sort of points to go and to be accepted by God on a sort of one to one meaning God basis. What's happening when you do these things is you are becoming part of the Jewish nation you becoming a part of the Mosaic Covenant. That's what circumcision does. That's what when you start keeping the Sabbath that's what happens. And from Sander standpoint says this The reason this is so significant is because from a Jewish standpoint, if you're looking in this period, to be saved to be part of those who are going to have a share, and you know, in the age to come, you have to be part of the Jewish nation because the Jews are God's chosen people. And so from from Sander standpoint, and again falling with with, with done and with right.
This is the issue that's key, this is what's fundamental. And this is what Paul was reacting again. So if you think of Romans 328, to 29, if we reckon that man is justified by faith apart from works of the law, or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? And so this is a passage of pointing say, Look, this shows you the significance of what works of the law, or works to the light is what makes you makes you a Jew. And if you were justified by works of the law, then God would be the God of the Jews only. And that's what Paul's reality. Yes. So that's sort of big picture kind of meaning and significance of this from sampling of the new perspective. What's interesting is how divergent these three figures are. And indeed, a lot of other kind of, you know, new perspective folks are when it comes to Paul's logic, because if there's diversity between Lutheran and Calvin on the question, why Paul opposes versus the law, that diversity is a lot bigger from the standpoint of the new perspective in that the logic that Sanders has a logic that right has a logic that Dunn has, they're all very different from one another. And some of those things have substantiation within the early centuries of the church. And a lot of them really have no substantiation. And a lot of them really are far more, you know, modern in the way that they look in relation to the early reception of Paul,
thank you so much for that response in you've got three parts to this text. And in part two, you work through these old perspective on Paul theologians and new perspective on call theologians. Let me just touch up on one or two questions there. So in who are our old perspective, theologians, you've, you've worked through some of the material there in your last response, Luther, Calvin boatman and Douglas mu, he, by the way, I found your selection of Rudolf Bultmann. Really interesting. I'm calling from bolt bolt mounds old university town Barber. Oh, wow. And he's not usually put in these debates. So how did real quickly how did you decide to reach out and do some work with Bultmann? Add him into these old perspective on Paul theologians? Yeah, absolutely.
So what's interesting is Bultman is not necessarily engaged a whole lot by those who are from more kind of conservative evangelical Protestant backgrounds, just because he's always sort of the bad guy, which is understandable. And so I understand kind of where where folks are coming from with that. But I think that Bultman shadow is hard to escape just because of within 20th century Biblical Studies, how influential he was, and also how the new perspective itself can be regarded as a reaction against Bultman. It's really interesting that this is something that that I think it was John Barclay, who made this comment that that you can understand the the new perspective as essentially a reaction against the Bomani in paradigm of how, you know how Paul was to be interpreted. And you know, it is really
interesting. I've never thought of that. And then it never occurred to me. So what do you mean by that, please? Yeah,
so it's really interesting. So So boatman is a, a radical modernist Lutheran, he's a radical modernist Luther and that he's taking Luthers thought very seriously. And he's a very deeply rooted Lutheran. He doesn't always agree with Luther in every every area, but the fundamental structure of his thought, if you, for instance, if you read Bultmann, against kind of why, what's the logic against works of the law? What's wrong with works of the law? If you read Bookman there, he basically goes and says the same things that Luther does, but just in the language of 20th century existentialist philosophy. So he is in a sense, he's giving you these kinds of arguments within, you know, the kind of modern modern guys or at least monitor from the standpoint of the of the 20th century. Now, there's other things where we're Bultman clearly doesn't agree with Luther. So like, for instance, physical resurrection Bultmann is not as into, but when it comes to, you know, the kind of theology of justification Bultman is a pretty consistent Lutheran and there's not there's not many people in the 20th century that were stronger advocates for that conception of what Paul was talking about and what he was reacting against with his his Jewish interlocutor. So what the Jews Jews themselves were going saying, I believe it was Carl Bart actually who he has a line, which I think you'll find that in a footnote in the book, which is also I got via via John Barclay. He says that, you know, those who throw stones at bolt, men should be careful that they do not accidentally hit Luther, who is often hovering around in the background, which I think Bart is correct there. I think I think Bart is is correct. And so, so I think that's part of why Bultmann is so significant here is because if you look at, you know, EP Sanders, if you look at me, especially somebody like like, right, what animates them is not even as much going saying let's go and react against Luther and Calvin, etc. It's the modern representative of that Lutheran thought in Bultmann, which they just regard as being so, you know, I guess historically tenuous, and not really. Yeah, having having a deep root within, you know, first century Judaism.
