Threats to the Gospel of Freedom (With Special Guest Norm Meyer)

Welcome to a bonus episode of Romans Untangled. I'm very excited about this episode. I've got my good friend, longtime friend, I think we first met in 1997, or eight, if I remember right. Eight, yeah, met on the softball fields. One of us was athletic at the time. Just let you figure out which one that was. But no, very excited to have Norm Meyer probably in the study of Romans. No one has been more influential for me than Normie. I can't help it. I got to call him Normie. And so he was part of our church for many years, went with one of our church plants and is now serving overseas in Southeast Asia. And so maybe later on he'll get a chance to talk more about that. But Norm, just before you even begin here, we get to go on. Tell me about your Faith story and how that all took place.

Yeah, it's probably not super interesting. I would say. I came to Faith as a younger kid, maybe around 6th grade. I don't really remember. I was always conscious just of sin issues in my life, and I would just say inability to really do what I felt was right and grew up in a Catholic church. And so I understood the concept of a crater God that we were accountable to, and so was always bothered by just my sin.

I've always been bothered by your sin as well, just for the record.

But, yeah, okay, we can talk about that in an off.

That's another episode. Right?

But my mom came to Faith and she didn't really have any great avenues, and so she started watching TV Evangelism 700 Club, I think it was PTL Club Baker, which is not the best place to go to get a healthy gospel, but I did hear some form of gospel message. And I remember repenting praying, but was just really unsure of my salvation going forward because those were really sensationalized television shows. People would come to Faith and they're free of drugs and have no problems. And that was definitely not my story. And so, yeah, I just struggled with security and salvation. But thankfully, by God's grace, he brought people into my life, showed me Scripture, and yeah, eventually came to kind of an understanding just in my journey of what God has done for us in Christ and how we can rest assured in our salvation. But one thing that lack of security did for me was I kind of had started reading the Bible on and off, and I came across a verse in Isaiah where it talks about, God's word will not fail to accomplish its purposes, which is salvation. And so I clung to that. I was like, if I'm going to be saved, it is surely going to happen through God's Word. And so probably in junior high sometime, I started reading at least a chapter a day, and it just kind of formed a foundation of familiarity with the biblical storyline that God and his spirit could use later on just through other individuals and stuff. So grace of God. Yeah, amen.

That's great. I've shared on this podcast before that when I was a new follower of Christ, I didn't know any better. I just started reading the Bible. I didn't know there were books that were more complicated than others. And people would ask me, what's your favorite book? And I'd say, Romans. And they go, whoa, that's really deep. I mean, someday maybe I'm going to read that. These older believers who tell me and I didn't know any better and just always kind of fell in love with the book. And in 2005, you and I came up with the crazy idea to put together a one week retreat for people of in our church to go through inductively the first eight chapters of the Book of Romans we formed. If I remember it, it was you, me, Jesse Splend, Angie Hoagland at that time and Chris Walker, is that right? I think that was the pilot group, the guinea pigs, as I think we call lab rats. And obviously that thing has continued on. We continued we just got done with one this June. But yeah, tell me about how Romans has become really important to you and just some of the ways you studied it for many, many years.

Yeah, I mean, obviously it's changed over the years. I think initially I was attracted in a lot of ways to its genre. I'm engineering background. Math really is the language that speaks to me, not the English language. And so just kind of propositional, logical, truth, kind of, I think was easier for me to understand and for sure probably some of just what I talked about with UN surety of salvation. I think Romans addresses some of that. Yeah, I think it's been kind of a varied history.

Yeah, I'm a funny person in that too, whereas my Myers Briggs is ENFP, which means I'm scattered all over the place. And yet my background in my undergrad was math and education, math and science education. And so I also love that logical progression. And so I'm kind of a hot mess. But I've also loved the Book of Romans for that. And I know some people have a hard time reading the apostle Paul because of that. To me, that's just a big love it. It's like a big sudoku puzzle to figure out. And so I've really enjoyed Romans that way. I think as I think of your contribution to our church and there's a variety of things, it probably can't just go down to one. But as I look at Romans, I mean, there's many places where I've felt over many beers in our backyard here, talking through many issues of the Book of Romans over. And yet really that's what this podcast is. We're sitting in my basement here and we got water this time so it's not as fun but just talking, having these many conversations. But I think when it comes down to the marriage analogy in Romans seven, I think is one that really was eye opening for you right around ten years ago. Maybe even a little bit further back.

A little further back.

Okay, yeah, talk about that. Talk about how it actually I love the story of how it hit you middle of the night.

Middle of the night, yeah.

Which usually people that say, I got this idea middle of the night, that's usually heresy.

