6 - God’s Justice and the End of the Torah

Summary

This chapter works through Romans 10 and Galatians 3:10–14 in conversation with other early Jewish evidence, arguing that Paul is participating in a long-standing Jewish debate about the relationship between repentance and Israel’s redemption. Specifically, will Israel’s repentance initiate the restoration or will God’s redemptive intervention produce Israel’s repentance? Paul comes down squarely on the latter side, arguing for a divinely-initiated redemption through the obedient fidelity of Jesus, whose status and authority as “the just one”—the figure divinely appointed to bring about redemption—was validated by the resurrection. In the process, this chapter provides an elegant solution for the longstanding problem of how to understand Paul’s citations of Lev 18:5 and Deut 30:12–14 in these passages.