posing a law before any one mode of behavior and traditional community in a given city, the gospel message is, there included in its expansion in the nation, from the tradition of Israel ... What will we do with the coming of the "Greeks" in the Gospel? - Not least from the standpoint of the most basic function of the law, as a rule for living together - the political use of the Act ...
After some debate, the Church has chosen as the synagogue, urging non- -Jews who join this aspect of Jewish law is called "Noah's Law", named after the biblical character who made common ancestor of all nations. A consensual agreement that is found in Acts 15.
If in fact we consider carefully this agreement, sealed in Jerusalem in Acts 15 (cf. v. 21), we note that merely repeats the teaching synagogue against God-fearing, without elaborating further. This corresponds to what is called "Noah's Law" or "Noahide", whose sole practice is required of God-fearing, the total conversion to Judaism will be much welcomed.
For it is not impossible for God-fearing proselytes to become fully fledged. This, in Judaism, move to a higher stage in the religious life.
Proponents of full inclusion of Gentiles Christians the Jewish community here could probably introduce a kind of subtlety: while the Gentiles are not obligated to be circumcised, but if they do, it's better. Somehow, they harden into "spiritual advice" that Jacques is content not to exclude.
subtle way to re-move what Jacques rejected, making it difficult to rely on Paul's agreement to Jerusalem. However, he claims.
*
One might wonder if Paul does not quibble. In fact for him, the issue is crucial: there is about the future of the mission to the Gentiles. If, indeed, the heathen Christians come to consider their position as inferior, and therefore, preferably temporary, the wide opening that allows the delivery of a difficult passage through the rites of Judaism, including circumcision, is ruined: becoming a Christian equivalent to ultimately become a Jewish ritual with all the difficulties traditional for new comers. Hence the zeal of Paul to defend his cause.
Especially since the risk is that the hello package, free, about ritual observance, legal, or ethical standard data.
* The battle of Paul has significant theological implications : It allows him to develop the full extent his teaching on justification by faith. This is the heart of the alliance, already for Abraham, he says. It is through trust in God's promises that justice is achieved, regardless of legal practice. It's so true that this includes those who observe the ceremonial Mosaic, Jews, like Paul himself. The observance of the Act adds nothing to their righteousness, like that of Abraham and sealed in the Messiah.
It should be noted, as was Martin Luther understood that this concerns not only the ceremonial provisions of the Act, the Act in all its aspects : In Paul is not the theology's distinction between Christian morality and subsequent ceremonial aspect.
The fact that there is no evidence to say that Paul made a distinction moral / ceremonial about the Act raises a difficulty: Paul antinomian would it? Open it to moral relativism?
This is one of the arguments of the opponents of Paul: "Christ is servant of sin-it?" And it is probably one reason for the moral development completing his epistles: it is an anticipated response to the objection of encouraging laxity.
Paul, in fact, an approach to the law of its own, rich and nuanced. It retains most educational value, "to lead to Christ." The law in effect as an instance of ideal behavior, leads one that applies to them to discover that this ideal remains, for its perfection, beyond his reach. As referred to this Act is doomed to failure. Failure revealed by the death and resurrection of Christ, who is accessing those who believe in the resurrection life, thus beyond the jurisdiction of the law, which is below the dead.
This might suggest that for Paul the law is relegated in the past. It is not. This educational function is not abolished in history with the coming of the Messiah, or even for the individual with his conversion to the Messiah: the Risen Christ is always our future and our continuing sin, always reveals that the Act is always overcome our past faith in God.
In addition, to operate this educational dimension of the Act shall be assumed by the believer taking his teaching seriously, and thus a normative value of law. Here stands the major difficulty: how to recognize the normative value of the Act, while teaching that Christians are taught Gentiles to practice the provisions?
Here sits the distinction, delicate, letter and spirit: the letter of the law carries a lesson, moral, it is to discern, by using reason. Education is not without bringing the idea of natural law and founded the distinction between morality and subsequent ceremonial aspect.
For Paul, the Torah nevertheless the expression of Truth, which our standard behavior. It is not abolished. In the faith that receives the rationale, is abolished the conviction that the Act imposes one who transgresses. Paul urges the pagans to use the Act to release the heart of his teaching, love of neighbor, but provides its literal practice.
this perspective that we must consider the comparison, which would otherwise be incomprehensible, between the Mosaic Law and the rites of paganism! (Galatians 4, 8-10.) Jews as Greeks depend for their parentage Abrahamic faith in the promise of God sealed in Christ, and not a natural inheritance (John the Baptist or Jesus) .
It is through this rich theological thought that Paul, by the controversy, sets up his message of justification by faith alone, regardless of any legal practice, for a release for the consecration to the service of God, neighbor. This is the teaching of the Act and the only gospel gospel which allows Christ to proclaim the equality of Jews and Gentiles.