Basically I was just dealing with back pain and we were in the midst of Roman study. Do you remember what year it was? I don't know exactly. It's probably somewhere between 2007 and maybe 2009. Some there, my guess. But yeah, I was like, well, we got this Roman study retreat we're doing, might as well get up and dig into Moo. Has been a big commentary that we use and it's been helpful. Also enjoy shriner's commentary, right? But yeah, I just got into the commentary and just kind of started looking at the text and yes, I would just say some things popped out. I think that was kind of towards the tail end of my seminary career and so I was introduced in seminary just to concepts of biblical theology and just the idea of a storyline of scripture and so I think God was just using that in both of us to kind of reevaluate what Paul was doing in Romans. I love the analogy you use about you get to the end of the movie and then something's revealed that kind of changes everything and you have to go back and rewatch.

I see dead people.

I think that's the perfect analogy. So a lot of that was just kind of going on and I think Romans was stitching together much more coherently for us. Whereas prior to those years we would teach but it felt a little bit more like, okay, we get one section, we kind of have a topic and now we almost forget what we have just been talking about and move not completely, but it was just more disjointed. And so I think yeah, that was kind of going on and then started looking at the marriage analogy and if you read the commentaries out there and this is what we taught prior, is just that Paul kind of isn't particular about the analogy. It doesn't line up one to one and if you try to push it too far, it doesn't work. But that there's this general principle being taught but was just kind of staring at the text and it kind of popped that, oh, there's a different way of looking at this in which it does correspond one to one. And as I kind of looked at it more and more just saw Paul has left us clues to actually see the correspondence that he's trying to point us towards. And so, yeah, it's always fun. I'm a puzzle guy like you. So there's the aspect of just seeing a puzzle kind of resolved, but then also just seeing I think it's one of the places there's others in Romans where Paul really leans into the theology of union in Christ right. And just how amazing that is and how everything we receive is based upon that union in Christ.

If you've been listening to this podcast, you know how influential that has been, and I'm pretty sure now, it's been a little while since I recorded the one on Romans seven, one to six. But that's the marriage analogy we're talking about here. I'm pretty sure I gave you credit.

I think it's Holy Spirit's analogy first, and then oh, there you go. Secondarily Paul's, right. No credit after that.

A lot of commentators credit. They get to the same place. I think by the end, they say, this is what it means. But what's lacking is this whole understanding of dying to the law in Christ and then raising without law because Christ has fulfilled the law afterwards. And then that is a unification kind of of the book. I think that's what's lacking in another commentary's worth. They're still going to say, you're dead and you rose, and they're going to get to some of the big ideas. But that for us became, wow, he is right here, solidifying a unifying theme. And then if you go backwards in the book, you start to see it everywhere. You knew the christ here. There even way back in Romans three when he's talking about the money passage 21 to 26, where he's talking about you're now, faith in Christ. God is the just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus. Well, how does that happen? Happens because of union with Christ. It's all over the book. You just start to see it everywhere. So, yeah, that was awesome. I really enjoyed it. It was that morning, though, I was a little like, okay, you got this in the middle of the night here. Okay. All right. Are you on pain meds, too there, bro? Well, I mean, there's a million things that I could talk to, and I'm sorry I got to call you Normie, because that's what I've called you for. I don't know if anybody else called you Normie, but my dad called me Stevie up until the last ten years of his life, and I just couldn't take it anymore. So I hope that you don't mind. There's a lot of reasons I could have Norm on, but the one thing that I think Norm has really helped me in is Norm is very well read, spent a lot of time in seminary at Southern studying Pauline theology and kind of some of the current trends and has still kept his ear to the ground. And so kind of the heartbeat of what I wanted to talk to Norm about and really give him kind of a free rein here is just to share. I'm calling it what are current trends in Pauline studies that are threats, threats to the gospel of freedom that we find because of our union in Christ. And I know when people hear that word threats, it can sound like alarmist or that kind of thing, but in a lot of ways I look for synonyms and the words are dangers, menaces, risks, or hazards. And I do think there's some threats out there that are taking away from our freedom that we have in Christ because of what he's done for us. And again, when we look at the law for the believer, we really think it moves from should I should do these things? To I get to and the believer has changed and they want to. There's freedom, there's joy in that, but it's very different Christian experience, the one to the other. We want to do whatever we can to protect that. So, Norm, what do you see? What are some of the current things and just pick them off in any order you want to talk about them?

Yeah, I think just to reiterate what you said, when we say threats, we're not necessarily saying heresy and outside of the Christian Fellowship, but just in the history of conservative evangelicals people. And when I use that term, I mean just people who believe the Bible is inerrant in the original text, who believes it's authoritative for our lives and who honestly are trying to follow it and understand it. Those people as they read Paul and particularly the Bible and particularly the Old and the New Covenant and trying to understand how do these two relate to each other? How does that all work out and how does command in the New Testament and the Christians or Paul's assertion or the Bible's assertion exhortation for us to do good works? How does that all work in this thing called salvation and being right with God and the Christian life? And conservative evangelical Christians are just not coming to the same conclusions all the time. There's actually a varied opinion about how the Old Covenant relates to the New Covenant and it's not trivial. There's stuff at stake. And particularly I kind of think about in two realms. For the individual Christian, I go to Romans 614 where it says, sin shall not be master over you, for you're not under law but under grace. So what it means that we're not under law but under grace has implications for the Christian's battle against sin. So this is a day to day thing that affects our our daily walk, but then again, you know, beyond the scope of the individual. But for the church, we have the Matthew 20 818 through 20 great Commission. We're trying to build God's kingdom through this gospel message. And Paul says in Romans 116 through 17, he says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel. What is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. And so the gospel, how this reality of the Christian life is God's power and means for accomplishing this purposes. So it's very relevant for just the Christian life.