So 20th century theology changes a lot and biblical studies changes a lot and our perspective of Paul, what does Paul mean when he's talking about justification by faith? The new perspective on Paul is tracing some of those changes in the 20th century up the bishop, the Swedish, Bishop Krister, stringed Dong, published, I think, in the 50s, if I'm not mistaken, an essay titled The apostle Paul in the introspective conscious of conscience of the West, where he proposes that Luther is, as you said, reading the debates of the late Middle Ages back on to his reading of Paul. So when Paul's talking about justification by faith, what he's really meeting says there is that we shouldn't pay indulgences to the Roman Catholic Church. And we shouldn't be involving ourselves in the sacramental system, as its was taught in late medieval Catholicism, perhaps, and you're diving way back into the second century authors to see if we can get a more realistic tone of what Paul is really talking about. Let's dive into Ignatius of Antioch. So there is about page 124. So of your study, you're looking back at what Ignatius of Antioch is saying in his epistles to the magnesian, and to the Philippians Philadelphians to communities in modern day Turkey. And Ignatius of Antioch seems to be exhorting the Christian communities away from certain Jewish practices, but he doesn't get as much resolution on what he's talking about. So what's your reading of how Ignatius informs the debate? And what are these Jewish practices that you assume? When do you assume those practices to be the Ignatius is asking the Christian communities not to engage in?
Yeah, that's great question. So one of the things that's interesting is if we go back to Bultmann, the boatman is really interesting in that he, he he, as somebody who was going into trying to figure out, from his standpoint, what he assumes the Jews to have been saying in Paul's day. It's, it's fascinating to look at the way that he interprets early Christian history. Because from his standpoint, Paul is talking about, you know, basically you have to be reliant on God and not upon yourself, etc. The Jews are saying, No, this is this self powered striving that everybody is that all the Jews are going and doing. And so and that's, and that's an essence of what it is to be a Jew. That's the essence of this mistaken standpoint, that's what they're fighting over about, you know, with with works of the law, this individualistic trying to earn your way to, you know, to God by your works. And it's really interesting, because Bultman when he gets to these early figures, so when he gets to Ignatius of Antioch, we get to the Epistle of Barnabas when it gets to just the martyrs dialogue with triphobo. So these early sources that we have, what are the things that's really interesting, is how perplex he is by the Jews in these contexts and by the references to Judaism, because none of them seem to be Judaism as he understands it from Paul's letters. And so if you read him on Ignatius of Antioch, from his standpoint, he thinks that, you know, the Jews here the problem with the Jews should be their self powered striving, the fact that they are individually trying to earn merit before God and so be justified. And so he his comments are really interesting because he says basically what you just said is that you have the reference to Judaism and you know to in Ignatius going and saying, you know not to practice Judaism. But there's not a kind of individualistic, you know, doing good work, something like that the things that come up are keeping the Sabbath. And then you have circumcision. And that's that's kind of it and you have other kind of oblique references to ancient practices. And he don't, he doesn't go and tell you what the ancient practices are. He just it seems as though then the particular context, which I can't remember, that's an machinations of Philippians. But it seems as though to his audience that whatever is referenced by that is well known to them on it's these particular practices associated with the mosaic line in with Jewish identity. So again, keeping the Sabbath. And then, you know, you know, circumcision, it seems as though that is at the center of whatever the issue is, with Judaism, why it is that, you know, he's saying to not go and follow us. And you can actually see this illustrated in the way that Ignatius goes and reacts against it. And in that, when he goes in commends and said, it's not a sort of a bolt money and don't do works. Don't rely on yourself by going and in practicing the Sabbath. What Ignatius says is that within the New