Romans 24: Peripheral Issues Relating to Justification

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS (24)
Analytical Commentary on Romans

PERIPHERAL ISSUES RELATING TO JUSTIFICATION

Copyright © BRI 2017 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"This is a great idea. I love sinning. God loves forgiving. Wonderful arrangement" -- Oscar Wilde

"Romans 5 contains the vital Gospel principle of representation. We were lost in our representative Adam without our doing anything. We are saved in our Representative Jesus without our doing anything. To convince us, Romans resorts to repetition: Salvation in Christ is a free gift" -- Defrocked Seventh Day Adventist minister and lecturer Desmond Ford in his Right With God Right Now, 1999, 85

This year (2017) we are well and truly into the Passover festival, in the midst of the days of unleavened bread. Paul told the Gentile believers in Yeshua to examine themselves, as to whether or not they were legitimately in the true Messianic "Faith." Certainly, they -- as Gentiles -- were to observe the feast by reflecting on the meaning of "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5.8).

As I prepared this 24th lecture in the present series on Romans, I was lost in my thoughts regarding issues of my own human nature. I was reminded that at the time of the end a man's enemies were to be members of his own household. This, of course, ought to surprise none of us in the IMCF. After all, the great enemy of Yeshua happened to be a member of his own (at that time) exclusive spiritual family. And we can know finally what motivated that traitor. For, in Matthew 26.20-25 we locate a most interesting exposure of what really was the underlying issue with Yeshua's friend Judas.

"Now when the evening had come, he reclined with the twelve. [N.B. The Jews of the period did not "sit down" at all as a rule during Pesach. Rather they reclined showing everyone they were no longer slaves in Egypt but had the right to be free and at rest.] And as they were eating [the Passover] he said, It's very true that one of you will betray me. And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and began EVERY ONE OF THEM to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, He that dips his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him. But woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had been good for that man had he not been born [N.B., aborted or miscarried]. Then Judas, who betrayed him, asked, Rabbi, is it I? He replied, You have said."

Each of the talmidim asked "Lord, is it me?" But it was Judas alone who responded to Yeshua, calling him RABBI.

Judas knew that the Lord Yeshua was intending to ratify the New Covenant in his blood with his disciples. Yeshua was about to break completely from the Sinai Covenant and Torah. He had already, during his ministry, changed Torah stipulations, altered regulations, expanded some commandments and negated others. The Gospels are FULL of incidents where this occurred as I have demonstrated over the past 40 years of this Teaching ministry in my calling and election.

There was no way Judas, who knew Yeshua when they were children and playmates -- according to the prophetic Messianic Psalms they even walked together hand in hand to the Temple enjoying each other's company and shared sweet communication together -- was going to allow Yeshua to break with the Sinai Covenant! No way was he going to permit such a horrifying thing to eventuate! Not if he had his way.

THE HARDEST COMMANDMENT OF ALL
I completed Lecture 23 with a very valid comment by my all-time favourite Christian lecturer, Alva McClain. "No man has any hope apart from the Son of God. There is no approach to God the Father, save through the Son of God."

I added: So we now know what the twelve blessings are that accompany justification by faith. We may all know them, but some of us may be new to their availability for them personally. As McClain has put it so succinctly, "If any one of them is new, may this be the day you begin to enjoy it. It is yours, so enjoy it, and especially your tribulations."

For those who were entirely revolted by such sentiments concerning rejoicing in trials and travails, allow me to both assure and reassure you that you are not the only ones to naturally feel this way. Defrocked Seventh Day Adventist minister and lecturer Dr Desmond Ford, in his brilliant volume Right With God Right Now (1999), says much the same. Listen as he unabashedly shares this truth with us all.

"Here's the hardest line in the book of Romans: 'We also rejoice in our sufferings' (Romans 5:3 NIV).

"I don't.

"Here's a commandment of Scripture I have never been able to obey. It is an ideal with me. It has never been an achievement.

"The commandment says, 'Whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy' (James 1:2 NRSV).

"I don't.  

"Only by faith can we even venture out on that line. 'We also rejoice in our sufferings,' Paul says. Then he gives the reasons. By faith we may do it, but that's the only way it can be done" (73).