Yeah.

So I would say in the realm I walk in, the people I walk in, there's been kind of a change in how they view the structure of the new covenant. And I think it kind of correlates back to this guy who's named EP Sanders. There was definitely others, but he wrote this influential book in the basically what he was doing is prior to that time, new Testament scholarship in a lot of ways was trying to assess what was this Jewish religion that Paul was critiquing. And they use this term legalism, but they define legalism as kind of more works than bad works, kind of a balanced system.

Right, sure.

So there's many ways you could define legalism. But EP Sanders just goes back and he says, is this really what first century Judaism was about? And he comes to the conclusion, no, it wasn't. And he coins this phrase called covenantal gnomism. And that just means there's this covenant that people get in by grace God. They don't do anything to merit God's gracious election and bringing them into this covenant group that's going to experience salvation. But once they're in the gnomism of covenantal gnomism just is the Greek word that refers to law. And they're saying that there's this covenantal law that must be kept to stay in to maintain your status. And those works don't merit the gift that you're receiving, but they are there. They must be done in order to stay in. And I would actually say that kind of really accurately describes the Mosaic covenant, I think, as it's given in Scripture. But EP Sanders labeled that as a grace based system. And I feel like that is a significant heir and where kind of a root of a lot of this.

What.

We'Re kind of maybe labeling threats and we're going to describe in a little bit.

So just to reiterate, you're saying that EP Sanders said that the Old Testament covenant through Moses Ten Commandments and on was actually a grace based system. Okay, yes. That's pretty different than the way we've understood the book of Romans.

Yes, it's different. And what's significant is he correctly described the structure. Right. And it's a structure that I would call legalistic, not in the same way as the scale balance system where you have to do more good than bad, but it's still legalistic in the sense of there is an element or a measure of works that is the foundation of your okayness, not your initial okayness.

Right.

But you have to maintain your okayness by a level of obedience. And for sure that EP Sanders and people since then have talked about how, yes, there's a sacrificial system to deal with sin. And so in that covenantal system. And so it's not perfect obedience, but there's a level of obedience that must be provided in order to stay in. And kind of what happened out of that is in evangelical conservative scholarship they agreed, I think, rightly, that that was primarily the structure of the Old Covenant. But they also agreed with Sanders assertion that this is a grace based system. And so now that becomes what grace looks like for these scholars who are writing commentaries. And as they come to the New Testament and they're trying to depict what does the New Covenant look like for them, it looks like a covenantal gnomistic structure. They won't use a lot of times the fancy phrase covenantal gnomism. But the way they describe it is there are stipulations that the New Covenant believer must keep in order to stay in the covenant. And so to kind of describe it in another viewpoint, I think prior to EP Sanders and even afterwards, just as it took a while for him to influence. If you go back and read the Zondervin NIV Study Bible from 1984, they'll talk about and in their notes, they'll talk about two kinds of covenants within the biblical storyline. They'll talk about a royal grant covenant which we usually associate with grace based covenants. And they'll say this was a type of covenant in ancient Near Eastern cultures. So cultures of people around the Jewish people, just that whole community, many of them had this concept of covenant and understanding of different types. And one of it was royal grant. That was just all grace. Nothing was merited. And then the other type of covenant was called suzeran vassal. And that was you still had a higher and a lower but the suzeran would grant certain rights or gifts or provisions to the vassal. But there was something expected in return. And the Zondervin Study Bible will talk about how this type of covenant kind of maps to like the Mosaic covenant or what we would call works based covenants in Scripture. And that concept was just kind of, I think, accepted in conservative evangelical Christianity. But what happened with EP Sanders and scholars afterwards where they start to say, no, the New Covenant actually has stipulations I e. Conditions. The common assertion that is taking place in a lot of New Testament scholarship that I would label as a threat is just this idea that the New Covenant and all the covenants in the biblical storyline are conditional everyone, including the New Covenant. And what that means is there's stipulations given with the covenant that those inside the covenant must keep. Now, to be fair, these are smart people and they're trying to follow the Lord and they still assert and believe that salvation is by grace alone. And so how do they work that out in their system? Typically, almost predominantly the idea is God gifts in the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit to every person in that covenant which empowers the believer to keep those stipulations. And since the Holy Spirit's given as a gift, they're comfortable asserting that this is still a 100% grace based system.

