from transgression.”43
If, however, as Reformed Baptists believe, this covenant made with Israel is a different covenant from the covenant of grace, being a type of the latter, then Sanders position is undermined. I hope to show that the grace of God in choosing Israel, its redemption from Egypt and being given Canaan, served to typify the grace unto spiritual redemption in the new covenant. Although, in its application, the new was before the old covenant. Thus, while the covenantal stipulations were a type promising temporal blessings on the condition of obedience, these served to highlight the work of the antitype, namely the obedience of Christ in the new covenant. It is my contention that Sanders, and those who follow him, are wrong because of the way they apply what belongs only to the new covenant in Christ to those who knew only the jurisdiction of the conditional old covenant. It amounts from a failure to appreciate that these are two radically different covenants, and whilst the old pointed to the new covenant, it contained promises of conditional temporal blessings which were always beyond the reach of those under its regime.
Although Sanders, and other advocates of the NPP, correctly maintain that Second Temple Judaism had nothing in common with Pelagianism, they fail to consider its resemblance with semi-Pelagianism. One cannot argue with the fact that Sanders’ view comes pretty close to this. Semi-Pelagianism is the belief that salvation involves both works and grace, where the people are by grace placed in the land, but the continuance of land possession is based on their works. Grace plus works is at the very heart of Roman Catholic soteriology, it should, therefore, be borne in mind that the Reformers were far from wrong when comparing Second Temple Judaism and Roman Catholicism.
Whereas the Reformers placed justification in the context of soteriology, Sanders considered it more in terms of ecclesiology. It had to do not with whether one was saved, but with whether one was included amongst God’s people; with whether one was in the covenant. Essentially, then, it was about the identification of the church. Justification is not, as the old perspective would have us believe, concerned with the imputation of righteousness, but rather, with who is “in” the new covenant community. The Jews were using “the works of the law,” to maintain their exclusivism, namely, laws about food, circumcision etc., to prevent Gentiles from becoming members of the new covenant or being justified.
The Jews considered themselves as belonging to God’s people to the exclusion of the Gentiles simply because they were in possession of the law, and their problem lay in their failure to appreciate the fact that with the new covenant there was now a “new way of entrance into the number of God’s covenant people, a way equally open to Jews and Gentiles who put their faith in Jesus Christ.”44 From this, it appears, one can glean that Sanders considered the new covenant as commencing only after Christ, and, in keeping with the paedobaptist paradigm, wrongly maintains that before the arrival of the new covenant there was a way unto God through the old covenant.
The righteousness of God is given a very different interpretation from that of the Reformers where it is something that is imputed. Rather, it has to do with maintaining one’s status as a member of God’s covenantal people. Sanders tells us that, “In Paul’s usage, to ‘be made righteous’ (‘be justified’) is a term indicating, getting in, not staying in the body of the saved. Thus, when Paul says one cannot be righteous by works of law, he means that one cannot, by the works of the law ‘transfer to the body of the saved’. ”45 The problem with the Jews was not their legalism but their exclusivity, believing that the Gentiles could not achieve covenantal status without embracing certain aspects of the law, such as its dietary requirements and circumcision.
The phrase “works of the law” is not, in the words of McGrath, “to be understood (as Luther suggested) as the means by which the Jews believed they could gain access to the covenant; for they already stood within it. The works of the law are to be seen as an expression of the fact that the Jews already belonged to the covenant people of God, and were living out their obligations to that covenant.”46 This assumption that the Jews were God’s special people is a recurrent theme, and, as we shall see, it is a theme that fails to adequately distinguish between that earthly typical redemption that occurred in the exodus with that spiritual redemption that comes only through Christ.
It is worth pausing here to ask whether Sanders’ take on Second Temple Judaism is correct. Wright fully accepts what Sanders said about the type of Judaism that existed at the time of Christ. If one can, however, show that Sanders was wrong in his deductions about Second Temple Judaism the foundation of the new perspective will be shown to have been built upon sinking sand. The question is: Did some within Second Temple Judaism believe in a works righteousness? Were the Reformers more right, than wrong? There is, in fact, a lot of evidence to show that works righteousness was present. We see this in the Apocrypha in, for example, 2 Esdras, which includes 4 Ezra in chapters 3-14. In Ezra we find a number of references to a works-based righteousness:
For you have a treasury of works laid up with the Most High. (4 Ezra 7:77)
The Day of Judgment is decisive and displays to all the seal of truth . . . For then everyone shall bear his own righteousness or unrighteousness. (4 Ezra 8:77)
For the righteous, who have many works, laid up with you, shall receive their reward in consequence of their own deeds. (4 Ezra 8:77)
Another work within Second Temple Judaism is the Testament of Abraham. Again, we find references to works righteousness:
The two angels on the right and on the left recorded. The one on the right recorded righteous deeds, while the one on the left recorded sins. The one who was in front of the table, who was holding the balance, weighed the souls (T. Ab. A 12:12-13).
The Commander-in-Chief said, “Hear, righteous Abraham: Since the judge found its sins and its righteous deeds to be equal, then he handed over neither to judgment nor to be saved, until the judge of all shall come . . . If [one] could acquire one righteous deed more than one’s sins, one would enter in to be saved. (T. Ab. A 14:2–4).
In the Psalms of Solomon we are told that:
The Lord is faithful to those who truly love him, to those who endure his discipline, to those who live in the righteousness of his commandments, in the Law, which he has commanded for our life. The Lord’s devout shall live by it forever. (Psa. Sol. 14: 1–3).
Our works are in the choosing and power of our souls, to do right and wrong in the works of our hands, and in your righteousness you oversee human beings. The one who does what is right saves up life for himself with the Lord, and the one who does what is wrong causes his own life to be destroyed. (Psa. Sol. 9: 4-5)
There are many similar texts47 in, for example, and various Rabbinic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls etc. What is interesting is the way Sanders tries to brush these texts aside, unsuccessfully, I might add. In regard to Ezra, while he acknowledges that it does present a works righteousness, he seems to suggest that because it is polemic in nature, written against the backdrop of Roman oppression, it cannot be considered as a true representation. Again, while acknowledging the fact that there are texts from the period that provide evidence contrary to his position, he nevertheless, views these as not reflecting the Jewish beliefs from the times, “It is true that there are some sayings which do indicate that God judges strictly according to the majority of a man’s deeds . . . this can by no means be taken as Rabbinic doctrine.”48 It seems to me that Sanders has done a kind of balancing act with the texts, suggesting that if those that refer to grace outnumber those that speak of a works righteousness, it is only the former that should be considered