Because we are learning daily to live by faith and self-sacrificial love, submission to the dictates of the Spirit of God being a high priority, Christ lives in us changing us in His timing and in His ways to a more perfect alignment with His FatherMother God Anochi, and to correct, change and improve our character-flaws in heaven's Salvific venture. Transformation, and not reformation, is the objective. This being so, by faith we can aim at eventually being able and equipped to "rejoice in our sufferings" as we perceive with greater clarity the sequel that dangles like a carrot before our spiritual eyes.

ESCAPE OR SEQUEL?
I mention the sequel! I do so because, as I have pointed out over the last four decades, the translators who brought us the "beloved" AV of the Scriptures never grasped Jewish thoughtform (and they also apparently had a hard time with the Greek language as well). They totally misrepresented Paul in 1 Corinthians 10.13. This is what they thought he had meant to write:

"There has no temptation [or, trial] taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will make with the temptation [or, trial] also A WAY OF ESCAPE, that you may be able to bear it."

If this translation is correct it certainly needs a questioning reappraisal in order to depreciate the confusion it presents to the reader! How can God prepare a way to escape the trial in order for you to bear up under it? Bear up under it? For how long? How long must one go through a trial before God says "Here's a way to get out of it"? Again, why would God give you a trial in the first place just to later grant -- each time -- an escape valve or route to be freed of it? Moreover, as a humble historian I can recount from ecclesiastical history the trials and tribulations of believers who went faithfully to their deaths by fire, water and sword (and in many other devious ways and by innumerably ferocious and horrendous methods) and who were never given "a way of escape." Many saints have found out by sad and bitter circumstances even in this day and age, that despite their claiming 1 Cor 10.13 as a promise, God never provided "a way of escape" for them.

A way of escape in order to bear up under the ongoing trial? Am I missing something here in the logic of it all? No. What Paul wrote when Greek is grasped was this (and with no apology to Kenneth Wuest who seems entirely to have missed the point on this occasion):

"There has no trial that has been experienced by you that has not been experienced by others: but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tried above what you are able to endure; but will with the trial ALSO GRANT ITS SEQUEL in order for you to bear up under it."

The sequel is a vision, a perception, a recognition, an evaluation, an understanding of WHAT the trial will bring out IN you -- GLORIOUS SPIRIT CHARACTER AND EMBODIMENT OF EVERLASTING LIFE. God's Spirit working in us as we go through the trial, which may be absolutely and utterly gut-wrenching, will grant us the ability to suffer with Christ. Remember that it is as "we suffer with Christ that we may be glorified together with him" (Romans 8.17).

Forget the preposterous teaching of God providing a way of escape as we undergo (or, hopefully overcome) in trials. A way of escape? It ain't gonna happen! Look at the three children in the fiery furnace of the dwarf Nebuchadnezzar. They were joined by a fourth Man. They saw their future GLORY and were able to remain faithful IN that furnace (Daniel 3.17 Hebrew). Don't overlook Moses either. By faith he saw the sequel. Read Hebrews 11.26 again. "He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward."

The writer of the circular letter to the Hebrews sets the truth forth with clarity when we read the following in Hebrews 13.5b-7: "...He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Remember them that guide you and who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, contemplating the sequel of their behaviour" (Gk).

Yes, we need to contemplate the blessed outcome, the positive sequel, of the behaviour exemplified in the character-response-activities, actions and motives of ministers of God -- which the fiery trial is intricately designed to produce.

THE FOUR KINGS OF ROMANS 5
It is intriguing that throughout Romans 5 the apostle focuses the attention of Roman Christians on principles pertaining to rulership. Our future REWARD incorporates a promise of GOVERNMENT as well as the sequel of GLORY. We were born to RULE. We are learning now to rule over our natures, and our character defects and flaws. We are also aiming at developing our personalities as well as our characters and doing our best to alter, change, and transform our temperaments. Our aim is to receive glorification that pertains to our REIGN with Messiah at his return. We are promised to "be like him" at his advent. And so Paul stresses various aspects of our present experiences of life, some of which are clearly drawn in the negative. Notice Paul's mention of five "kings" who presently "reign" or have previously "reigned" during this present evil age.