Let me just ask a quick question here. I don't want to keep your train of thought here because I'm known for derailing thoughts here, but wasn't the reformation didn't we deal with this in the 15 hundreds? Wasn't that the issue? The catholic thought of impartation of it sounds really similar here.

That's my impression as I read Luther and his interactions with Erasmus. Erasmus is a scholar that the Catholic church kind of gets to help them defend their doctrine of salvation and justification against Luther, who was asserting in his day that we are not saved by works, that's by grace alone and that if in any way we were to rely on our works, the believer would be toast. Right? Yeah. And so there's more qualified people who've spent time reading the history. But as I went through seminary, my impression of what I was taught and subsequently as I read, I think J. I. Packer translated bondage of the Will with Luther and he kind of gave the preface, the initial letter that Erasmus sent to Luther. My impression is that yeah, that very much marries with Erasmus assertion for soteriology or justification that, yes, it's based on grace, but there is the giving of the Holy spirit and so there is this required response and Luther responds strongly against that. And as you can pick up today, there's a relatively new book, five views of Paul that I've kind of perused and one of the views is the Catholic view. And it seems like he is very comfortable with other protestant scholars in this volume that are presenting a view that kind of marry to it one of.

Those books where everybody gets to comment on everybody else.

Yes.

And he's comfortable with some of this more recent scholarship. Okay, so is there a name for this thing or is there kind of a group? Is there a theological trend or something?

Yeah, before I just answer that just one thing to kind of bring back into it is if that is the case, taking that as the assertion of the structure of the new covenant that these scholars are asserting that it's a covenantal, no mystic structure or just conditional their stipulations. If you read Romans 614, the way I read it, sin shall not be master over you for you're not under law, but under grace. I think what Paul is saying, what it means to be under law is to be under any kind of covenantal system that matches to the Mosaic covenant i. E. To be under a covenantal, nomistic structure or be under a covenant where there's stipulations you have to keep any obligation yeah.

To maintain or obtain. Right?

Yeah. I think this teaching is producing a means by which the enemy can really lead to the Christian leading a defeated life struggling with sin because they're approaching it from a legalistic standpoint. But to answer your question about is there kind of a group or a name, this viewpoint of the New Covenant structure as being there's stipulations that you conditionally have to meet is wide, and so it's way beyond this group. But I just came from Southern Baptist Seminary, and out of that seminary is some scholars who are trying to develop what they call a medium way between covenantal readings of the biblical storyline and progressive dispensational readings of the storyline. And this podcast is too short to go into that, but they're naming their new reading Progressive Covenantalism, and they really lean heavily into this idea of seeing the covenants as conditional with stipulations. But they would say with the New Covenant, god gives the ability to meet what he requires. And so they still assert its gray space, but it's taken off at Southern. I think a lot of those scholars are up in the Twin Cities with certain church relationships. These scholars have given the name to their ideas, Progressive Covenantalism. They wrote a book I'm Not going to get the Year Right, but maybe 2011. It was called Kingdom through the covenant. Professors Peter Gentry and Steve wellham, who I've both had, and I love both of them. Gentry much. I had Gentry much more than Wellham just once, but learned a ton from them, respect them heavily. But they kind of start to lay out this theology in that book. And a few years later they followed up with a smaller book, which was just a bunch of essays written called Progressive Covenantalism. And there is one essay in that book written by Ardell Canaday, who used to be a professor up at Northwestern Bible College in St. Paul, Minnesota. And he kind of, thankfully, I think, really states these things very explicitly as far as there are stipulations and how to work into the Christian meeting, these stipulations and staying in the covenant. If this is something you're hearing for the first time and you're like, this can't be, I feel like that's a helpful chapter where it's laid out clearly. Whereas I think if you read Kingdom Through the Covenant, the statement that all covenants are conditional is there. But kind of the implications of that and what it means for the Christian life, I don't think is as clear. And not that they're trying to hide anything. It's just not there. They have different agendas. Progressive Covenantalism, there's a new thing we might talk about a little bit in this podcast, but in that five perspectives of Paul, there's a scholar called John Barclay. He would not call himself Progressive Covenantalism. He would say that he's kind of a further offshoot from something called the New Perspective, which we can talk about as well. But his idea, what he did as a scholar is he basically after EP sanders did this study on Judaism, and he says it was a grace based system, and that you got in by grace, then you stayed in by meeting this law. He just said, well, actually, in culture, grace is a very ambiguous term, and it means a lot of different things to different people. And he had the hypothesis, and he felt like his research validated it, that there was actually different views of what grace was in first century Judaism. And so he goes back and he studies it, and he develops in his book, I think it's called Paul and the Gift. I might not have that exactly right. But he develops a classification system of these different viewpoints of grace called perfections, and he basically makes the assertion that Paul's view of grace in the Bible. So the biblical view of grace represented by Paul is something he calls, I hope I get the phrasing right. It's unconditioned, but not unconditional. And what he means by that is it's unconditioned because you get in, you receive the gift with no conditions attached to it, and the recipient of the gift doesn't merit it. He says it's incongruous, meaning the recipient in no way has some quality that makes them a well qualified recipient for this gift. It's very much unmatched. But once the gift is received, that recipient must do certain things in order to maintain that relationship. I provide the appropriate response to this gift, and that matches to basically these covenantal stipulations. So he's using different language, but it's the same idea.

