The Letter and the Spirit
Three Pauline passages contrast the
letter and the Spirit. In Rom 2:29 Paul compares two types of Jews: the one is
a Jew inwardly whose circumcision is that of the heart and the spirit (cf.
Moses’ word in Deut 30:6); the other is a Jew outwardly in the letter and the
circumcision of the flesh. Notice carefully, however, that in dia grammatos
kai peritomēs (Rom 2:27)
The δια cannot be translated “in spite of”, . . . it
must be given an instrumental significance. It is precisely through what is
written and through circumcision that the Jew is a transgressor. He is to see
that his true position involves possession of the γραμμα and περιτομη, but with
no genuine fulfillment of the law. (Gottlob Schrenk, “γραμμα,” TDNT 1, 765)
Consequently, it is in Rom 2:29 that
supplies the real solution to this letter/Spirit contrast. Only when the heart
is refashioned for obedience can this false use of the law in either
Testament can overcome. As in Deut 30:6, what is needed is peritomē
kardias en (instrumental) pneumatic. The contrast is total, as shown
below.
Not this: peritomē en (locative)
sarki en (instrumental) grammati, but this: peritomē en (locative)
kardia en (instrumental) pneumati.
Schrenk declares that this theme of a
circumcision of the heart dominates all the letter/Spirit passages in Paul.
(Schrenk, TDNT, 1, 765) Thus Paul is not speaking so much of the
inadequacy of the law or the mere letter as he is stressing the need for that
power which he alone can produce an obedience to this law. The power comes from
turning to the Lord with all one’s heart and life. Men actually transgress the law
when they outwardly observe all its prescriptions but inwardly remains
impervious to it.
In a similar manner, Rom 7;16 is not a
discharge notice whereby the older dispensation of the law has now been
terminated in order to allow room for the new dispensation of the Spirit. It
was not that the graphē of the law had ceased, but the gramma.
For Paul, this meant an outward, fleshly, uncommitted observance of the letter
of Moses and a perfunctory circumcision of the flesh. All to no avail. To do
all this was only to sin (Rom 2:27); indeed, it was a “serving in the oldness
of the letter (gramma).” Paul could “serve” the law of God with the
mind. But “with [his] flesh” he served “the law of sin.” There it is again, Paul’s
contrast between the heart, which he here calls his “mind,” and the flesh. In
other words, there are two ways of serving the law of God. people recognize the
weightier matters of that law and inwardly respond to God first. In Mosaic vocabulary,
they “fear God” and “love him with all their hearts,” or “circumcise their hearts.”
They too have found, with the prophets and Paul, that what God requires is “obedience”
(cf. John 3:36, “believing the son” = “obeying”), justice, mercy, faith and
love for God.
The same is true in 2 Cor 3:6. If Paul
teaches that the Old Covenant or law as written (graphē) was unto
death in this verse, then he has flatly contradicted himself in Rom 7:10ff.,
and contradicted also the OT and Jesus. “The commandment,” he there had said, “was
ordained unto life!” But Augustine correctly saw the meaning
. . . the letter of the law, which
teaches us not to commit sin, kills, if the life-giving Spirit be absent. (De
Spiritu et Littera, 5)
R. Bultmann also assessed the problem
accurately:
The reason why men’s situation under
the law is so desperate is not that the Law as an inferior revelation mediates
a limited or even false knowledge of God. What makes [man’s] situation so
desperate is the simple fact that prior to faith there is no fulfillment of
the law . . . That is why the “ministration of the Law” is a “ministration of
death” or of “condemnation” (II Cor 3:7, 9); that is why “the written code kills”
(II Cor 3:6); that is why the Law is “the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). The
reason why ma under the law does not achieve [justification] and life is that
he is a transgressor of the Law, that he is guilty before God. (Theology of
the New Testament, 1, 262-63)
The problem then is not that the law
of God is B.C. in time, but it is B.C. in faith. Man must set his priorities and
turn by faith to Christ, or his reading of Moses and his obeying of the law
will be veiled. (Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., “The Weightier and Lighter Matters of
the Law: Moses, Jesus and Paul,” in Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic
Interpretation: Studies in Honor of Merrill C. Tenney Presented By His Former
Students, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1975], 187-88)