The first king is DEATH itself. "Death reigned" (Romans 5.14).

The second king that reigned is SIN. "Sin... reigned" (Romans 5.21).

Third king is designated as charis, "GRACE reigns" (Romans 5.21).

Fourthly kings shall reign: "They [Messianic believers] shall reign" (Romans 5.17).

Please note (and appreciate) the Greek tense in each case. This is important, as Paul has already declared in his opening statement of this letter that Yeshua is NOW Emperor, not merely of Rome, but of the entirety of the planet. In other letters he calls Yeshua the "King of kings and Lord of lords." Or, in Roman terms, "Emperor." John follows suit.

Of course, Paul has in mind the embodiment of "sin and death" which is constituted in the character of the current emperor Nero. As far as the Jewish rabbi is concerned Nero Caesar's reign is now in the "past tense" hence "reigned." Christ NOW rules, hence "Grace reigns." Grace especially reigns in the lives of the faithful Christians of Rome as they persevere in overcoming and live out -- outwork -- their faith in view of the promise of GLORY. And as for these Roman Christians, "they shall reign." It's future tense. It's a promise of the sequel to their trials of a future GLORIFIED reign with Christ over the nations.

Now, with that under our belt, let's examine some other issues before moving on further into Romans 5.

WORKS OR FAITH? JAMES OR PAUL? OR EVEN JOHN!
In Romans 3.20 it is written: "...BY THE DEEDS OF THE LAW THERE SHALL NO FLESH BE JUSTIFIED in his sight."

In Romans 4.1-5 it is written: "What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he has something to glory in; but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Now to him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that doesn't work, but believes on him that JUSTIFIES THE UNGODLY, his faith is counted for righteousness."

In Romans 5.1 it is written: "Therefore being JUSTIFIED BY FAITH, we have peace with God through our Lord Yeshua the Messiah."

In Romans 5.8,9 it is written: "But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Mashiach died for us. Much more then, being now JUSTIFIED BY HIS BLOOD, we shall be saved from wrath through him."

Rav Shaul could not be any more plain in his teaching that we are justified by God's GRACE. He could not be any plainer that we are justified by the BLOOD of Mashiach. It is God's GRACE as revealed in that shed BLOOD. He could not be any plainer that it is the UNGODLY who are justified. It was while we were yet sinners that Messiah died for us. And he could not be plainer in stating that this justification becomes activated by FAITH.  

This faith which activates justification cannot be a mere human faith. For, one minute we humans are faithful, and the next minute we are faithless. We are dynamic in courageous loyalty one moment, and the next moment the personification of Judas Iscariot. Ours is a faith that fluctuates, in some cases most wildly. But Yeshua's faith never faltered. Ever. His faith is imputed, therefore, to us. The Jewish rabbi and apostle to the Gentiles is most careful in his articulation of Mashiach as the One in Whom faith dwells.

But then Paul states something peculiar indeed. He tells us in an early portion of his Letter to the Roman Christians that "the DOERS of Torah" will be those "justified."

In Romans 2.13 it is written: "Not the hearers of Torah are just before God, but the DOERS OF TORAH SHALL BE JUSTIFIED."

We have discussed this issue previously, but it seems few are "getting" it. So, how can Paul entertain such a position?  Is it tenable, in light of his other stipulations about justification?

Paul, of course, is taking a rabbinic view based on the revelation of Torah itself. This may come as a surprise to some who thought the Sinai Torah was without any value. Let me say again, for the express need of clarification, that even though I embrace the Messianic Torah fully, I recognize there are valuable elements also locked within the Sinai Torah and Contract (Covenant). Of course I know this to be a fact! But here it is, in Leviticus 18,4,5. "You shall do my judgments, and keep my ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD."

WALKING in -- KEEPING, DOING -- God's Torah, His judgments, statutes and ordinances. DOING, not merely hearing, you see.  

Firstly, Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest points out that the word "hearers" that the apostle uses is not the usual word which reflects the act of hearing, but his choice of expression is one used entirely of STUDENTS, pupils who are receiving an EDUCATION in Torah. James uses this term on three occasions in respect to the Torah. As such it is of immense importance for those of us who are Students of the Living Torah -- Yeshua HaMashiach.