Sounds a lot like the Norwegian heritage. I'm German and Norwegian, but the Norwegian side was I had all these great aunts that would give me Christmas gifts. But when I got a gift from them, I felt a burden because you had to write within 48 hours a thank you note or Hell hath no fury like a Norwegian auntie who didn't get a thank you note. They're wonderful people. It was a cultural thing. I don't want to try I'm grateful for the gifts I got as five and six year old, but it was interesting. My response to this was more of almost burden, not joy of a gift. That what a gift is supposed to be, right?

Yeah.

So interesting.

Yeah. I'm a big fan of a show called The Big Bang Theory. I don't know if there's any of those out there, but one of the episodes which Sheldon receives a Christmas gift and he laments exactly that, that you haven't given me a gift, you've given me a burden.

That's interesting. That's interesting. I know, at least in my circles right now, the new perspective is not quite as prevalent. Maybe it's just not as new. It's kind of the old perspective now or whatever, or the new less I don't know how to say it, but maybe describe that a little bit because I think there's authors out there. Nt Wright would be probably the most famous one. Again, Nt Wright has done remarkable work on the resurrection. And a lot of different things. But he would also be kind of a proponent of this, also picking up on EP Sanders. So EP Sander has a couple of children here that kind of stream off from him, or multiple in fact, with this, but one of them would be with a new perspective. Good. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah. So of course this is a simplification for purposes of time's sake, but EP Sanders writes this book and he says this prevailing understanding of what Judaism was prior to his book is inaccurate. And so he says Judaism actually is a gracious religion. So there's a scholar that kind of follows after EP Sanders and he says, well, if the Jewish religion is gracious, what was Paul critiquing in Romans and Galatians? Right? And so he starts with a presupposition that it can't be a works based idea of trying to earn your salvation. Because Sanders has shown Judaism didn't believe that according to his viewpoint of what legalism and what grace is. So it must be something else. So what was Paul critiquing? And so he came up with the conclusion that Paul is actually critiquing an ethnocentric system among Jewish Christians that are maintaining the law practices. So things like Sabbath, keeping food laws, cultic, things that are pertinent to the Jewish identity, and that these things were preventing Gentile Christians from accepting the Christian faith. And so there's a new era with the coming of Christ in his death and resurrection. And with this new era, God is bringing in a new covenant with different ID badges, different symbols that kind of identify who's in the covenant. And the new thing is faith in Christ. It's no longer these ethnocentric things that Jewish people did and that were maybe offensive to the Gentiles, but that it's faith in Christ. And so what James Dunn asserts that Paul is addressing in Romans and Galatians is this idea about the ID badges and not how is a person saved or how is anyone saved, but rather who is it that is saved, how are they marked out?

So James Dunn is answering the question, some would say, well, wait a minute, if EP Sanders is right and this is what it was, then the Apostle Paul must have got it wrong. And James Dunn is saying, no, Apostle Paul doesn't have it wrong. We have it wrong on how we're reading Paul. Is that correct?

Yes. I was trying to maybe skip a little bit of that connection, but that's exactly it from my understanding. I have not read EP Sanders book, but people reference it so often. But yeah, that EP Sanders came to the conclusion Paul got Judaism wrong. And Dunn says that's ridiculous for to have that assumption. It's much more likely that a reader, 2000 years later got Paul wrong than that.

Paul got paul? Yeah.

Judaism in his own he's minutes away.

From still being observant Jew. Yeah.

A lot of times James Dunn is given the credit for quoting the phrase new Perspective on Paul. Other scholars picked up on it. And I think, like you've mentioned, nt Wright is probably the most prolific who he's popularized. Yes, he's popularized it. And he writes at a very common level, understandable by somebody who hasn't taken seminary classes, but then also at a very academic level. So he's just wide read and wide exposure. And yeah, he similarly ascribes to just the idea of the new perspective. It's hard to pin down what exactly the new perspective is. Usually I find the most helpful way to describe it is the hermeneutical or exegetical really decision to say that when Paul uses the phrase justified by works I'm sorry? Justified by faith and not by works. That new perspective asserts that's referring to the concept of the ID badges, the works being these ID badges sabbath Jewishness.

So as an ethnic problem, as a horizontal problem regarding people groups more than it was a person trying to achieve something from God by checking the boxes or that kind of thing.

Right. So kind of the big thing, though is if you take a lot of those texts that we think are talking about how somebody's justified and say that, no, that's not applying to that, you're then not really left with a lot to say and answer the question, well, how then is somebody justified? And so within the New Perspective movement, you just had a varied amount of views of how they would answer that question. It seemed to me that most of them actually would come back to a very Catholic or covenantal gnomestic answer of saying you get in by grace, but that there are deeds, basically the commandments we find in the New Testament, or whatnot that you need to do to kind of a certain level. They can't pin to what level of disobedience or obedience is the boundary marker to being in and to not being in.

