3
Jews maintained favor with God and membership in the covenant into which they
believed they were born.
5
(2) An important minority strand of Jewish thinking applied
this same logic to Gentiles desiring to convert to Judaism, so that what Protestants have
classically called "legalism"--performing good works in order to "be saved" in the first
place--is by no means absent from first-century Jewish thought, even if not as dominant
as a survey of post-70 rabbinic literature might suggest.
6
(3) One important
manifestation, though scarcely the only one, of both covenantal nomism and legalism,
involved an emphasis on what have been called the "badges of national righteousness"--
circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, the dietary laws, the temple cult, and so on--external
religious activities that clearly set Jews apart from their Gentile neighbors.
7
Thus, as we
seek modern analogies to these false teachers, we must look not merely for classic
legalists--those who would require a ritual like baptism or a spiritual gift like speaking in
tongues as a prerequisite for Christian salvation, but also for nomists--those who define
the Christian life primarily in terms of the observance of a long list of "dos and don'ts"
rather than as a vibrant, living relationship with Jesus, in which God's moral absolutes are
internalized. And thirdly we must beware of ethnocentrists--those who somehow
privilege their own ethnic or national identities in their understanding of God's plans for
this world.
8
4
See esp. Craig A. Evans and Donald A. Hagner, eds., Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1993).
5
E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).
6
See esp. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O'Brien and Mark Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol.
1 (Tübingen: Mohr, 2001).
7
See esp. James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Law (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990). The
concept of "national election" must be balanced with an equally prevalent remnant theology--see now
Mark A. Elliott, The Survivors of Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).
8
Cf. the excellent collection of sermons on Galatians by Roy Clements (No Longer Slaves [Leicester: IVP,
1997]), who speaks of "legalists, racialists, and nomists" (p. 14).