Was God once a legalist? (1)
“You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances, by doing which a man shall live: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 18:5)
Though
the word righteousness doesn’t occur in the text Paul quotes it twice
(Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12) and says it speaks of righteousness
that is “of the Torah (law)” and he contrasts it with the righteousness
he proclaims in Jesus Christ.
He certainly contrasts the two but precisely in what way does he contrast them?
Typical
evangelical thought says that Leviticus 18:5 gives the essential nature
of "legalistic righteousness". By this, they tell us, it means
righteousness and life that is gained by the moral worth/obedience of
the person who stands before God.
By
contrast the righteousness proclaimed by Paul in Jesus Christ is
completely independent of the moral worth or obedience of the person who
stands before God.
It would seem the choice is clear, Leviticus 18:5 which is legalism and Paul’s righteousness by faith which is grace.
But since Leviticus 18:5 is God’s command and
promise, if there’s legalism in it then God is the legalist. Was God a
legalist before Christ came at which time he became a gracious God? No
one believes that, but if Leviticus 18:5 is legalism God and Moses are
implicated in it.
Did Paul think God was promising life on a legalistic basis? Hardly!
Douglas
Moo sees the difficulty, denies that Moses is a legalist (though he
doesn’t give us reasons for letting Moses off the hook) and he reminds
us that “life” in the Old Testament doesn’t (necessarily) mean eternal
life or salvation. He implies that the “life” in Leviticus 18:5 is
merely “covenant privilege”. So an Israelite could enjoy covenant
privilege and the blessings that go with that without being “saved” and
so having “eternal life”. Moo wants to say that Leviticus is a
legalistic passage but doesn't want it related to salvation and that's
why he draws the distinction.
It’s
correct to draw such distinctions but it doesn’t really ease Moo’s
problem because if he’s right it would still be true that covenant privilege was gained by moral worth and obedience (that is, on a legalistic basis). He
offers covenant privilege as a non-grace reward. But Leviticus can’t
offer covenant privilege as a non-grace reward because there are too
many texts and sections that explicitly forbid Israel
to believe such a thing. They were debtors to grace from beginning to
end. They were debtors to grace for covenant privilege and anything else
they enjoyed.
Additionally,
Paul uses the Leviticus passage twice [Romans 10 and Galatians 3] and
uses it to constrast "righteousness" which of the law and righteousness
grounded in a relationship to Christ by faith. Paul doesn't do with it
what Moo wants to do with it.
The
difficulty seems clear: if Leviticus 18:5 advocates legalism then God
and Moses are responsible for it. Paul says God offers "righteousness"
in Leviticus 18:5 and not simply "covenant life".
Furthermore, it isn’t just that Israel turned it into a legalistic system; on this view God himself
established the system and laid it on those who were already sinners.
And while he was doing it, in other places he was saying their
relationship with him was sheer grace. Everyone knows that won’t work.
But if Leviticus 18:5 is not
the essence of legalism we need to re-examine Paul’s use of the text.
We can’t have Paul saying Leviticus 18:5 is legalism if it isn’t.
The point he makes doesn’t hinge on “doing” but on the identity of the “doer”.
Leviticus 18:5 isn’t laying down a general theology about how one gets “saved”.
It isn’t speaking to humanity in general. The “you” of the text is Israel.
The phrase, “I am the Lord” locks the call of the text into a whole
narrative of grace. And the grace that undergirds the text is the grace
shown to Israel in particular.
Verses
1-4 spell out the distinctiveness of Israel’s relationship with this
Yahweh when it forbids them to behave as Egyptians or Canaanites.
Leviticus 18:5 is an Israelite text from beginning to end. It deals with their
relationship with God and no one else’s. And it is “their” national
righteousness, their relationship and life with God that they sought to
establish (Romans 10:3).
We couldn’t have applied Leviticus 18:5 to Gentiles. Jews would have reminded us that the text, the statutes and ordinances and the promise of the text were from the Lord who gave them exclusively to Israel.
Paul’s
point is not that one brand of righteousness and life can be earned
(and using Leviticus 18:5 to prove it) and that true righteousness and
life is of grace. He never believed such a thing and he certainly didn’t
think Moses advocated it. Israel
missed the full picture of God’s righteousness that aimed at humanity
because they sought to establish their own national (Israelite)
righteousness that was tied to the covenantal Torah.
Paul’s
point of contrast between what he proclaimed and what Leviticus
promised was the magnitude and range of it. Leviticus offered life and
righteousness (by grace) to the doer of the Torah (Israel) and God in
Jesus Christ offers life and righteousness to the whole wide world,
Israel included, independent of the Torah. Israel
thought the righteousness of God found an end in them and Paul shows a
righteousness of God (witnessed by the Torah and the prophets) that was
through Jesus Christ and for all nations (Romans 3:21-31 and 10:4 and
elsewhere).
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