Right. They're a little bit like nail and jello to the wall on some of this. I recall one scholar was after reading Nt Wright's book on Paul, that big thick book of Paul. He asked him, do you believe in substitutionary atonement? In other words, that Christ went to the cross for our sins and paid the penalty for our sins. The scholar knew him well, called him Tom. And Nt writer said, well, of course I do, but it's like, okay, that's a pretty big thing to not talk about in your entire book on Paul. You're like that's squishy. So, yeah, that's always been kind of my problem too. It's very difficult to understand these things when I feel like it's kind of.

Mush that we're and I feel like kind of like the JePd, that old thing, that testament, basically.

There was four editors of the first five books of the Bible, and they had different interests, and some were interested in the priestliness and some were interested in the Leviticalness.

This was a theory that was common in the believe and even made its way to evangelical scholars where they said, yeah, this seems like they're providing evidence and they would assert to it, but basically it lost its weight because it really just didn't hold up. And I remember I went to seminary in the early two thousand s and I had a professor make me read a biblical theology of the Old Testament from somebody who held this JePd perspective. And it was such hogwash and it was like the only book we had to read and it was a long book at a very high language level. So the vocabulary I'd have to look up and we work through this book and it's just painful. It's painful. And I get to the end of it and we come to class and he's just like, yeah, I had you guys read that book. Because I find that once somebody reads something where they try to hold together this theory and they see how poorly it fits together, they just never believe JePd again. And mission accomplished.

Yeah, but could have been done in one lecture.

Exactly. And I feel like the new perspective has and had a little bit of that in that they redefined terms that were commonly used like righteousness and justification. Justification so that they would say sentences that I thought I agreed with, but they meant something completely different by them. But what I found was if you take those redefinitions of those terms and try to go through every verse in Galatians and make them hold up, they just don't.

They just don't. There's just no way you can't make Galatians chapter three work again, I'm going back to Romans because that's our passion here and all that. But if you look at Romans 132, which talks about the little l law, which is written on everyone's heart, that has nothing to do with ethnic nothing, right? And so to say the book of Romans is really about Jew and Gentile relationships. That's what it's really about. Now, I'm not saying it's void of that. Of course it's in there. It's a huge piece of the puzzle. In fact, I've often said that. I think the new perspective, though I don't agree with it all. There's some helpfulness in reminding us again, even in Rome, where there would have been a lot of tension because the Jews were removed for a season from Rome because there was a stir up over some, they think over crestus, if you remember that, and they were taken out. And so now the Gentiles are running the church and the Jews come back and they're used to being in charge. And guess what? You're back there cutting donuts for the Sunday service. Now we're going to do the rest. And there's some tension here, I get it, that's a helpful thing to remember. But no, not everything. People are still just people. And especially if you view the way we do that israel really is just a microcosm of everybody and they had it as good as they can get it and they still blew it. And so again, I'm overstating it, but I'm from the Iron Range and we tend to overstate stuff.

It seems like it was kind of five years ago, something to be a little bit concerned about in our churches, in that I think it had a tendency to lead people away from the core elements of the gospel and potentially away from penal substitutionary atonement theory, but it seems like it's dissipating. But there's other things like this, Paul, and the gift that we mentioned before by John Barclay that I've seen that referred to by various people many times as the next big book after EP Sanders. Like, this is the monumental book that is changing how New Testament scholarship is thought about.

Let me just push in on this one a little bit because I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference between the gift and progressive covenantalism.

No, I mean, so they marry well, right? Yeah, it's it's basically another way to it's not using the phrase covenantal gnomism, but what it's describing is that same structure. And that's kind of what I think one of the hopes for this podcast is just to try and synthesize some of these ideas that really are the same, they just use different language. And I feel like they all kind of fall under this umbrella that we're labeling a threat because we feel like it's inaccurate and it has implications for accomplishing the church's mission in the life of the everyday believer. But yeah, it's exactly that, it has that covenantal gnomistic structure. The interesting thing is if you see covenantal gnomism and the idea that there's stipulations that you must keep to stay in, the question becomes, does everybody stay in? Right? And interestingly, John Barclay, in this Five Views, he writes his chapter and I think it was the Catholic guy who critiques him then and he says, I agree with a lot of this. He goes, But Barclay basically said that no one will fall away, that those who are saved will keep the commandments and stay in. I know he didn't state it that way, but that was the concept he was conveying with different language. And so then after everybody gives their critique, the author of the chapter is always given an extra chance to respond to his critics and Barclay says, oh, thank you, I actually made a mistake. I do believe you can lose your salvation. I meant to state that. So thank you. I can't remember the Catholic scholar's name. Sure. So, yeah, it's there. I think that's one of the reasons why this book is having a huge effect in New Testament scholarship is because so many of them, the gift book, the gift book have actually moved to this idea that the new covenant structure is this covenantal gnomestic structure and agreed with EP Sanders that that's a grace based structure.