Covenant, one is supposed to keep the Lord's day instead. And so instead of keeping the Sabbath, the Sabbath, you are supposed to go into, you know, to keep the day of Sunday, and that's the one that's supposed to, you know, be what Christians go and do and follow. And so anyway, that's that's Ignatius, and I guess, like I said, I think doing all of these things, looking at modern interpretation of these figures, together with the ancient sources themselves, can be really helpful and really fun. Because you can see, there's a sense in which bolt line there is actually really close to Calvin and Calvin's commentary on Romans, and that they're both looking back to the past and just seeing, it's difficult for me to see my interpretation of this conflict between, you know, Paul, are the early Christians and the Jews within, you know, the early early reception. So I think it's fascinating.
Amazing, Dr. Thomas. So. So what does that mean, then, for our interpretation of Augustine? So the arc of your argument seems to be that the second century authors preserved what we today would call a new perspective of Paul, but it's in the second century, it's not new. It's the original interpretation of Paul and the second century authors that really vindicate what we in contemporary, obviously called a new perspective on Paul. So then, does Augustine throw things off in the wrong direction? What happens between Iran as of Leon was the last author in your study? And with the leader interpretation of Paul?
Yeah, that's a great question. So I, if you, if you look, in the book, there's a couple of places where I spent spend time on this. One of them is in the conclusion where I go and give a brief sort of from Uranus to origin, because origin is often the figure that Luther and Calvin are engaging with an often the earliest figure that they had any sort of major access to, you know, to his writings. And then I have a bit of talks about about Augustine there as well. And then, sort of by popular demand, in the preface to the new edition, there's a bigger section, looking at Augustine and looking at the way that the Augustinian view goes in corresponds with what we might call the early perspective. So the specifics of your question, I think it's really helpful to situate Augustine within the context of the debate with plays. Yes. And I think when you do that, there's a lot that helps in a lot that goes and makes sense. What's interesting with Augustine is he goes, if you're looking in his earlier writings, he goes in articulates what we recognize as the early perspective, and so if you look in, in Contra Fosston, for instance, he you know, he's talking about works of the law there, it's clear that he's talking about the mosaic lines, the same things that come up circumcision, Sabbath food, food laws.
And so you find this early perspective there already. What's interesting is in the context of the Plages playgym debate, where you have pledges, and obviously fighting back and forth over works and things like that, and you have Plages you know, from what we can reconstruct, it seems as though he's saying something like humanity can be justified by what they do on their own without the need for supernatural grace. You've obviously been reacting against that and he starts to go into interpret works a lot. Anything that you do apart from the aid of supernatural grace? Now, how does that relate to that earlier sort of perspective? I think that that actually works pretty well. I think that that actually works pretty well, then you can see there's been a transposition and that this isn't the Jew Gentile debate that's going on anymore. This is a debate between Christians over the you know, the role of works and how it is that one is odds by God's grace. But it's compatible with the earlier perspective. And that it's not as though any of these early figures are saying that one merits, the grace of justification, by any sort of prerequisite works that they go into. And so you find that all over the place, I remember when I was first looking in these early sources, that was one of the things that was so striking to me is the way that you find them talking about the way that, you know, salvation, is by grace, apart from anything that we could possibly do anything we could possibly imagine. There's nothing that we go to do, and to deserve this. But at the same time, Christians are still under judgment, you're still accountable for you know, for what we do. And I remember, you know, if I think back to growing up, there was often, you know, I'd be in church context for you to hear a lot about one or a