The debate about what "justified" a man before God was already being argued aggressively within the Judaisms (plural) of the time and Yeshua's words about this precede the controversy that actually erupted between James and Paul (Matthew 12.37; Luke 16.15; 18.14). Was it works (Proverbs 24.12; Jeremiah 32.19) or was it faith (Genesis 15.6; Habakkuk 2.4) that would see a man through at the last?

Consider these Scriptures from sacred text:

"Call to remembrance what acts our fathers did in their time: so shall you receive great honour and an everlasting name. Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness?" (1 Maccabees 2.51,52).

"And every one that shall be saved, and shall be able to escape by his works, and by faith, whereby you have believed..." (2 Esdras 9.7).

"He that shall endure the peril in that time has kept himself: they that be fallen into danger are such as have works, and faith toward the Almighty" (2 Esdras 13.23).

Both Qumran and James interpreted Habakkuk 2.4 to include both deeds, and faith in the Teacher of Righteousness as the Interpreter of the Torah. "The righteous man will live by being faithful" becomes at Qumran, and in James, "The just shall live by his faith" -- the faith of the Teacher, not a personal faith.

And the faith from which James, like his brother Yeshua, takes his departure is the common Jewish faith in GOD (James 2.19,23,24). In Romans 4.2f and James 2.23f both apostles cite the same Scripture, "Abraham put his faith in God and that faith was counted to him as righteousness" -- Genesis 15.6 -- and yet draw from it diametrically different conclusions.

Secondly, Paul seems of the view that justification is also a future event -- an event of eschatological significance. This is why he writes that observers of Torah "SHALL BE justified." Yet the world was justified at the moment Mashiach breathed His last. We know this is a fact, because Paul tells us it is a fact.

"Therefore as by one trespass, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so, by one act of righteousness, THE FREE GIFT CAME UPON ALL MEN UNTO JUSTIFICATION OF LIFE" (Romans 5.18).  

Notice carefully what Paul DOES NOT say. He DOES NOT SAY "the free gift came upon all men and is now applied to all men." Rather, he says -- and look at this honestly, please: "the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life."  

"The free gift came upon all men" -- certainly this is PAST tense, at Messiah's death, and it came by "one act of [Mashiach's] righteousness" -- "UNTO" (future tense) "justification of life." Not "unto" merely intending the object in purpose, but "unto" meaning a future destination or application or verdict. Otherwise it appears that Paul is being redundant, saying that the free gift of justification would make us justified. Pretty obvious, I would have thought.  

I want to now quote from Paul the last words in his Epistle to the Roman Christians. Turn with me to Romans 16.25-27: "Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my Gospel, and the preaching of Yeshua HaMashiach, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret [Gk "kept in silence"] since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the OBEDIENCE OF FAITH: To God only wise, be glory through Yeshua HaMashiach for ever. Amen."

When Paul coins the phrase, "the obedience of faith," he aligns himself with precedence in the Hebrew Scriptures and second-temple Jewish literature.  

This phrase is not a NEW definition nor is it a REDEFINING of faith.  

Scholars of the Herodian Temple period are starting to recognise, what I have been saying all along, that the "NT" is a Jewish book, that it's writers were Jewish, and that it is high time to take the gift wrapping of Catholicism and Protestantism off the package and open the Book and read it through Jewish eyes in the Jewish thoughtform in which it was originally penned.  

As far as the true teaching of faith is concerned Paul formulates the phrase "the obedience of faith" within the milieu of second-temple Judaism. It is time to get rid of the accumulated trappings of 1800 years of churchianity and rediscover the truth about the Bible. Especially is this imperative for the period which brought us Yeshua, Paul and James.

The number of people who have perused our web sites is growing daily. The number of those who are encountering for the first time the twin doctrines of salvation by Grace alone (wherein our STATUS before God changes from sinners to righteous) and subsequent growth through works (changing our STATE in ourselves likewise from sinners to righteous) is absolutely staggering. Our role in the former is passive, our role in the latter active.