Well that's, that's really interesting and I, you know, you keep going, it it can sound a little bit like we're arguing about how many, you know, how many angels are on the head of a pin or something. I don't even know why people use that as an argument. I don't know.

33 trade 30.

Well that solves that. But I just think it's unbelievably important on just how a Christian lives their life. I mean, when you come back to it, Romans 614 is huge. Sin no longer is your master. Why? Because you're not under a law, but under grace. And to me, anytime you put yourself under back under a law, you just gave sin its power again. You just gave it its power. It's now yelling at you you don't measure up, you're not going to make it. Whereas grace says you don't measure up. But the one who you're unified to totally did. And guess what? Now you can go kick sins butt because my okayness is not at stake anymore. Now you can say it any way you want and all these different things, but to me the idea that there's this stipulation, there's a gift and there must be a response or whatever you want to say, however you want to say it, it still leaves the believer then in fear.

Yes.

For sure.

And with that though, I kind of want to take just a little bit of a quick side bunny trail because.

We don't ever do this on this podcast.

This is new territory here. Yeah, right, Steve. And I would say, yes, the believer has the Holy Spirit, they are empowered and one would expect to see evidences of the Holy Spirit's working in a believer's life.

Amen.

And you could critique us and say, well, doesn't that functionally end up working the same way as the stipulations? Like what level of evidence must be there for somebody to be saved? And even though we're making this distinction of the view we're critiquing and calling a threat has the stipulations are a covenant, a law that conditions them staying in or out. But when you stated our way, which is basically saved by the grace of God, your justification is completely based on Jesus's deeds getting in and staying in that in no way do our Holy Spirit empowered good deeds factor into our getting in or staying in or conditioned. But if we also assert, though, in kind of the common phrases, you're saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone, can't that eventually start to become and function the same way in the life of a believer as a covenant of law? And I think the short answer is it can if you don't make the correct observations and nuances there. And I think Paul does that for the reader in Romans seven which Steve enjoys this greatly, because as we started teaching the second half of Romans seven.

So this is versus there's a repentance.

Coming here, verses 13 through 25. Where is the law become the cause of death, then? Right? I think the question and Paul says no, but one of the ancillary questions of this passage is, as Paul's describing this battle of I do the things I do not want to do, I find then the principle that sin is within me. Is this Paul as a believer or is Paul as a non believer? And when we first started teaching Romans, steve was very adamant, this is Paul as a believer. And my response was, I don't know, but if I had to throw my cards in, I would say it's a non believer, because I just found the language of enslavement so strong. And it seemed like that always married to an unbeliever. But sometimes learning Greek helps. I definitely do not think it's a requirement, even for pastoral ministry. It's just another tool in the tool belt. But as I was kind of looking at the passage in Greek, I realized Paul's construction there, particularly in Romans 714, it's a paraphrastic construction, which means something to people who've studied Greek. You don't need to know that. But basically, I think it's better translated the sinful or I'm sorry, the fleshly part of me has been enslaved to sin. And I think he's referencing the storyline Back to the Garden when Adam I think that's in Paul's mind as he writes that verse, but he's basically saying, as a Christian, yes, I've been redeemed and I've been freed, but there's still sin indwelt in my flesh. And he's talked about that in Romans six, and that still has a subjective enslaving aspect.

In this podcast, I've been talking a lot of a phrase saying we're new creation people in old creation world and an old creation flesh.

Yes.

And that's like, wait, yeah, but the real me, the real I is when Paul says the good I want to do, I don't do. Isn't that a weird thing? He's saying the real eye, but the rest of me eye, this unredeemed flesh, which is very susceptible to sin, still living in this fallen world, corrupted as it is, and one day will be made incorruptible. That's what the joy and the beauty of the resurrection of Jesus, he's the first fruits will one day be like that as well. So it's a beautiful thing, but to me, it's not a small thing, because I think what that does then is Romans 714 to 21, right? 2025 25. Yeah. What that says is, welcome to the normal Christian life here, living in a fallen world, I mean, it's going to be a struggle. But what's not at stake is heaven.

Yes.

What's at stake is my joy. I'm getting duped by the enemy of my soul. Sin is not fun, not productive, waste of time. It's here to kill, steal and destroy. But if I actually think that what's at stake is heaven, what's at stake is my justification. Now, I'm going to do some things. I'm either going to live in total fear, or I'm going to start to minimize sin and say, it wasn't that bad, I'm okay, and it's just legalism one on one, in my view. Yeah, that's where the human heart goes.

