Pauli brytning med Israels förbund

Authors

• Heikki Räisänen Helsingfors

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.69414

Keywords:

Paul, Saint, Apostle -- Conversion, Covenant, Christianity and Judaism, Bible, Old Testament, Jesus Christ, Israel

Abstract

In the Tanach and in early Judaism the Torah belongs together with the covenant. It is also regarded as the order of creation. Palestinian Jewish piety has been described as “covenantal nomism”. The law is not a means of getting into a right relationship to God. It is rather the means of staying within the covenant. The role of the Torah in Judaism is comparable to the place of apostolic paraenesis rather than that of Jesus Christ in early Christianity. Paul explicitly and consciously denied Jewish covenantal nomism. What he found wrong with Judaism was that “it is not Christianity”&&the law “does not provide for God’s ultimate purpose, that of saving the entire world through faith in Christ”. Paul tries desperately to be loyal both to his sacred tradition and to his overwhelming new experience. But in fact the covenant of Israel is rejected, for even a Jew is expected to convert, to undergo a new initiation rite. Above all, even a Jew has to believe in Jesus as the Messiah in order to be saved. This presupposes that the old covenant with the possibility offered by it for repentance and atonement is insufficient. The break was a logical necessity as soon as the claim was first raised that faith in Jesus is the only way to salvation.