Promise, Law, faithwalk

Dr T David Gordon is professor of religion and Greek at Grove City College in Grove City Pennsylvania In Promise Law Faith T David Gordon argues that Paul uses promise law and faith in Galatians to denote three covenant administrations by synecdoche a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa and that he chose each synecdoche because it characterized the distinctive but not exclusive feature of that covenant For instance Gordon argues the Abrahamic covenant was characterized by three remarkable promises made to an aging couple to have numerous descendants who would inherit a large arable land and the Seed of whom would one day bless all the nations of the world the Sinai covenant was characterized by the many laws given both originally at Sinai and later in the remainder of the Mosaic corpus and the New Covenant is characterized by faith in the dying and rising of Christ As Gordon s subtitle suggests he believes that both the dominant Protestant approach to Galatians and the New Perspectives on Paul approach fail to appreciate that Paul s reasoning in Galatians is covenant historical this is what Gordon calls perhaps a Third Perspective on Paul In Galatians Paul is not arguing that one covenant is good and the other bad rather he is arguing that the Sinai covenant was only a temporary covenant administration between the promissory Abrahamic covenant and its ultimate fulfilment in the New Covenant in Jesus For a specific time the Sinai covenant isolated the Israelites from the nations to preserve the memory of the Abrahamic promises and to preserve the integrity of his seed Seed through whom one day the same nations would one day be richly blessed But once that Seed arrived in Jesus providing the grace of repentance to the Gentiles it was no longer necessary or proper to segregate them from the descendants of Abraham Paul s argument in Galatians is therefore covenant historical he corrects misbehaviors that is requiring observance of the Mosaic Law associated with the New Covenant by describing the relation of that New Covenant to the two covenants instituted before it the Abrahamic and the Sinaitic hence the covenants of promise law and faith Effectively Paul argues that the New Covenant is a covenant in its own right that displaces the temporary Christ anticipating Israel threatening and Gentile excluding Sinai covenant Promise Law Faith Covenant Historical Reasoning in GalatiansSuperb Promise Law Faith Covenant Historical Reasoning in Galatians