Luther’s Law (1)

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under ^[a^]the Law but under grace.  Romans 6:14  NASB

But – There’s probably no more important verse for the Church than this line from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  In fact, as it is read in most English Bibles, it’s the ultimate justification for separating Christianity from Judaism.  J. D. G. Dunn, a world-recognized Christian scholar, claims that this thought—the opposition of law and grace—is completely unprecedented before Paul.  Before Paul, “ . . . no one posed grace and law as alternatives; rather they saw law as the gift of grace.  It was Paul who posed them as alternatives.”[1]  Morris comments, “Paul saw clearly that law and grace do not go together.  If one is ‘under’ the one, he is not ‘under’ the other.”[2]  What are we to do about this?  Did Paul abandon his Jewish understanding of the Law?  Did he really become a Christian?  Is he actually Martin Luther in first century garb?

Perhaps a few notes are necessary before we pay attention to the most crucial preposition.  First, notice the small footnote in the citation from the NASB.  The footnote tells us that there really is no definite article in the Greek text.  The verse should be read “under law,” not “under the Law.”  Of course, those scholars who follow Dunn (or Augustine and Luther) will read nómos as if it always means the Mosaic code.  It doesn’t.  nómos has multiple meanings depending on the context.  It can mean “what is proper,” “what is the custom or norm,” “what is traditional,” “what is expected,” “a principle,” “a convention or rule,” “a cause and effect relation.”  That’s where we get the idea of a “scientific law.”  We don’t mean a divinely provided relationship between the forces of nature.  When it does mean “the Mosaic code,” the context must provide this.  But Dunn is absolutely correct that in Judaism, “the law is itself a gift of grace that shows the people what is in accord with its status.”^[3]  So, if Paul meant “Law” (with a capital L), then he certainly would be out-of-step with his Jewish contemporaries.  In fact, we might charge him with lying to us because when he offers his self-defense before Felix, he says, “I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Law and is written in the Prophets; . . .  I also do my best to maintain a blameless conscience both before God and before other people,” (Acts 24:14, 16).  Either Paul had a radical change of heart between his arrest and the time he wrote this letter, or he’s lying about believing everything, or we’re misreading him.  Which do you suppose is more likely?

Now let’s pay attention to the crucial preposition, ἀλλά, translated in the NASB as “but.”  As it is translated, it certainly appears as though Paul opposes law (whatever that might be) with cháris, the Greek word translated “grace.”  We should note that cháris also has a wide umbrella of meanings: joy, merriment, happiness, thanksgiving and rejoicing.  It’s worth noting that even in the Greek New Testament the usual meaning of cháris is secular (joy).  The religious term is agalliáomai, a word Paul does not use.  Paul routinely uses cháris, but since his letters are all written to mixed Gentile and Jewish assemblies, we might legitimately wonder if he isn’t deliberately using a Greek term with wider cultural appeal.  Be that as it may, let’s look more closely at ἀλλά.  Notice the umbrella of meanings mentioned in DBL*:

ἀλλά (alla): pt.; ≡ Str 235—1. LN 89.125 but, a marker of emphatic contrast (Mt 5:17); 2. LN 89.96 and, a marker in a series of co-ordinate relations, this series in contrast to a previous event or state (2Co 7:11); 3. LN 91.2 yet, and yet; a marker of transition with a slight adversative implication (Ro 15:20–21); 4. LN 91.11 certainly, emphatically; a marker of contrastive emphasis (Mk 14:29); 5. LN 89.125 ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον (alla mallon), but, a marker of a more emphatic contrast (Mt 27:24; Mk 5:26; 1Co 12:22; Eph 5:4; Php 2:12; 1Ti 6:2+); 6. LN 89.125 ἀλλʼ ἤ (all ē), but, an emphatic marker of contrast (Lk 12:51; 2Co 1:13+)^[4]

 Did you see uses 4 and 5?  Rather than simple contrast, in these cases ἀλλά is used for emphasis, in other words, not “but,” but “certainly,” or “absolutely.”  How does this help us with Paul’s apparently unorthodox statement?  We need to add one other thing.  Like Hebrew, Greek has no punctuation.  Therefore, it is perfectly legitimate to read this as a question rather than a statement.  We could read “Are you not?” rather than “You are not.”  That’s precisely what Uriel ben-Mordechai does in his translation from the P46 fragment.  In fact, the literal Greek syntax reads: “not for you are under law ἀλλά benevolence” which he translates as:

“Honestly, are you NOT under the control of Torah-law, and unequivocally under the control of benevolence.”

In his translation, ἀλλά becomes Paul’s emphatic way of saying that both Torah and benevolence (God’s grace) apply.  There is no conflict because they fit together, just as the Jewish rabbis declared.  All that is needed to find this in Paul is a punctuation mark and an expanded definition, two things that scholars who approach the text with a Christian paradigm ignore.

While ben-Mordechai maintains Paul’s orthodoxy, Leon Morris concludes that Paul must have become a convert to Christianity because “Christians are not bound.  Their salvation is God’s free gift.  They are not dependent on their own ability to keep the law.  They are free from the tyranny of sin and of law.”[5]  Unfortunately, Morris reads Paul as if he were a student of Luther while the text itself is a lot less definite.  Furthermore, both Luther and Morris have a Roman view of the law as restriction of freedom while the Jewish concept of law is just the opposite.  Law frees Man from the anxiety of not knowing what God wants.  In this Jewish view, Law is the solution to the problem of freedom.  Man is free with the law and a slave without it.  That sounds like something Yeshua said.  It’s too bad we can’t ask Paul what he meant.  We’ll just have to hope that he was consistent in his thoughts about the Law, as he claims to be.  What we can be pretty certain about is that Paul was not a Christian and that means we will have to read the text according to the Jewish paradigm unless there is no other possibility.  For Romans 6:14 there seems to be quite an important “other possibility.”

Topical Index:  Law, grace, nómos, cháris, alla, ἀλλά, but, Romans 6:14

[1] J. D. G. Dunn, cited in Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Eerdmans, 1988), p. 259.

[2] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Eerdmans, 1988), p. 259.

^[3] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 648). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

*A Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains

+ I have cited every reference in regard to this lexeme discussed under this definition.

+ I have cited every reference in regard to this lexeme discussed under this definition.

^[4] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[5] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Eerdmans, 1988), p. 259.