lot about the other. And here, you have both of these right next to each other all the time, and you find both of them and all the father's and the reason is because they regard justification as transformative, it actually goes, God's grace actually changes your heart and enables you to offer obedience to God that would be otherwise impossible, it actually goes and gives you this, you know, renovation of the heart that you know, zekiel and Jeremiah and Deuteronomy and had talked about. So if you if you put all of that together, you can see these early figures, though they're focusing on, you know, these particular works of the Torah. They're not by doing that, they're not going saying, Oh, well, you're justified by doing all of these other things apart from God's grace, they would agree that you know, that you are, and you can see that if you look in any of these writings, it's not as though there's, it's not as though they themselves are kind of proto Malaysians. It's Plages himself, who was doing a new thing and going and saying that, you know, there, at least as far as we understand, Plages hits historically, it's tough in even in August these days, it was tough, because, you know, he would go and say, well, please just I heard him say this, and then he would kind of he's gonna say, Oh, I didn't really say it that way. And so nailing down exactly what plagiarism is, is never, you know, the easiest thing to do. But it seems as though that what he is saying, if that is correct, was itself novel, to go on to say that, you know, humanity can be justified by their works apart from God's grace, and that God's grace is primarily a sort of, you know, external guidance and teaching and not interior renovation. And the fact that there's this compatibility between the what we call or as far as the way that I've found to go into articulate this, the early perspective and the Augustinian perspective, the fact that there is compatibility with this is because if you look in Augustine's later writings, kind of as the pleasure and controversy is really well underway, and after the his major interpolation works, he still goes and gives you the early perspective, when he's writing against the Jews. So you have this his treatise against the Jews, which is written I believe, in the 420s. So after the major anti, you know, plays in works, it's really interesting is in this context, where again, it's now sort of transposed back to the original one where you're talking about Jew Gentile debate. It's still all these same things that go and show up. So circumcision, Sabbath food laws, the practicing the Mosaic law. And so from Augustine standpoint, though, there is a distinction in the way that the debate goes and looks when he's arguing against Malaysia's and the way that he you know, our use using the polling texts within that particular context. It's not something that is discontinuous with the earlier tradition, because he himself keeps giving you the earlier position as it goes on. It's Palladius himself from Augustine's standpoint, who's discontinuous and giving you something that's out of step with their earlier tradition.
So then, Dr. Thomas, I better ask the billion dollar question and that is so are Christians then bound to obey the law or should a person who professes to be a Christian today keep the laws as they're prescribed in the Old Testament?
Oh, boy, yeah, probably go for it. No, the answer is no. The answer is no. And it's because any if you're going to synthesize, you know all of why it is that Christians don't go and practice the Mosaic law. In the in the in the conclusion of the book. I Kind of give the synthesis of the five main reasons for why it is that that Christians do not continue to practice the Mosaic law within the period of the new covenant. And so if you're going through those, and what we have early evidence, you know, for, which is itself, you know, interpretation and passing on what I think you find already within the biblical texts, you have the fact of a new covenant that's given and a new law that goes along with that it would seem extremely curious if a new covenant was to be instituted. And then you just go and you keep the old law and say, Oh, just this is lying around, this one will do just fine. Now, if there's a new, there's a new agreement between God and humanity, and particularly a new agreement, in which there's something that God is actually done to change humanity, then it would seem curious to go into maintain the kinds of laws that were given on account of the hard heartedness of humanity, if you think of like Israel in the desert, and