We tend to take the simple understanding of these doctrines largely for granted. But there are many people SO deceived that when they finally come to a comprehension of these twin teachings their entire religious foundation is undermined, their fortress crumbles, and they see the awful need at last to rebuild their damaged lives. I say damaged, because our lives are either successful or a failure because of our theological perspectives. If our theological perspective is awry then our entire life building is askew.

We are saved, not by works -- not by anything we can do or not do -- for salvation is totally by God's Grace. God's act of saving Grace precludes all human striving and merit. However, on the other hand, every judgment passage in the Messianic Scriptures and in the Hebrew Scriptures says that judgment is according to works.

"We must all appear before the judgment seat of Messiah to be repaid for the things done in the body, whether it be a good thing or a worthless thing" (2 Corinthians 5.10).

In Matthew 25 -- Matthew Levi's great Judgment section of this Gospel -- nothing is said of Grace and nothing is said of justification. Indeed, those who are admitted into the eschatological Messianic Kingdom (which will reign for an entire millennium here on earth) are those who have DONE certain things. Those who are not permitted entrance, are those individuals (it is so many individuals that comprise nations) who have NOT DONE certain things.  

Judgment is always according to works.  

None of us can escape this obvious fact. None of us: even WE are judged according to our works IN Messiah! These include of course, perfect works of the LORD that have been imputed to us! B'ruch HaShem!

Recall that OUR justification is a past certainty. "Therefore being [past tense] JUSTIFIED BY FAITH..." (Romans 5.1).

But then Paul prays in Philippians 1.9-11 that his Christian readers may increase in love, knowledge and discernment "so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Messiah, filled with the fruits of righteousness." In Philippians 3.8-14 the gift of righteousness through faith in Messiah does not relieve Rav Shaul of, but calls him to, a struggle to attain to the resurrection of the dead.

Here we locate a far different emphasis to that of the apostle John. Astute readers of Paul will be well aware that while he avows our salvation in Mashiach he does not have the same depth of peaceful conviction of inner abiding salvation that is reflected in John's writings, including those in his Gospel. There is an exacting tension in this field of theological apprehension between Paul and John.  

WHY WE CONFLICT WITH THE CONCORDANT ORGANISATION
Honest students of the word will immediately discern a huge contradiction here in relation to what I refer to as "Concordant theology." Mr A.E. Knoch has Paul and his Gentiles at "rest" and John and his Jews hard at "work." Nothing could be further from the truth of the matter.  

Now, I have visited various Internet sites that propose that Paul did not believe in the keeping of Torah. They suggest, some of them rather clumsily, that the Jewish apostle establishes his thesis of Romans on the premise that no works are necessary any more. They try to use his own words to prove this untenable position.  

But the same Paul who says we are not justified by "works of the law" -- our next lecture will discuss this terminology -- says that we are created in the Messiah Yeshua unto good "WORKS."

These works are defined by the Torah of the Messiah, and decidedly NOT by our interpretation of what the "Spirit" is urging within us to accomplish!!! These works are defined by the New Covenant Torah and not what our church tells us we should be doing. Many have listened to a FALSE spirit, a DEMONIC spirit, that encourages people to avoid God's Torah like the plague, to malign God's Torah, to despise God's Torah. Recall that as far as the Sinai Torah was concerned, the coming of the Just One in whom we believe fulfilled it. To "fulfill" something -- anything -- means (if words still possess meaning), to fill it to the point of its being full. Yeshua accomplished that on our behalf. I can only say "thank God He DID fulfill it for each and every one of us."

Listen! The holy Spirit is NOT the standard of righteousness. Our standard is the Living Torah -- Yeshua -- and the Ruach HaKodesh (holy Spirit) always and inescapably, unavoidably and inevitably POINTS TO HIM. It NEVER points to itself (even as God's Mind indwelling us).  

We shall all stand before Messiah's "judgment throne" -- dais, bema, whatever -- to "PAY" for the things that we have DONE (2 Corinthians 5.10). Theologians have been wrestling with that for a long time. Problem is, their theological vagaries never seem to filter down to their students in seminary. An air of confidence and scholarly appraisal usually works to cover academic hesitancies. Small wonder their students become so obtuse and dogmatic, especially in antinomian areas where angels (or their professors) even fear to tread.

