The background to Paul’s polemic against “deeds of the Law” in Romans and especially Galatians was that some Jewish converts to Christianity were insisting that believers needed to be circumcised in accordance with Jewish Law to be justified or marked out as a Christian in God’s sight. “You foolish Galatians: Having begun in the spirit, are you to be made perfect by the flesh?503
And again: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law (i.e., circumcision etc.) or by the hearing of faith?504
Those who complied with this false teaching, Paul declared, had “fallen from grace”505 for as he had preached to Jews and God-fearers at Antioch in one of the few references to justification within the evangelistic preaching of the New Testament:
“Through (Jesus), justification from all sins which the Law of Moses was unable to justify is being offered to every believer”506
Often when Paul is referring to the law, he is referring to the Torah, God’s Covenant Charter for His people, for in Philippians3:6 he declares that in terms of righteousness based on the Law he was “faultless”. He was not saying he never sinned but claiming that he had perfectly observed all the physical requirements to be marked out as a Jew, such as circumcision, dietary restrictions and the like, that some Galatian converts were saying were essential for Christians to observe to be justified before God. No, said the apostle, we are justified by faith in Christ, not the works of the Law (Torah). If righteousness came through the Torah, then Christ had died in vain507.
The Jews also, he said, had approached the Law in the wrong way. It is not that they should not have personally striven to keep the Torah, rather that they had sought to be regarded as righteous “as it were by works rather than faith”508, by which he meant they relied on the deeds of the Law – the fact they were circumcised and observed dietary and sacral regulations509 to be marked out as the genuine children of Abraham and heirs to the Promise - as opposed to being circumcised of heart, being those who deny the disordered desires of the body so as to serve God510. For the letter of the Law kills whereas the spirit (of the Law) brings life511:
502 1Jn1:9
503 Gal3:3
504 Gal3:2
505 Gal5:4
506 Acts13:38b-39
507 Gal2:21
508 Rom9:32
509 Cf. Gal4:9-10
510 Cf. Col2:11
511 2Cor3:6
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“But now we are freed from the Law (Torah) that being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in newness of spirit and not the oldness of the letter”512
The Law (Torah) had been provided to God’s chosen people to act as a school master until Christ came513. But through His death, He “abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the Law of commandments contained in ordinances; in the process breaking down the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile to make one new assembly, justified by faith in Christ rather than observance of Torah514.
And Paul is adamant that the spirit of God’s Law is fulfilled by love for our fellow man:
“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has
fulfilled the law”515.
“Love does no harm to a neighbour therefore love is the fulfilment of the
law”516.
“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command “Love your neighbour as yourself”517.
And Paul is referring as much to the Old Testament Law as he was to the law of Christ, for the inculcation of kindness and treating others as one would wish them to treat us was Jesus’ own summary of the Law and the prophets518. So, whilst the Christian is not subject to the dictates of Torah, he must fulfil its ultimate intention – not in letter but in
spirit. Even the Torah of the Old Covenant was something about which the psalmists frequently eulogised, for truly human living expressed in fear of God and concern for fellow man was always at its heart. Paul’s critique was never aimed at those Jews like King David who delighted in the Torah and had earnestly sought to keep it, but those individuals, especially leaders who were obsessed with the minutiae of rules, regulation and liturgy and indeed had added to it, laying impossible burdens upon their fellows, whilst entirely neglecting the weightier matters of social justice, mercy and love. Nevertheless, to keep the Law perfectly in letter and spirit was impossible for anyone and had never been the basis of
justification. If acceptance before God were on such a basis, then the Law would indeed be something to fear and hate for it would condemn us all. The point that Paul wished to make in the context of the gospel was that the Torah had now become redundant for “i n Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor non-circumcision avails anything but faith operating by
love”519.