So to bring the bunny trail a little back even further, paul talks about in that passage, he basically makes the assertion that he's sinning against his will. And I think that phrase is important. That's a Greek word. But the will. In Paul's theological mind, there's a difference. There's two types of people those who have their will enslaved, which are non Christians sure, and those who are enslaved against their will, which are Christians, which Paul is describing in Romans seven there. And so when I bring it back to the critique against me of saying, well, isn't your view functionally the same that you say there's the Holy Spirit and the faith that saves is never alone? The primary evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit is not victory over every sin. Rather, it's the freeing of the will to desire to follow after Lord. And so if I'm doing counseling with somebody who's struggling with a habitual sin and they're just getting beat up by the enemy, the thing I point to them is, you're in the fight, and that is the evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in you. Amen. And then once you get there, then the fact that you do have the Holy Spirit doesn't become a burden in the sense of, well, I have this Holy Spirit, I have to meet the standard. Rather, it's like, no, I'm in the fight, and I have hope now exactly.

The Holy Spirit, 100%. And to me it's a big deal. I think it just sets a totally different culture in a church. And so if you have a church that's based on kind of this idea that, well, you better measure up, if you want to call it soft legalism or hard legalism, like a fundamentalist or whatever, but it leans into that that permeates the culture. It's a culture of not trusting suspicion. People aren't even aware of themselves. Instead of just saying, no, I can be vulnerable here, and yeah, I'm probably going to be hurt here, but that's okay because ultimately I'm okay in Jesus.

And so for sure, we're not trying to minimalize the sin in the Christian life or the battle against sin. For sure, we think it's important to combat sin. The more you do that, I would say more try to image Christ, the more joy you're going to have in your Christian walk. But it becomes another question, which I'm going to punt on it, addressing it in this podcast, but how do you do that then? And I think one of the people at hope. I like Davis's comment. He says the law can be a tool in that. Maybe, but he turns the volume down on the law as far as it's a tool in your battling of sin. But it's not the primary thing that is going to ultimately help the Christian defeat sin. It's worship enjoyment in God.

Yeah. That goes back to some of C. S. Lewis, where he would say, people would say I love something too much. And he would say, no, you don't love it nearly enough. You're not really going, I'm butchering the it's not coming to me exactly how he said it, but he says, no. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was really a good quote, and it's life changing to me. Hey, I'm trying to wrap up here. Let me give you a few speed questions.

You ready?

All right. These are just to let you go. Favorite hobby.

Oh, it's changed. I'd say reading, maybe.

What do you read for fun?

So I'm sorry, this is going to turn me off to a lot of people, off to me, but I just actually do find Biblical theology fun to read. So the last fiction that I read that I can remember is the Harry Potter series, which I loved. I love stories about friendship and relationship obstacles, but that's probably over a decade. Wow, that I read great.

What's one thing that you've never done? You ever play that game where you get chips and sitting in a circle just to get to know people, and you say, Well, I've never and then if you state something that everybody else has done, like, I've never ridden a horse and I always get chips that way from people because they've ridden horses. What's something you've never done?

I don't know why this one comes to mind, but it jumped out of an airplane.

Yeah, well, I'm with you on that one. Nor do I ever plan intentionally to do so.

I have no problem with tobacco. This is not a message against tobacco. But I've never smoked a cigarette or any kind of tobacco. I was in third grade, and a nurse brought in an actual lung taken out of deceased and passed it around our third grade class. And that visual has stuck with me.

Yeah.

I still wonder if I may try it sometime. Just I like the second hand smell. But I have never we've hung out this many years.

We've never smoked a cigar together. That's strange. I'll let you see my lung at my autopsy.

All right.

You're going to have a little boy.

Yes.

Him and his lovely bride Jamie are due here. You're about a third the way through. Is that roughly where you're at?

Yeah, a little over the third of the way. I keep scaring my wife. I'm telling everybody. I'm going to name him Oscar.

Oscar Meyer. That will do it. So are you going to raise your little boy with the curse that I raised my three boys with of being a Viking fan.

It's probably going to be inevitable. Yeah, it happens.

Norm and I are right now in my multi dollar studio here where there are tens and tens of people who listen to this podcast, but it's actually just my pool table with a couple of Amazon mics. But in this basement, also, I have a big screen projector thing. Often the boys will all come over still and at the end of, like, last season was just full of heartbreaking losses. The comment often is made, father, why did you do this to us? Favorite comedy movie?

Oh, Hitch is a good one. Comes to mind. That may be a favorite one.

Great. Well, Norm, I really appreciate you hanging out here. It's been good just to dialogue, bring up some of these things. Hopefully, it's helpful for our folks to think about some of these things and to recognize them and to realize that, yeah, I'm okay in Jesus is a very important thing in the Christian life. And to just again, not to live your life totally and being suspicious of other folks and everything, but at the same time to read critically and to realize that, yeah, maybe not. Maybe the Romans actually does answer a lot of these questions. So, anyway, thanks so much for thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for listening to this bonus episode of Romans Untangled. We're going to start up again in the fall. Be late September when we get the third season. I just laid it all out. I hope to have two more bonus episodes this summer. So have a great summer. Stay cool.