The
hypothetical interpretation involves a hidden premise:
Major Premise: If you obey the commandments you will go to heaven (“live”).
Minor (hidden) Premise: You must obey them perfectly, and no one can.
Conclusion: No one will go to heaven by obeying commandments.
However,
there are decisive reasons for rejecting this view. First, “life” in Leviticus
18:5, as mentioned above, refers to a blessed life in the land which comes from
the pursuit of the Law by faith. Virtually all commentators agree on this. This
passage raises the problem regarding how the New Testament writers made use of
Old Testament citations. Experimental Predestinarians take a much more lenient
view of the requirement that the starting point should be the intended meaning
of the Old Testament writer. Viewing these texts, like Leviticus 18:5, in this
manner allows Tremper Longman to say the intended meaning is not the “complete”
meaning. In our view, however, this criterion allows Experimentalists to regard
the intended meaning rather loosely, and it often amounts to saying the New
Testament writer changed the meaning of the Old Testament writer and not just
“completed” it. We believe that Howard is absolutely correct when he says, “No
modern interpretation of Paul should be used as evidence that he understood it
in a way other than the original context implied.”
Second, it
is difficult to see anything in the contexts of Romans 10 or Leviticus 18:5 to
suggest this hypothetical offer. There is no inference that the Jews were
unable to do this. In fact Moses says precisely the opposite. According to him,
the Old Testament believer can do it.
See I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God
commanded me, that you should do . . . For this commandment which I
command you today is not too difficult for you, or is it out of reach.” (Deuteronomy 4:5,
30:11)
Third, the
hypothetical view incorrectly assumes that righteousness by the Law is possibly
only if one lives without sin. However, there are reasons to believe that Paul
did not understand Leviticus 18:5 in this manner. To keep the Law or to “do it”
involved doing all of it. This included the sacrifices whereby one could offer
atonement for sin. Law-keeping obviously, then, did not mean perfection of
life.
Fourth, the
hypothetical view of Leviticus 18:5 pits Moses against Moses with Leviticus
18;5 promising eternal life in return for works, and Deuteronomy 30:11-14 and
Genesis 15:6 promising eternal life in return or faith. Paul then would be
pitting the Old Testament against itself y citing Deuteronomy 30:12-14 to
counter the meaning of Leviticus 18:5. This would mean that Moses, and
consequently God (who revealed the Law to Moses), contradicted himself.
According to this view, in Romans 10:5 God promises eternal life for “doing”
but in verses 6-8 He says that eternal life comes on the basis of faith alone.
Fifth, and
more seriously, the hypothetical view involves God in a deception. “Would God
lead the Jews to believe that hypothetically they could obtain life in the
sense of going to heaven, knowing they could not?” This, many have argued, is
an indefensible position for it suggests that Paul here “gets involved in the
cynicism that God explicitly provides men with a law ‘unto life’ while knowing
from the start that this instrument will not work.”
Wakenfield
objects, “According to this view, God essentially holds out what amounts to a
false promise. Even if Leviticus 18:5 is true in theory [i.e., if one could
obey the law one cold become regenerate] it is false in practice—and worse yet,
the precise combination, the fact that God offers a promise which he must
certainly know can never be actualized, makes the promise seem not just false,
but deceptive, the perpetration of a divine fraud.” (Joseph Dillow, Final
Destiny: The Future Reign of the Servant Kings [2012], 184-87; Dillow uses
the term “Experimental Predestinarians” to refer to those who believe in the
Reformed doctrine of “The Perseverance of the Saints”)
Wakenfield
objects that it interprets the Old Testament in way that places Leviticus 18:5
in direct contradiction to Deuteronomy 30:12-14. Paul is then quoting
Deuteronomy to counter the meaning of Leviticus. Andrew H. Wakenfield asks, “Is
it possible that Pual might consider one portion of Scripture to be valid,
while another is not?” Andrew H. Wakefield, Where to Live: The Hermeneutical
Significance of Paul’s Citation from Scripture in Galatians 3:1-14 (Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 83. Second, it interprets Leviticus 18:5
in a way that differs from its meaning in its original context. The difficulty
is that in the context of Leviticus 18, the promise of “life” relates not to
eternal life in the sense of regeneration or “heaven when I die.” Instead, it
refers to a rich life now, life within the covenant. The promise of life refers
to behavior, not soteriology, to living life, not gaining it. There seems to be
little dispute about this. Moo says, “In its context, Leviticus 18:5 summons
Israel to obedience to the commandments of the Lord as a means of prolonging
her enjoyment of the blessings of God in the promised land.” (Ibid., 187 n.
607)