how hard it how hard harder they were back, then, if God has taken that heart of stone, and has now removed it, and given a heart of flesh, as he promised, then it would seem inconsistent, to continue to practice the legislation, which is meant for humanity. And it's hard, hard condition. Instead, you have the Sermon on the Mount, which is a lot harder than the, you know, in the mosaic legislation. But which is possible, precisely because the new covenant is transformative precisely because there is this interior renovation that goes in comes that you know, that Christ is given by the Holy Spirit within the New Covenant. And so there's your there's your, you know, your most fundamental thing, if you look at some of the other things that you find from, you know, from the fathers, you know, they point to the promises that are made in Scripture, as far as the universal nature of this new covenant that's going to come which you can, I mean, I don't want to bore everyone with tons of prophetic texts, but you find them find them everywhere, and going all the way back to the promises to Abraham, you know, himself that you first find in Genesis 12, that, you know, all families, all nations are going to be blessed in his scene. And this is now the universal blessing that has come that this, you know, as Paul says, In Galatians, you know, Christ is the true seed of Abraham, he is the one who fully you know, brings this all to pass. And as such, now that this has come to pass the promises come true. All nations now are brought in and received as all nations and not just as the Jewish nation, not just as, as one nation. And so that's another example of the kind of reason that you find, if you if you have a look through, even if you just read the conclusion of the book, you'll be able to see the way that all this works. But the the, the answer is, is no. Now, does this mean that, you know, the, the, you know, the Old Testament is obsolete? Absolutely not. Because it's, it's still God given, there's something that's still valuable. So if you think of, you know, what you what you get in, you know, Second Timothy, for example, or what you get in in Romans 15. Or even, you know, Second Corinthians that no matter how many promises that God has made, they're all yes, in Christ, there is an enduring value that we have to Scripture, and it remains of perennial value for Christians, because of the way that it provides the kind of normative guidance for God's people in the way that it gives you. If you thinking of, you know, all the promises, all the prophecies that God has made, it's like, why would you go and get rid of those because they give you they help you to understand what it is that you have now received in the present in Christ. Does that mean though, that you continue within the context of the New Covenant to observe all everything that you have within the Old Covenant? And the same kind of way? No, because it's a different covenant. But it doesn't mean that you can't still learn about God and His character through that it's just a different set of circumstances, which is not unique, because even in the Mosaic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant itself was a unique set of circumstances in relation to what was under Abraham, etc. And so for there to be a change with covenant is not itself, you know, problem. It's something that you find in the Old Testament itself.
It was an amazing answer. Thank you. I'm so glad I asked that question.
Thank you. That's awesome. Praise God for that i For better or worse, I spent a lot of time in these things. And if there's anything that you find it's valuable, I hope that it's an encouragement, you know, for yourself, if you listen to this, to read these early sources themselves, because they're just fantastic. And as far as the guidance that they provide, in, you know, for us to be able to interpret Scripture faithful and fruitfully. I just don't know anything like it. It's for me is has enriched my life and my ability to be able to serve a minister so much, so
that's super inspiring. Hey, I've got to ask you one final question. And so this program in on the top Some theory that's a Latin phrase that leads to the unity of the faith that comes from Paul's verse to the to the Ephesians, of Ephesians, 413. And so, on this program, we're asking theologians from all over the world from different Christian traditions, what would it mean for the Christian church to be united? So Dr. Thomas, what would it be for the church to be united today? And how can we as Christians pursue that unity for which Jesus prayed in John 17?