Now Martin Luther, that old anti-Semite, was used by God to restore the Pauline article of Justification by Faith. He was anything but antinomian. In fact, he said of his studious friend and colleague Andreas Carlstadt, that if Carlstadt continued to engage in his studies of the seventh day Sabbath as enthusiastically as he had been doing, the entire church would soon have to start obeying the fourth commandment. And, he was being serious. Was Martin ever otherwise?

The Psalmist said that God would break the legs of those who refuse to keep the commandments and this would include the fourth regarding the Sabbath, and he added that the "saints" would place world leaders and politicians "in chains" at Mashiach's return. "This honour," he said, "have all the saints."

Nevetheless, having said this, a kind of incipient antinomian spirit underlay all of Luther's theology. After all, it was Luther who said "sin boldly" because it is all going to be covered anyway. It is Luther who said "if the wife will not come to the bed, then let the maid do so!" Not bad for a Roman Catholic priest who lived with a nun.

So when we reappraise the apostle Paul as Rav Shaul, we need to get tough with ourselves and take off the Lutheran-coloured glasses, the Romanist-tinted spectacles, the harlot-designed Protestant monocles.  

The question must be put: How can it be that what I do doesn't contribute one iota to my salvation, yet I am judged when I die according to what I do?

The fact is according to Paul's own teaching -- there is a link between justification by faith and judgment according to works. James believed that Abraham was justified by works. Not by faith. (Many believers will not agree with this assessment because they have been conditioned regularly in sermons to accept that there were never any theological or biblical differences existing between James and Paul. They read into the biblical text what is not at all apparent to any authentic scholar of the biblical revelation. The truth is precisely the opposite as anyone with half a brain can acknowledge from the plain writings of the NT corpus.) Rav Shaul solved the problem with which innumerable numbers of believers are in serious conflict today.

That link -- indeed, missing link -- is what Paul refers to as "the obedience of faith" (Rom 1.5; 16.25).

There are those ministers of the Gospel with whom I have had recent contact over the past few years who are claiming, rather lamely I might add, that Paul's references to "justification" are at once familial, and I can honestly say that I do understand where they are coming from on this matter. But they cannot really sensibly argue against the proposition that justification is a forensic declaration, because it is.  

And it is not even a matter of forensic versus ethical.

It is not whether or not we are justified by virtue of the "righteousness of Christ" imputed to us, because we are, and that is not a matter of dispute as far as I am concerned.  

But there are problems related to Paul's view of justification and today I am hoping to clear this matter up once and for all. Listen!! There is a future dimension to justification.  

The basic architecture of biblical eschatology is that of an "already" and "a not yet." God has already accomplished something by Messiah, but He is going to do something in Messiah at the consummation of the age. He is going to bring to a successful conclusion that which He has initiated. So we can speak in terms of eschatology (or salvation if you will), as inaugurated and then consummated. "He who has begun a good work in you," Rav Shaul says, "will complete it [bring it to a fulfillment] on the day of Mashiach."  

Justification has a past dimension as well as a future dimension.  

Jewish sources of the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Procuratorship of Judaea inform us that the terms "obedience" and "disobedience" respectively stand for "perseverance" and "apostasy." The Christian idea of individuated obedience and disobedience, a sort of daily "chorus line" or "snakes and ladders" game as expressions of faith and faithlessness must go.  

For, God views our growth from (and in) an overall perspective -- takes our entire life into consideration -- as that of either faithful perseverance or faithless apostasy. As I have intimated, as Messianic believers molded by 1800 years of Constantinian theology, we tend to define those terms very narrowly: obedience is doing this, that, or the other, which God requires, and disobedience is breaking the law at this point or another point. Predominantly, in Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, obedience means to faithfully persevere, and disobedience means to faithlessly apostatize or to fall away.

This is foundational information.  

