In particular, Romans 2 introduces us to Paul’s covenant theology. We should not be surprised by this, as though the apostle of justification by faith would be compromised for a single moment by continuing to think Jewishly. Nor should we imagine that his theology is the mere unthinking reflex of a religious or psychological experience. What we observe here, as elsewhere in his writings, is the apostle wrestling with the implications of his basic conviction: that in Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit, the creator god had acted to redeem his people and so to redeem the whole world. His charge against Israel was not that of ‘legalism’, or ‘self-righteousness’ in the older sense. But nor was it a mere random firing of shots into the air in the hope of hitting some target somewhere. It was a measured, careful critique, built upon the prophetic critiques, and in any case not expecting rebuttal:
almost no Jew, certainly not Paul himself before his conversion, would have denied that Israel as she stood remained in need of redemption.
And what about the law in all of this? Pulling the ‘law’ threads of the discussion together into a quasi-systematic form, we might deduce the following:
1. The law, nomos in Paul, is the Jewish law. Gentiles do not possess it by birth.
2. The law defines Israel over against the nations, and moreover indicates that Israel is designed by the creator god as a light to the nations.
3. The law sets the standard by which Israel will be judged; Gentiles will be judged without reference to it. However, there is one class of Gentiles who in a sense will be judged with reference to Torah. This class consists of Gentile Christians; though by birth they do not possess the Torah, they are now in the strange position of ‘doing the law’, since the Spirit has written the ‘work of the Torah’ on their hearts.
4. Israel boast in her possession of the law; it sets her apart from the nations.
5. The boast is not made good, because that could be so only if Israel kept the law perfectly; and this is not the case. Israel is still in exile, still ‘in her sins’. She is still guilty of lawbreaking.
6. The category of Gentiles mentioned above in connection with the final judgment is invoked again, this time to demonstrate how far ethnic Israel is from being affirmed as she stands. The covenant has already been renewed; its beneficiaries now ‘fulfill the law’, even though, in the case of Gentile Christians, they do not possess it. This ‘fulfillment’ seems to be of a different order from the fulfillments thought of within Judaism. Nor is it simply the (Lutheran) tertius uses legis. It is without precedent, for the simple reason that it has not happened before, and the manner of covenant renewal was not anticipated. As Paul says in Romans 8, ‘what the law could not do … God has done’.
7. The way is now clear for ch. 3, with its exposition of the cross, and of justification by faith in the present as a direct result. Paul will go on, later in the letter (ch. 8), to declare that there is no katavkrima for those who are ejn Cristw:/. But this is no more than a recapitulation, and a filling out, of what has already been said in principle in ch. 2. It is greatly to the detriment of the doctrine of justification by faith that exegetes have frequently not taken the trouble to notice what Romans 2 is actually about, as opposed to what it is usually supposed to be about.
Romans 2 thus takes its place both within the developing actual argument of the letter – as opposed to the imagined argument in which Paul simply sets out a systematic ordo salutis – and within a potential systematic account of Paul’s whole theology, not least his theological reflections on the law. Thus equipped, exegesis should not be able to proceed beyond the sterile ‘either/or’ of some recent debates, and move cheerfully toward the creative ‘both/and’ which reflects, in terms of method, the intricate but perfectly balanced theology which Paul bequeathed to his readers. Whatever we want to do with Paul’s theology when we finally discover it, let us at least do justice to a mind, and a letter, that continue to instruct even as they fascinate, and to educate even as they inspire.