From Schreiner on The Violation of God’s Law
“. . . we fail to grasp the depth of Pauline theology if we restrict the definition of sin to a violation of what God commands. Instead of viewing sin as a rejection of god personally, we may understand it primarily in terms of failing to live up to a standard. Sin certainly involves the failure to heed God’s commands. What must be emphasized, however, is that sin is first and foremost a rejection of the supremacy of God and his lordship over our lives” (103).
“Sin does not primarily consist in violating God’s commands; it involves the repudiation and rejection of a person. . . . What Paul stresses . . . is that the horizontal dimension of sin exists because of the vertical rejection of God” (106).
“. . . the promises of the Old Testament regarding Israel had not yet become a reality, and the Old Testament teaches that such promises will be fulfilled when the Spirit comes . . . and softens people’s hearts so that they are enabled to keep the Torah. . . . The Jews are judged because of their failure to obey the Torah” (109-110).
Schreiner provides a detailed view of how the phrase “works of law” should be defined. He reviews that perpetuated by Rudolf Bultman, that the phrase refers to a legalistic attitude, obeying the law is a means to earning favor with God. He then reviews James Dunn’s view and the New Perspective on Paul, that “works of the law” refers to Jews trying to place nationalistic distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, to keep them separate from one another (110-111).
Schreiner lands on his own take by defining “works of law” to mean the deeds or action demanded by the law (111-115).