The Scriptures of the Intertestamental Period -- known as the Pseudepigrapha -- testify to the above claim. This is equally true for other texts which are included in the so-called Apocrypha, a body of Jewish literature which was not stored in the Temple precincts proper -- but which is still inspired -- also tell us the same thing Paul does. If you are to be obedient to God, that is to say, if you are observing the covenant and so show yourself to be one of His faithful people, you have to observe the Torah. In Christian circles today we may be a buffet Baptist or a cafeteria Catholic. You can pick and choose what you want to believe, or that which you want to obey.

But that principle did not apply to Judaism because you had to observe the whole law. The Decalogue was seriously important, and so were the food laws. And the statutes and judgments and ordinances. So was everything that regulated life. So there is such a thing as the obedience of faith -- that is, loyalty to God growing out of faith -- but it is always bound up with the detailed particularities of the Torah.  

Then Paul comes along with his Letter to the Roman Christians and introduces his concept of "obedience of faith" strategically placing his insightful suggestion in Romans 1.5 and 16.26 and everything he writes in this epistle in between those two verses can be thought of only within those brackets.

"By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience of faith among all nations [Gentile peoples as well as Jews], for his name" (Rom 1.5 Gk).

"But now [the secret of the Gospel is] made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations [Gentile peoples as well as Jews] for the obedience of faith" (Rom 16.26 Gk).

The link between justification by faith and judgment according to works is what Paul calls the "obedience of faith" (or, "faith's obedience"). It is not as though you have polar opposites, free justification and then works at the day of judgment. Rather...

THERE IS A THIRD CONCEPT

...which has been the missing link, and I am convicted that Paul formulates that link precisely in terms of the obedience of faith. In other words, an obedience, a loyalty to God and specifically to the Messiah, which grows out of a prior Faith.  

There is no doubt in my mind that Paul has conceptualised the missing link between "Justification by Grace" and "Judgment according to works" in such a manner that the unknown authority writing in Hebrews has little difficulty with this compromise. If the author was in fact James (and if it was the letter would have had to be penned before 62 CE when James was assassinated by Second Temple hypocrites) then the epistle bearing the name of the brother of Yeshua would have had to be written much earlier in fact than is attested by modern scholars.

Whatever the case, the "obedience of faith" is the link between the two. What this means in the final analysis, and what this means for us today, is that those who are justified or vindicated in the final judgment are those who have maintained or have persevered in the Living Torah, the Messiah Yeshua.

The issue, then, is the very issue with which all rabbis in Paul's day and age grappled and came to terms with: perseverance versus apostasy. Paul articulates the truth of the matter with a flair of rabbinic genius. Would to God the Christian world grasped his Jewish brilliance.

SOMETHING NEVER TO FORGET
We have all read the parable of the Prodigal Son. Some of us know it back to front and can verbalise it word for word from the old KJV. Recently, I came to the conclusion that the real Prodigal Son was Our Lord Yeshua, who left heaven's portals to become a human being, to identify with humanity, weak in the flesh and totally dependent on His Father God to sustain him through his thirty years of endurance in thinking the right things and in doing the right things in the exercise of his ongoing faith and all for our sakes. When he finally returned to his Father, his own dirty, tattered garments were exchanged for the best robe that could be located in the house. The Prodigal Son had his own garments taken away and discarded as his Father clothed His Son with His own rich and glorious apparel.

Isaiah looked into the future and penned the following: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God. For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels" (Isa 61.10).

The judgments of heaven were against us because of our sins and transgressions against God's Torah. Our life-records were a dirty blotch against us. But God took them all away with the last, final, agonising breath of the dying Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God. Christ assumed the responsibility for our sin, and imputed to us the righteousness of his life.

"He counts that our transgressions were committed by Him, for which He paid the penalty on the cross, and that His obedience was performed by us. Our books of record reveal lives of perfect obedience to the law, since all past sins are forgiven, and His perfect righteousness has been imputed to us. "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" Isaiah 53:6. Thus Jesus takes away the sins of the world by taking them unto Himself and placing His righteousness upon the sinner..." (William H. Branson, In Defense of the Faith, 1933, 217).

Charis! How absolutely wonderful, how awesome, how truly beautiful is GRACE.

In our following lecture we will conclude Romans 5 with a discussion of what Paul was referencing when he spoke (or wrote) of the "works or deeds of the law."

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 24

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