That's fantastic. I love that question. I'm glad that you guys are doing what you're doing. I should start by saying that I don't know if there's a way that individually, we can do this by following somebody else's instructions. Because I think that each of us and the context that God has put us in, I think they each of us have a unique role to play. And so I think often, rather than just going and saying, Hey, everybody, listen to me, I'm the authority go and do this, or, you know, whatever happens happens to be, I think, each of us going and asking God on our own, can you show me how it is, that I can be an agent of reconciliation within your body, that I can be an agent of the unity that you that you know, that you yourself prayed for, you know, in the in the high priestly prayer that you know, what, what Christ desired for his disciples, asking for Christ to go into make us into this and show us what steps we ourselves can going to take to to embody this more fully. I think that there's it's, that is like a baseline for anything is, is your is your biggest thing. Because each of us, I think, have our own role to play, which is, I think, is is great and beautiful. I think if you're thinking of kind of big, big picture principles. I've always, I mean, my biggest theological influences always been CS Lewis, he's always been the person that for me, you know, if there's a, if there's, if there's debts that we owe in heaven, my, my debt to him will be the last one, to be repaid. I think, you know, besides to our Lord and Savior, which you know, balance, probably not gonna happen, but to a new another human being, that he is the one who I'm most indebted to, for everything. And there's a line that he has, in a letter that he wrote in 1955, where he's talking about the way that authority functions within the faith, and what goes in unifies it. And so this is a letter, I think, Janet, why is your suit and he said this, the basis of our faith is not the Bible taken by itself, but the agreed affirmation of all Christendom, to which we owe the Bible itself. I'll say one more time, the basis of our faith is not the Bible taken by itself, but the agreed affirmation of all Christendom, to which we owe the Bible itself. I think that Lewis is right there, if you thinking of like, you know, regardless of you know, kind of where one is a cliche, really, all of us rely on the church and the tradition of the church. For scripture, we're thinking of both when it comes to the texts that we've received, as far as the you know, the manuscript tradition, but then also the the authoritative witness, that these books are what God has given as his word to us, and not any other books that you know, might might be around not any of the candidates that you might have. It's because of God's normative action, through the agreed witness of, you know, of all Christian entry, looking these early centuries, that we even have the texts themselves. And so that's something that over the years, I've thought about that a lot, and thank you, God, I believe that you are providentially working in these early centuries of the church, both to preserve these texts remain to preserve this sense of authority. But also, if you look at what these believers did in these centuries, the way that they took, you know, the ancient world and the brutality of the ancient world, and the way that the witness of their faith went and transformed it from the inside out and gave us a very, very, very different world. I look at all of that. And I think, I think I think that what you have done in this period, I think that what you what your action is something that we're meant to receive, or something that we're meant to receive. And so I think that what Lewis says there, you know, looking back in these early centuries looking at the agreed affirmation of all Christendom.
I think it's something that is really, really helpful and wherever we happen to come from Ecclesia Lee, I think that we We can all be people who move towards unity. Um, if we take that really seriously, if we take that really seriously, and honestly, as far as taking it really seriously. Yeah, I mean, you meet, anybody can can go and start reading this stuff on your own. I mean, you can go and say, you know, buy my book, which if you weren't buying the book is fantastic. I hope that you like it. But more than, you know, buying my book and reading it, I hope that if you do do anything with my book, that it's inspiration for you, you know, the listener, to go back into start reading within the these early sources and actually see for yourself and to get a sense of what is this agreed affirmation of all Christian that Lewis is attesting to here? Because I think that I think that there's a power to the kind of doctrine and practice that you see, within this agreed affirmation of unified Christendom, it's the power that comes with the unity of you know, of the body, which went in, you know, transformed the whole the whole world in these in these early centuries. And if we want in our own day and age, if we, you know, we want to be God's agents that he is going to go, and to us to have a similar effect, you know, primarily in first in our own lives, but then spreading through that to the world around us. I think trying to, you know, see, you know, do I have the fullness of the faith as it was given the early centuries? Do I understand it in a way that that makes sense and is consistent with what God has has given here? I think that's I think that's really helpful. And so I would, I would point to Louis and say, Hey, I think that what he's, what he says here is really valuable and models and, you know, teach us something that is good for us.
We are really, really grateful that we've had the chance today to speak with Dr. Matthew J. Thomas, Professor of Biblical Studies at the Dominican school of philosophy and theology in Berkeley, California, and also authored in the text that we've been discussing today. Paul's already spent well in this perspective of second century reception. Thank you so much, Dr. Thomas, for joining us today.
It's been such a pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me.