Jun 9, 2010

Margeraut on Paul and the Law in Acts


“To conclude, a study of Acts 13 and Acts 10 sets before us two affirmations on the Law that are not co-ordinated, but neither are they contradictory. On the one hand, faith, and not the Law, saves. Luke is a good disciple of Paul in the sense that he affirms the unconditional disqualification of the Torah as a way to salvation. But, on the other hand, when it is interpreted by Jesus and focused by him on the twin commands of the Law, Torah remains the storehouse of God's eternal will: not to save, but to specify “'what is pleasing to God” (Acts 10.35b). Thus, the Law is on the one hand invalidated, in so far as faith has taken over as the means of salvation; while on the other hand, and elsewhere, the Law remains the reservoir of the divine will, a reservoir whose indispensable presence allows an appreciation of God's faithfulness. This is the basic tension that has to be taken into account in the analysis of the relationship between Paul and the Law in Acts.”


Daniel Marguerat, “Paul and the Torah in Acts,” in Torah in the New Testament: Papers Delivered at the Manchester-Lausanne Seminar of June 2008, ed. Michael Tait and Peter Oakes, Library of New Testament Studies 401, ed. Mark Goodacre (London: T & T Clark, 2009), 106.

No comments: