“Zeal Without Knowledge”: For What Did Paul Criticize His Fellow Jews In Romans 10:2-3?

By Dane C. Ortlund

[Dane Ortlund (Ph.D., Wheaton College Graduate School) is Senior Editor in the Bible Division at Crossway in Wheaton, Ill.]

I. Introduction

Dscussions continue to proliferate concerning the nature of Paul’s break with the Judaism in which he had been immersed from youth. A key component to this area of investigation is the precise nature of Paul’s criticism of his fellow Jews as he looked back on their life, which was once his. One fruitful window into this discussion is Paul’s use of “zeal”—language in describing the Judaism he had known from the inside. Paul describes his own pre-Damascus[1] life in terms of zeal in Gal 1:14 (“being extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers”) and Phil 3:6 (“as to zeal, persecuting the church”). In Rom 10:2 Paul looks from the vantage point of his new life in Christ not at his own past but at his fellow Jews: “They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”[2] It is this latter text with which we deal in this essay, concentrating on the first three verses of Rom 10 en route to understanding precisely what Paul means when he says that his fellow countrymen possess zeal but not knowledge.

Utilizing a distinction made by some, though mindful that any strict disjunction between these categories is artificial, we approach this text asking whether the zeal mentioned by Paul has primarily a “horizontal” or “vertical” denotation.[3]

Is the “zeal for God” of Rom 10:2 preponderantly a zeal that seeks to obey and thus contribute to one’s own standing before God (vertical) or a zeal that seeks to protect the ethnic set-apartness of the Jewish nation (horizontal)? One must bear in mind the salutary reminders of some that “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions to Paul’s thought ought not to be played off against each other as mutually exclusive options.[4] After all, circumcision, dietary regulations, and sabbatarianism were themselves, for the Jew, acts of obedience as well as actions that set them off from Gentiles. Still, with appropriate cautions against artificial bifurcations in place, recent scholarship dictates that greatest clarity will come if we proceed with this categorization.

A focus on “zeal” in Rom 10 as a fruitful avenue into the heart of current Pauline discussions is particularly apt in that with the exception of James Dunn, no one has given concentrated and recurring attention to zeal in Paul.[5] Dunn argues in numerous places that the zeal of which Paul speaks here (and elsewhere) is nationalistic, involving three interrelated dimensions.[6] First, this zeal seeks to uphold Israel’s ethnic distinctiveness. Second, such aggressive loyalty may require the use of violence. Third, this violence may need to be directed not only toward encroaching Gentiles but also compromising fellow Jews.[7] It is the first of these, in particular, on which Dunn repeatedly focuses.

Based upon a close reading of Rom 10:2-3, we argue that inter-cultural exclusivism fueled by concern for corporate ethnic set-apartness is undeniably a concern at numerous points in Paul’s letters, not least Rom 9-11.[8] Paul’s very identity is “apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom 11:13; cf. Gal 2:7-9; 1 Tim 2:7). Yet this theme is secondary in Rom 10:2-3. Paul’s primary critique of his fellow Jews here is not their resistance to Gentile inclusion but the mindset with which they approach God. In what follows we examine Rom 10:1-3 in detail, beginning with some contextual remarks and concluding with three synthetic observations about this text. Our thesis is that Dunn has emphasized an admittedly crucial dimension to Jewish zeal (the horizontal) to the neglect of the more fundamental meaning of zeal in Rom 10:2 (the vertical). This is a zeal to obey—including, but not to be centrally defined as, ethnic set-apartness.

II. Exegesis Of Romans 10:1-3

1. Contextual Remarks

In Rom 9:6, Paul asserts that God’s word to Israel has not failed, of which the rest of 9-11 is demonstration.[9] The apostle defends God’s faithfulness first by affirming God’s absolute right to do as he wills (9:6-29) and then by identifying Israel’s own failure (9:30-10:21). Romans 9:30-10:3 forms a bridge between these two components of Paul’s theodicy. After establishing OT support for Gentile-inclusion from Hosea and Isaiah, Paul pauses to reflect (Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν;) on what he has been saying. He articulates the paradox that despite not pursuing righteousness, Gentiles have attained it—the righteousness of faith (9:30). Israel, on the other hand, pursuing a “law of righteousness,”[10] has not attained what they anticipated (9:31), for they pursued the law as if it could be lived out by a principle of works rather than faith (9:32a).[11]This led them to stumble over Christ, who became for Israel a stone over which they tripped rather than the culmination of all their hopes and that toward which the law led (9:32b-33).

2. Romans 10:1

This brings us to ch. 10, the first four verses of which largely parallel 9:30-33.[12] Although it is true that the Gentiles only feature in 9:30-33 (while in 10:1-4 Paul zeroes in on Israel), both passages explain that despite the presence of a truly laudable element (9:31a; 10:2a), Israel has failed to attain their goal (9:31b; 10:2b-3) due to undertaking it in the wrong way (9:32a; 10:2b-3) and being blind to Christ (9:32b-33; 10:4).

In 10:1 Paul launches into an agonizing affirmation of his desire (εὐδοκία) for their salvation. Despite all the advantages that are theirs by birth (Rom 3:1-8; 9:3-5), Paul considers his fellow countrymen to be lost, a point already underscored in 9:3—“I could wish that I myself were accursed [ἀνάθεμα] and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh”—the logical implication being that a significant number of Paul’s countrymen are “accursed and cut off from Christ.”[13] Heikki Räisänen fails to see this when he comments that in Rom 9-10 Paul “did not assume that the Jews were a massa perditionis from the moral point of view. On the contrary, they were aiming at righteousness (Rom 9.31) and displaying zeal for God (Rom 10.2).”[14] Against Räisänen, these two options ought not to be considered mutually exclusive. Both might be true. Perhaps, for Paul, the lostness of his fellow Jews may have been not only compatible with but even organically tied up with their zeal for God—a point to which we will return below.

3. Romans 10:2

Probing the reason for this lostness moves us into 10:2. Paul says that he testifies to his compatriots that “they have a zeal for God” (ζῆλον θεοῦ ἔχουσιν), “but not according to knowledge” (ἀλλ᾿ οὐ κατ᾿ ἐπίγνωσιν). Three comments are in order at this point concerning this ζῆλον θεοῦ, a phrase to which we will return after addressing οὐ κατ᾿ ἐπίγνωσιν and then v. 3.

First, this zeal is for God.[15] Such a construction occurs frequently in the OT (e.g., Num 25:13; 1 Kgs 19:10, 14; 2 Kgs 10:16), whereas intertestamental Judaism, with a slightly different emphasis, more often refers to zeal for the law (e.g., 1 Macc 2:26, 27, 50, 58; 1QS 9.23; 4Q258 8.7; 4Q259 4.5; though see T. Ash. 4:5). Second, to reiterate briefly the general parallel noted above between 9:30-33 and 10:1-4, “they have a zeal for God” in 10:2 parallels “Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness” in 9:31.[16] Each indicates that Israel’s earnest devotion, though undertaken in the wrong manner (on which more below) is not only undeniable but even commendable. Third, then, there is no indication that this zeal itself (nor the “pursuit” of 9:31) is in any way defective.[17] Paul elsewhere speaks of ζῆλος in terms devoid of any negative connotation (e.g., 1 Cor 12:31; 14:1, 12, 39; 2 Cor 7:7, 11; 9:2; 11:2; Titus 2:14; cf. Acts 22:3). And the LXX had already established the value of “pursuing righteousness” (Prov 15:9; Sir 27:8), using the same terms as Paul does in 9:31 (διώκω and δικαιοσύνη; Sir 27:8 also uses καταλαμβάνω). Brendan Byrne therefore rightly glosses the zeal of Rom 10:2 as “single-minded, unswerving loyalty to the God of the covenant.”[18]

Israel’s problem emerges when the final clause of v. 2 is dialed in. Paul explains the lostness of his fellow Jews, despite their zeal, by asserting that this zeal is οὐ κατ᾿ ἐπίγνωσιν. We limit ourselves to two observations concerning this “knowledge” before moving to v. 3, which explains Israel’s ignorance and which will direct us full-circle back to v. 2 and a delineation of this knowledge-deficient zeal.

First, ἐπίγνωσις has been used twice before in Romans. In 1:28 Paul says that godless Gentiles “did not see fit to acknowledge God” (οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν τὸν θεὸν ἔχειν ἐν ἐπιγνώσει), resulting in God’s further handing them over to their debased passions. The sense is not essentially cerebral cognizance or perception—on the contrary, God has made himself manifest to all in the created order (1:19-20)—but rather spiritual or moral recognition, due acknowledgement of God, perhaps with a connotation of reverence.[19] The second occurrence is 3:20: “through the law comes knowledge of sin [ἐπίγνωσις ἁμαρτίας].” Here ἐπίγνωσις is again in the moral realm, denoting a spiritual awareness of bondage under sin (3:9) and accountability before God (3:19).[20] Both 1:28 and 3:20, then, include a strong moral dimension to ἐπίγνωσις—as opposed to, say, 2:18, where Paul affirms the Jews’ “knowledge” (using γινώσκω) of God’s will, a knowledge closer to cognitive comprehension of the injunctions of God.[21]

Second, just as zeal for God (10:2) echoes the pursuit of the law of righteousness (9:31), so “not according to knowledge” in 10:2 parallels “not of faith but as of works” in 9:32.[22] The positive attributions to Israel (zeal, pursuit of the law) are mitigated by Paul’s diagnosis of a critical missing element—knowledge (10:2-3), faith (9:31-32). In both instances, earnest activity exists, laudable in its own right, yet with some fundamentally misguided dimension that infects and ultimately renders damning the otherwise praiseworthy efforts of Israel.[23]

4. Romans 10:3

All this brings us to v. 3, which explains the ignorance of v. 2. Syntactically, v. 3 is built around two participles (ἀγνοοῦντες and ζητοῦντες) and an indicative verb (ὑπετάγησαν). Thus: “being ignorant . . . seeking (to establish) . . . they did not submit . . . .” Three contested terms must be immediately clarified if we are to make precise sense of what Paul is diagnosing here as Israel’s failure: “righteousness” (δικαιοσύνη), “establish” (ἵστημι), and “their own” (ἴδιος). We take them in this order.

In opening with ἀγνοοῦντες γάρ, v. 3 provides the content of the ἐπίγνωσις lacking in v. 2. This ignorance, says Paul, is of τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην. Arriving at this phrase puts us at the brink of a firestorm of discussion, to which many significant studies have been devoted.[24] We limit ourselves to a few brief comments.

Δικαιοσύνη in 9:30-10:3 primarily refers to right standing before God, a status of “right-ness” in the presence of a just God.[25] Specifically in 10:3, Paul speaks of submitting to this righteousness, indicating that δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ here includes the idea that this righteousness is accessed by receptive faith as a gift.[26] “Israel is ignorant of the righteousness or salvation that comes from God, refuses to submit to it in the sense that it refuses to receive righteousness as a gift from God and seeks to acquire it by herself.”[27] Paul is concerned, in the first instance, with “submitting to the righteousness of God”—the righteousness offered wholly by God and therefore received as a gift of grace. Such a reading is encouraged by the way “righteousness of God” in 10:3 functions in a conceptually similar way to “righteousness of faith” in 9:30 and 10:6. The “righteousness of faith” is thus neither a righteous human status that consists of faith nor a transformation wrought by faith so much as the righteous status given freely and wholly by God and therefore accessed only by human faith.[28] This is in accord with what is made more explicit in Phil 3:9—“the righteousness from God [ἐκ θεοῦ] which is by faith.”

This is not to say that a notion of “status” abstractly conceived exhausts what Paul has in mind in referring to the δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in 10:3. After all, God’s righteousness in Rom 3:21-22 is identified as his saving activity in Christ, indicating a christological focus; and in 1:17, while Christ is not explicitly mentioned, Paul likely has Christ in mind, since the righteousness of God there is “revealed,” not “given” or “submitted to.”[29] It may not be inappropriate, then, to hear echoes of God’s saving activity in Christ in the reference to the δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in 10:3 as well,[30] especially in light of the way Paul explicitly brings in Christ in 10:4. In other words, in describing the righteousness of 10:3 in terms of status we do not mean static; the righteousness of God to which Israel did not submit is brimming with christological and eschatological import, as Ridderbos in particular helpfully brings out.[31] We must be careful, then, in describing δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in 10:3 as a freely given status, not to dissociate this from Christ, the supreme revelation of God’s righteousness.

Still, θεοῦ in 10:3 should be understood essentially as a genitive of origin or source.[32] Paul’s fellow Jews were not submitting to a righteousness from God, revealed in Christ and received through self-divesting faith. To say this is not to opt for an abstract, ahistorical, or de-personalized concept of righteousness. God’s righteousness as understood here remains relational through and through, a frequent emphasis of Dunn’s understanding of God’s righteousness.[33] It is precisely on account of this new standing—sin and guilt having been dealt with in Christ (Rom 3:19-26; 5:1-2; 8:1-3)—that fellowship with God is restored. Yet this ought not to detract from the broader “norm” dimension of God’s righteousness (most clearly evident in Rom 3:25-26), clarified for us by Seifrid and probably in the semantic background of 10:3.[34] Nor does our understanding of God’s righteousness as the gift of right standing preclude the equally Pauline truth that “righteousness” in the sense of ethical transformation in those united to Christ is inextricably linked to the forensic gift of a new status (cf. Rom 14:17 in the context of 14:10-12). Ethical transformation is not, however, the meaning of righteousness in Rom 10:3. Thus, while one can appreciate Käsemann’s sweeping, cosmic understanding of God’s righteousness, and our discussion does not want to deny the creational and corporate dimensions to which the righteousness of God ultimately leads, this is not the foregrounded denotation in Rom 10:3.[35] Yet with these various qualifiers set in place, it makes most sense to see the main sense of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in 10:3 as the divinely provided gift of unearned right standing before God, accessed by faith in Christ.[36]

The second term needing clarification in 10:3 is στῆσαι (from ἵστημι), normally translated “establish.” Paul uses this term five other times in Romans. In 3:31, for instance, he says, “we uphold [ἱστάνομεν] the law.” Elsewhere it refers to “standing” in the sense of being firmly founded or immovably established (5:2; 11:20; 14:4 [2x]; cf. 1 Cor 7:37; 10:12; 15:1; 2 Cor 1:24).[37] Some object to translating the instance in Rom 10:3 with “establish”[38] as this implies mustering up righteousness ex nihilo when in fact, as Sanders has shown, Jews were living under the assumption that their standing in God’s favor had already been “established” from the start by virtue of being born into the covenant. This standing required maintenance by consistently (not perfectly) adhering to Torah and appropriating the relevant sacrifices for atonement when necessary, but it would not have been considered as requiring human “establishment.”[39]

The point is well taken that a born-and-bred Jew would not consider Yahweh remote and aloof, relationally accessible only upon furious moral striving. Yahweh had himself graciously called Israel into covenant relationship with himself. Yet the objection misses the point in that even seeking to confirm or maintain their own righteousness “as of works” falls under Paul’s critique. The translation “establish” is appropriate even in light of the gracious election of the Jews evident in the Jewish literature, as it is possible—perhaps even common—that Jews who had already “gotten in” would have been tempted to strengthen that right standing by their own efforts. Theobald thus rightly argues for translating στῆσαι here with “aufrichten” (to raise, erect) rather than (as Haacker does) “aufrechterhalten” (to maintain, uphold),[40] though to exclude a sense of “maintaining” or “upholding” righteousness here would be an unhelpful disjunction.

The foregoing interpretation, however, has assumed a certain reading of τήν ἰδίαν that must be defended, bringing us to the third term in need of attention. Some see “their own” as meaning “their own righteousness as ethnic Jews” (over against Gentiles),[41] others as “their own righteousness as dutiful law-observers” (over against God).[42] The first reading looks out, the second up. We take the latter view—which is not an accusation of haughty self-righteousness but simply a reading of “their own” as belonging preponderantly (not exclusively) not to the social but to the ethical realm. This is for six reasons. Before outlining these we underscore once more that to see one of these options as dominant is not to extinguish its alternative: righteousness vis-à-vis Gentiles and righteousness vis-à-vis God are not mutually exclusive options. For the faithful Jew, for instance, protection of national purity was itself an issue of ethics, a matter of obedience. Still, recent trends in interpreting this text legitimate the query of what is in the foreground of Paul’s meaning in this text.

First, the immediately following clause (“they did not submit to the righteousness of God”) suggests a primarily vertical reading. Paul did not write that the Jews, seeking to establish their own righteousness, did not welcome Gentiles into that covenant status. “Their own” righteousness is set in antithesis to the righteousness of God. It is a question of the source, not the scope, of their righteousness.[43] Second, one finds OT precedent for a contrast between human righteousness and divine righteousness (e.g., Deut 9:4-6; Ezek 14:13-14; 33:17). While a passage such as Deut 9 also speaks on a horizontal level of the surrounding nations, this serves to highlight the wickedness of these nations in making the point that it is not the moral uprightness of Israel that prompted God’s expulsion of the nations from Israel’s path but the moral poverty of the nations themselves. Third, as intimated above, Phil 3:9 underscores our reading. There Paul wishes to gain Christ “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own [ἐμήν δικαιοσύνην] that comes from law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God [τήν ἐκ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην] that depends on faith.” Here too a human righteousness (though, as Westerholm notes, more emphatically placed in individual terms[44]) is set in antithesis to a divine righteousness, a righteousness explicitly identified as ἐκ θεοῦ.[45]

Fourth, “of God” is fronted in the first instance of “righteousness of God” in 10:3, perhaps indicating an emphasis on this righteousness being from God.[46] Fifth, in light of the parallels already adduced between 9:30-33 and 10:1-4 as well as the parallel between “the righteousness of God . . . apart from the law” and “the righteousness of God through faith” in Rom 3:21-22,[47] “righteousness of God” in 10:3 is probably parallel to “righteousness of faith” in 9:30 (cf. 10:6) in a way that contrasts humanly achieved with divinely granted righteousness. Sixth, the ensuing context appears to confirm a fundamentally vertical reading of “their own.” For in the verses that follow 10:3, nothing is said about Gentile inclusion until 10:11-13. While space limitations prevent a detailed reading of vv. 4-10,[48] the thrust of this section of Paul’s argument deals with a personified contrast between “the righteousness from the law” (v. 5) and “the righteousness from faith” (v. 6), the latter of which is then further explained in terms of another contrast between salvation and justification, on the one hand (vv. 9-10), and ascending into heaven or descending into the abyss by one’s own self-resourced qualifications or disqualifications on the other (vv. 6-7). Helpful here is Moo, who points out that “do not say in your heart” in Rom 10:6 is drawn from Deut 9:4, which goes on to speak of a self-achieved righteousness: “Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust [the nations] out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land . . . ’” (9:4-5).[49]

This reading of “their own” does not necessitate viewing Israel’s establishment of righteousness as rife with smug haughtiness.[50] Such an attitude may have existed. To put the matter in perspective, however, it is no less evident that moral haughtiness can exist among many Christians, back then or today, in spite of avowed acknowledgments of grace. The point is that this righteousness-establishment, regardless of the degree to which pride is involved, is concerned most fundamentally with obedience and juxtaposed with God (vertically), rather than with ethnic boundary-guarding and juxtaposed with Gentiles (horizontally). This is not to eliminate all traces of ethnic exclusivism. It is to say that whatever ethnic exclusivism existed was subsumed within Paul’s primary concern in 10:3. Israel sought to establish its own righteousness in distinction from Gentiles but did this because, in an organically connected but even more fundamental way, they sought to establish their own righteousness rather than self-divestingly receive God’s.

5. Synthesis Of Romans 10:1-3

We are now in a position to return to Paul’s notion of “zeal without knowledge” in 10:2. Our analysis culminates in three concluding observations: the nature of Israel’s ignorance; the focus of their zeal; and, bringing the two together, the heart of Paul’s critique in Rom 10:2-3.

First, “knowledge” in the context of the flow of thought in this passage appears to be the spiritual perception, superlatively clarified in light of the salvation-historical shift inaugurated with the Christ event, that right standing with God is freely given, appropriated through trust in the “stone,” Christ, and thus requiring personal divestment of all self-resourced contribution to that standing.[51] This is conceptually similar to 1 Tim 1:13, which joins knowledge/ignorance with faith/unbelief when it speaks of “acting ignorantly [ἀγνοῶν] in unbelief [ἐν ἀπιστία]” (cf. 2 Tim 2:25).[52] Faith and knowledge are again coordinated in Eph 4:13 and Phlm 6. The OT provides precedence for such faith-circumscribed or spiritually perceptive knowledge (e.g., Ps 119:66; Prov 22:17-19; Isa 43:10; Hos 4:1, 6-7; 6:6). Perhaps another clue that we are on the right track regarding knowledge in Rom 10:2 is the way Paul sets “gospel” in parallel with “knowledge” (here γνῶσις) in 2 Cor 4:4, 6.[53] Aletti thus puts it well, drawing on the end of Rom 10 as he describes Israel’s failure in 10:1-3: “Leur ignorance ne vient pas de ce qu’ils n’ont pas connu ou compris l’Évangile (vv. 18-19), mais de ce qu’ils n’ont pas voulu le connaître (v. 21).”[54] To summarize, Israel’s ignorance was anthropological (ignorance of the depth of their moral inability and the potential for even zeal to go awry), christological (ignorance of Jesus as God’s means of divinely provided righteousness), and salvation-historical (ignorance of the new age that had dawned in Christ).[55]

Second, ζῆλος in Rom 10:2 denotes Jewish ardency to discharge the injunctions of Torah holistically conceived, with an eye toward God. The fatal combination of this zeal with blindness to God’s righteousness, however, resulted in this lawkeeping being carried out in such a way that resisted God’s free approbation through faith in Christ. To be sure, such obedience would be circumscribed not by a vague moral sense of “the good,” as some Hellenistic philosophies might, but by the ethnically circumscribed Torah.[56] Among the most conspicuous manifestations of such lawkeeping, moreover, would be those elements that visibly set one off from Gentiles, such as dietary regulations and sabbatarianism. This would especially be true in times of inter-cultural upheaval, such as that described in 1 Macc 2.

Yet some have taken this ethnic dimension to zeal too far and unhelpfully restricted the sense of Rom 10:2. “The trouble with Israel’s zeal,” writes Dunn of this text, “was that it was too nationalistically centered, too much concerned to defend national prerogative as the people of (the one) God.”[57] Pauline zeal is “a dedication to maintain Israel’s set-apartness to God.”[58] Others understand this zeal similarly, such as E. Elizabeth Johnson, Don Garlington, and N. T. Wright.[59] To be sure, it would be artificial and simplistic to disentangle cleanly the ethical or moral from the nationalistic or ethnic. Both vertical and horizontal motivations were organically intertwined for ancient Jews. Maintenance of ethnic distinction was, after all, for the Jew an act of obedience to God. And those acts of obedience that were not particularly boundary-reinforcing—say, the command to love one’s neighbor—were enjoined upon the Jew by the Torah, the law given to them as a nation. Yet Dunn has fixated on one kind of expression of Jewish obedience—that which most visibly reinforced Israel’s ethnic distinctiveness—in such a way that throws Paul’s true concern out of balance. Whereas Dunn and others see zeal in Paul as earnest devotion to God, the God of Israel, it is more accurate to emphasize that zeal in Paul is earnest devotion to God, the God of Israel. Zeal in Rom 10:2 includes but ought not to be limited to nationalistic concerns.[60] It is, in short, a zeal to obey.[61]

Third, bringing together all that has been said thus far, Paul’s articulation of Israel’s fault in Rom 10:2-3 is, counterintuitively, concerned not with their failure to discharge the law but with their success. It is not open trespass but something about the way Israel has been doing the Torah that Paul sees as problematic.[62] In one sense, of course, doing the law in the way of which Paul is accusing Israel (namely, “as of works”; “not according to knowledge”) is not in fact doing the law. Nevertheless, Israel’s fault is bound up with their pursuit of (not disdain for) the law and their zeal for (not contempt of) God.

Hübner has drawn this out with particular force, explaining that Paul’s diagnosis of his fellow Jews’ error in Rom 10:1-3 is the polar opposite (“geradezu entgegengesetzter Weise”) of the error articulated in Rom 2, in which the accusation is indeed outright transgression.

Wegen seines unbestreitbaren Eifers für Gott kann in 10,2 nicht die Übertretung der Gebote des Gesetzes durch Israel gemeint sein. Nein, in nomistischer Weise, darin freilich Gott und sein Gesetz völlig mißverstehend und somit pervertierend, versuchten die zum Volke Israel Gehörenden (nicht alle, aber wohl die Majorität, 9,6ff.) ihre eigene Gerechtigkeit vor Gott zu stellen, se coram Deo pro-stituere, ζητοῦντες στῆσαι.[63]

Hübner then makes the link with Rom 2 by arguing that both texts fall generally under the indictment of “Sich-Rühmen,” even though καυχάομαι occurs only in the earlier context (2:17, 23).[64] It may be illegitimate to identify “self-glory” in 9:30-10:4; Paul does not explicitly articulate the psychological state of his fellow Jews, and attributions of legalistic works’ righteousness as the modus operandi of Second Temple Jews by appeal to passages such as Rom 9:30-10:4 ought to be set aside once and for all. In a commentary as recent as 2008, Dmitri Royster speaks of the zeal of Rom 10:2 in terms of “pride, judgment, self-righteousness and elitism, not to mention unkindness.”[65] The unfortunate but deeply embedded stereotype of early Judaism as a categorically legalistic religion is still uncritically absorbed by too many today. The point remains, however, as Vos, Stuhlmacher, Schlier, and Wilckens all note, that Paul puts his finger here on an infected law-doing, not a more obvious law-breaking.[66] This is not a reversion to the old Bultmannian paradigm by which any attempt to keep the law at all is already sinful.[67] Against Bultmann, it is not the discharging of the law itself but the manner in which it is discharged that is problematic; not pursuit of the law, but pursuit of the law as of works; not zeal, but zeal without knowledge.

In brief, the zeal of Rom 10:2 is a Jewish fervency to keep Torah which, when divorced from knowledge of and submission to the gift-nature of God’s righteousness, funnels into the misplaced attempt to establish one’s own righteousness. While this zeal would include in its manifestation those elements of Torah that marked off Jews from their Gentile neighbors, ethnically distinguishing markers would themselves be subsumed within the broader concern of obedience to the law.

III. Conclusion

“There is nothing that belongs to Christian experience that is more liable to a corrupt mixture than zeal,” wrote Jonathan Edwards.[68] Mature Christian self-awareness understands the universal human proclivity to be tempted to find emotional and psychological security, in subtle and even self-deceiving ways, in personal obedience to a religious norm. Such a norm might be self-imposed, a construct of conscience. Or it may be adherence to an externally imposed ethical norm. Yet, as such zeal emerges from a fleshly heart, a heart not transformed by the Spirit, such zealous rule-keeping will be opposed to, not evincing of, the gospel of Christ.[69] Zeal did not, after all, find its way onto the Apostle’s list of what he described as the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22-23) but it was described instead as a “work of the flesh” (5:19-20). Paul had come to see, as Schlatter puts it, “the way in which zeal for works [Eifer für das Werk] regularly was the death of faith and how trivialization of divine grace resulted from reliance on one’s own achievements.”[70]

As Paul looked around at his fellow Jews, he saw much of the same blindness (cf. 2 Cor 4:4-6) to which he himself had been subject before the Damascus Road—a blindness to God’s gracious provision in Christ’s work, the personal appropriation of which requires nothing but the faith that lays down the subtle though resilient efforts to self-resource partial mitigation of one’s moral inadequacy, and looks to Christ.

Notes

1. In what follows we refer to Paul’s life before and after the Damascus Road experience as “pre-Damascus” and “post-Damascus,” respectively, rather than “pre-conversion” and “post-conversion.” One need not endorse everything argued by Stendahl’s influential article, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” HTR 56 (1963): 199-215, to appreciate the point that the post-Damascus Paul did not consider himself to have “changed religions”; he viewed his new understanding of and submission to Christ as comprising the culmination of, not the antithesis to, Judaism.
2. The root ζηλ- occurs 36 times in the NT (excluding παραζηλόω): 16 as the noun ζῆλος, 8 as the noun ζηλωτής, 11 as the verb ζηλόω, and once as the verb ζηλεύω. Twenty-one of these occur in Paul. The instances in both the NT generally and Paul specifically are used in both negative and positive senses.
3. The categories “vertical” and “horizontal” are used by, e.g., Haddon Willmer, “‘Vertical’ and ‘Horizontal’ in Paul’s Theology of Reconciliation in the Letter to the Romans,” Transformation 24 (2007): 151-60; Michael Bird, The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification, and the New Perspective (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2007), 1, 101-2, 153, 182 (implicitly endorsed by James D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul [rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 20 n. 82); Dunn, New Perspective, 208-10; G. K. Beale, “The Overstated ‘New’ Perspective?” BBR 19 (2009): 92; Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 45, 48-53, 58, 61, 87-90, 102-3.
4. James D. G. Dunn, “The Dialogue Progresses,” in Lutherische und Neue Paulusperspektive: Beiträge zu einem Schlüsselproblem der gegenwärtigen exegetischen Diskussion (ed. Michael Bachmann; WUNT 182; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 405; Dunn, New Perspective, 29 n. 112; N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2009), 126-27, 169.
5. See esp. his The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 346-55; cf. 366-76, 514-16; also his The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC 9; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993), 60-62; Romans (2 vols.; WBC 38; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1988), 2:586-87, 596; The Partings of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM, 1991), 121-22; New Perspective, 11-12, 31 n. 117, 37, 360-62, 374, 478; New Testament Theology: An Introduction (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), 101-3; Beginning from Jerusalem (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 339-46.
6. One must beware of anachronism in using the term “nationalism”; we employ it throughout this study as Dunn does, to speak of “religio-ethnic distinctiveness”(“The Dialogue Progresses,” 407).
7. Dunn, Theology of Paul, 351; Dunn, New Perspective, 361.
8. Vincent M. Smiles may overly downplay this dimension to Rom 10:2: e.g., “zeal’s concern was law-observance in order to maintain the covenant, not in order to exclude Gentiles”(“The Concept of ‘Zeal’ in Second-Temple Judaism and Paul’s Critique of It in Romans 10:2,” CBQ 64 [2002]: 297).
9. Dunn, Romans, 2:539; Dunn, Theology of Paul, 501; Michael Theobald, Studien zum Römerbrief (WUNT 136; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 335-36; Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 571.
10. Probably “the Mosaic law viewed as a witness to righteousness” (Douglas Moo, “‘Law,’ ‘Works of the Law,’ and Legalism in Paul,” WTJ 45 [1983]: 78 n. 22); cf. Hans Hübner, Gottes Ich und Israel: Zum Schriftgebrauch des Paulus in Römer 9-11 (FRLANT 136; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 61-63, 65.
11. We do not have space to address the debated question of what Paul means by “works” in 9:32; for defenses of our interpretation of ἔργα here as general obedience to Torah, see A. Andrew Das, Paul, the Law, and the Covenant (Grand Rapids: Hendrickson, 2001), 237-42; Stephen Westerholm, “Paul and the Law in Romans 9-11,” in Paul and the Mosaic Law (ed. James D. G. Dunn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 223-29. Cf. Rom 9:11-12; 11:5-6.
12. See esp. David J. Southall, Rediscovering Righteousness in Romans: Personifieddikaiosynēwithin Metaphoric and Narratorial Settings (WUNT 2/240; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 217-21, 230-32; also Ulrich Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer (3 vols.; 2d ed.; EKK 6; Zürich: Benziger, 1978), 2:218; Hans-Martin Lübking, Paulus und Israel im Römerbrief: Eine Untersuchung zu Röm 9-11 (EHS 260; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1986), 84; Jean-Noël Aletti, Comment Dieu est-il juste? Clefs pour interpréter l’épître aux Romains (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1991), 122; Thomas R. Schreiner, “Israel’s Failure to Attain Righteousness in Romans 9:30-10:3,” TJ 12 (1991): 214-15; Per Jarle Bekken, The Word Is Near You: A Study of Deuteronomy 30:12-14 in Paul’s Letter to the Romans in a Jewish Context (BZNW 144; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), 162, 169-70, 220.
13. See Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 548-49, 632 n. 8. Douglas A. Campbell’s assertion that in the “series of Jewish privileges” in Rom 9:4, “there is no real despair here” fails to read 9:4 in light of 9:1-3 (The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy [JSNTSup 274; London: T&T Clark, 2005], 169).
14. Paul and the Law (WUNT 29; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 108 n. 80; emphasis original.
15. An objective genitive; see C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (2 vols.; ICC 32; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975, 1979), 2:514; Otto Kuss, Der Römerbrief (3 vols.; Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1963-1978), 3:749-50; Dunn, Romans, 2:586; Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, Heidenapostel aus Israel: Die jüdische Identität des Paulus nach ihrer Darstellung in seinen Briefen (WUNT 62; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 28; Simon Légasse, L’épître de Paul aux Romains (LD Commentaires 10; Paris: Cerf, 2002), 656 n. 11.
16. Schreiner, “Romans 9.30-10.3,” 215; Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 23, 328, 330.
17. Cranfield, Romans, 2:514; Dunn rightly points out that there was nothing inherently wrong in the pursuit of the law in 9:31-32 (New Perspective, 384 n. 8); contra John A. Ziesler, The Meaning of Righteousness in Paul: A Linguistic and Theological Inquiry (SNTSMS 20; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 205; Otfried Hofius, “‘All Israel Will Be Saved’: Divine Salvation and Israel’s Deliverance in Romans 9-11,” PSB Supplementary Issue 1 (1990): 24; and Mark A. Seifrid, who writes that “Paul does not contemplate (nor could he conceive of) a ‘doing the law by faith,’ which some imagine to find in 9:30-33” (“Romans,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament [ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007], 653).
18. Romans (SP 6; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1996), 311.
19. See esp. Hübner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 74. Cf. Moo, Romans, 117; Jewett, Romans, 181-82; Gerhard H. Visscher, Romans 4 and the New Perspective on Paul: Faith Embraces the Promise (Studies in Biblical Literature 122; New York: Peter Lang, 2009), 60. Erwin Ochsenmeier connects the “connaissance” of 1:28 with that of 10:2 (Mal, souffrance et justice de Dieu selon Romains 1-3: Étude exégétique et théologique [BZNW 155; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007], 87 n. 171).
20. See Hübner, Gottes Ich und Israel, 74-75.
21. Cf. Moo, Romans, 210 n. 67.
22. Southall, Rediscovering Righteousness, 219, 231.
23. Thus it is simplistic to decide between a positive view of the law in 9:30-10:8 and a negative one, as C. Marvin Pate does, opting for the negative view (The Reverse of the Curse: Paul, Wisdom, and the Law [WUNT 2/114; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000], 244, 248). A distinction must be made between the law as considered in itself (holy, righteous, and good) and the law as it engages human sin (by which the law becomes an agent of failure). Rightly Geerhardus Vos, “The Alleged Legalism in Paul’s Doctrine of Justification,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 388-91.
24. E.g., Peter Stuhlmacher, Gerechtigkeit Gottes bei Paulus (2d ed.; FRLANT 87; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966); Karl Kertelge, “Rechtfertigung” bei Paulus: Studien zur Struktur und zum Bedeutungsgehalt des paulinischen Rechtfertigungsbegriffs (2d ed.; NTAbh 3; Münster: Aschendorff, 1967); Ziesler, Righteousness in Paul; Mark A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (NovTSup 68; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992); Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification (New Studies in Biblical Theology 9; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000); Michael Bird, The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification, and the New Perspective (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2007).
25. So John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (2 vols.; NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, 1965), 2:48-49; Cranfield, Romans, 2:515; Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Lexical Semantics of the Greek New Testament: A Supplement to the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (SBLRBS 25; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 99. Similarly Adolf Schlatter, The Theology of the Apostles (trans. Andreas J. Köstenberger; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 235 (cf. Hans-Martin Rieger, Adolf Schlatters Rechtfertigungslehre und die Möglichkeit ökumenischer Verständigung [AzTh 92; Stuttgart: Calwer, 2000], though Rieger rarely integrates Rom 10:3 into his discussion).
26. See John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (ed. and trans. John Owen; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 383; Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 38, 149; Schlatter, Theology of the Apostles, 217, 279.
27. Brice L. Martin, Christ and the Law in Paul (NovTSup 62; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), 138. Similarly Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New, 390, 399. Contra Robert Badenas, who writes that Israel’s refusal to submit “cannot mean anything but Israel’s rejection of Christ” (Christ the End of the Law: Romans 10.4 in Pauline Perspective [JSNTSup 10; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1985], 110); similarly Robert B. Sloan, “Paul and the Law: Why the Law Cannot Save,” NovT 33 (1991): 56-60. A focus on Israel’s christological error here ought not to cause neglect of a concomitant anthropological error.
28. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (ed. John Bolt; trans. John Vriend; 4 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003 2008), 4:209, 211; cf. 185; Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (trans. John R. de Witt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 163; Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie und Evangelium: Gesammelte Aufsätze (WUNT 146; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 45; Stuhlmacher, Gerechtigkeit Gottes, 100; Lübking, Paulus und Israel, 84; Michael Theobald, “Paulus und Polykarp an die Philipper: Schlaglichter auf die frühe Rezeption des Basissatzes von der Rechtfertigung,” in Lutherische und Neues Paulusperspektive, 359-60. Contra Douglas A. Campbell, who reads the “righteousness of faith” in 9:30-32 as Jesus’ “fidelity” despite acknowledging that it is “human trust” in 9:33b; 10:9, 10, 11, 14, 16, and 17 (The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009], 783).
29. Some go too far, however, in associating Christ and righteous living, identifying Christ as the righteous one of Rom 1:17 (Desta Heliso, Pistis and the Righteous One: A Study of Romans 1:17 against the Background of Scripture and Second Temple Jewish Literature [WUNT 2/235; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007], 120-21, 243-54; J. R. Daniel Kirk, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 47-48).
30. See Ridderbos, Paul, 163-64; Karin Finsterbusch, Die Thora als Lebensweisung für Heidenchristen: Studien zur Bedeutung der Thora für die paulinische Ethik (SUNT 20; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 79-80; Moo, Romans, 632-34; Bird, Saving Righteousness, 12-18.
31. Paul, 161-74, 236-37.
32. So Anders Nygren, Commentary on Romans (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1949), 378-79; C. K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans (BNTC; London: Black, 1957), 196; Gottlob Schrenk, “δικαιοσύνη,” in TDNT 2:203; Hans Conzelmann, An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 218-20; Ridderbos, Paul, 171; Cranfield, Romans, 2:514-15; Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 110; Karl F. Ulrichs, Christusglaube: Studien zum Syntagmaπίστις Χριστοῦund zum paulinischen Verständnis von Glaube und Rechtfertigung (WUNT 2/227; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 233.
33. See, e.g., Dunn, Theology of Paul, 340-44; Dunn, New Perspective, 2-4, 369-71; Dunn, New Testament Theology, 76-77.
34. Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 42-45; Seifrid, “Paul’s Use of Righteousness Language Against Its Hellenistic Background,” in The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (vol. 1 of Justification and Variegated Nomism; ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid; 2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 42-44. Similarly Schlatter, Theology of the Apostles, 229.
35. Ernst Käsemann, “‘The Righteousness of God’ in Paul,” in New Testament Questions of Today (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 168-82; cf. the extensive study by Paul F. M. Zahl, Die Rechtfertigungslehre Ernst Käsemanns (Calwer Theologische Monographien, Reihe B: Systematische Theologie und Kirchengeschichte 13; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1996). Similar to Käsemann is Stuhlmacher (e.g., Biblische Theologie und Evangelium, 28).
36. Karl Barth strikes out on his own and defines God’s righteousness here as his freedom (The Epistle to the Romans [trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns; London: Oxford University Press, 1933], 373).
37. Cf. BDAG 482-83.
38. E.g., Jewett, Romans, 617.
39. See E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977), 75, 422.
40. Theobald, “Paulus und Polykarp,” 360; Haacker, Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer (THKNT; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlaganstalt, 1999), 205; reiterated in Haacker, “Verdienste und Grenzen der ‘neuen Perspektive’ der Paulus-Auslegung,” in Lutherische und Neues Paulusperspektive, 9.
41. E.g., George E. Howard, “Christ the End of the Law: The Meaning of Romans 10:4ff,” JBL 88 (1969): 336; E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1983), 38; Lloyd Gaston, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987), 129, 141-42, 178; Bruce W. Longenecker, Eschatology and the Covenant: A Comparison of 4 Ezra and Romans 1-11 (JSNTSup 57; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 218-19; Don B. Garlington, Faith, Obedience, and Perseverance: Aspects of Paul’s Letter to the Romans (WUNT 79; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 62-63; Daniel J-S Chae, Paul as Apostle to the Gentiles: His Apostolic Self-Awareness and Its Influence on the Soteriological Argument in Romans (Paternoster Biblical and Theological Monographs; Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster, 1997), 241; Terence L. Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 258, 284; N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 108, 130-31; Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 47; Wright, Justification, 244 (cf. 150); Jean-Noël Aletti, Israël et la loi dans la lettre aux Romains (LD 173; Paris: Cerf, 1998), 210-11; Aletti, Comment Dieu est-il juste?, 115-16, 118; Dunn, Romans, 2:587-88; Dunn, New Perspective, 11, 203, 373, 388 n. 24; Bekken, Word Is Near You, 164; Jewett, Romans, 618.
42. E.g., Calvin, Romans, 383; Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies” (Entry Nos. 501-832) (vol. 18 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. Ava Chamberlain; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 164-66; Peter Stuhlmacher, Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of Justification: A Challenge to the New Perspective (trans. Daniel P. Bailey; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2001), 43; Stuhlmacher, Gerechtigkeit Gottes, 92-93; Ziesler, Righteousness in Paul, 206; Heinrich Schlier, Der Römerbrief: Kommentar (HTKNT 6; Leipzig: St. Benno, 1978), 310; Cranfield, Romans, 2:505, 515; Kuss, Römerbrief, 3:748; Seyoon Kim, Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 75-81; Hofius, “‘All Israel Will Be Saved,’” 26; Theobald, Römerbrief, 283; Theobald, “Paulus und Polykarp,” 359-60; Moo, Romans, 631, 634-35; Klaus Haacker, Paulus: Der Werdegang eines Apostels (SBS 171; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1997), 66; Florian Wilk, Die Bedeutung des Jesajabuches für Paulus (FRLANT 179; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 398; Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 543-44; Schlatter, Theology of the Apostles, 235; Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 156; Pate, Reverse of the Curse, 247-48; Das, Paul, the Law, and the Covenant, 241; Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New, 284-85, 311-13, 399; cf. 328-30; C. K. Barrett, On Paul: Aspects of His Life, Work, and Influence in the Early Church (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 146; Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, 313.
43. Simon J. Gathercole, Where Is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1-5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 228.
44. Perspectives Old and New, 266.
45. Theobald, “Paulus und Polykarp,” 359-60; Meyer, End of the Law, 223; contra Udoh, “Paul’s Views on the Law,” 224; Dunn, New Perspective, 483. Ulrichs notes that in both Phil 3:9 and Rom 10:2 Paul speaks of having (ἔχω), either righteousness or zeal (noting ἔχω also in Rom 4:2, which speaks of boasting before God), though it would be easy to overstate the significance of a common word such as ἔχω (Christusglaube, 236-37).
46. Seifrid, “Romans,” 653.
47. Bekken, Word Is Near You, 167-68.
48. For a recent detailed exposition see ibid., 153-218.
49. Romans, 650-51.
50. Contra Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 58.
51. See Adolf Schlatter, Romans: The Righteousness of God (trans. Siegfried S. Schatzmann; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), 213; J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 9; J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2003), 187-88. Contra Moo, who reads Israel’s ignorance as “mainly salvation-historical” (Romans, 618; also 619 n. 12); similarly Haacker, Paulus, 103. This is true but incomplete; Israel has failed not only to see Christ as salvation-historically climactic but also to understand the gift-nature of God’s righteousness.
52. See Barth’s connection of Rom 10:2 with 1 Tim 1:13 in Church Dogmatics, IV/3 (trans. G. W. Bromiley; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1061), 200; cf. Haacker, Paulus, 78.
53. Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 131; Kim, Paul and the New Perspective, 112; Finny Philip, The Origins of Pauline Pneumatology: The Eschatological Bestowal of the Spirit upon Gentiles in Judaism and in the Early Development of Paul’s Theology (WUNT 2/194; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 172 n. 26.
54. Israël et la loi, 207; emphasis added.
55. Cf. Roland Bergmeier, Das Gesetz im Römerbrief und andere Studien zum Neuen Testament (WUNT 121; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 1; cf. 77.
56. However edifying and appropriate it may have been to his generation, therefore, Barth’s application to the Christian church of Israel’s zeal for God misses the concrete ethnic circumscription of this zeal, despite the propriety of Barth’s identification within the church of the same root error that Paul detects in Israel (Romans, 371-72).
57. Romans, 2:595; cf. Dunn, Partings of the Ways, 121-22.
58. Dunn, New Perspective, 12.
59. Johnson, “Romans 9-11: The Faithfulness and Impartiality of God,” in Pauline Theology, Vol. 3: Romans (ed. David M. Hay and E. Elizabeth Johnson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 227; Don B. Garlington, “The Obedience of Faith”: A Pauline Phrase in Historical Context (WUNT 2/38; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 247; Garlington, Faith, Obedience, and Perseverance, 65-67; Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 25-37; Wright, Justification, 244.
60. Jewett’s otherwise strong analysis of Rom 10:2 neglects the ethnic dimension of this zeal (“The Basic Human Dilemma: Weakness or Zealous Violence? Romans 7:7-25 and 10:1-18,” ExA 13 [1997]: 102-4); similarly Smiles, “Concept of ‘Zeal,’” 282-99.
61. Rightly Lauri Thurén, Derhetorizing Paul: A Dynamic Perspective on Pauline Theology and the Law (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000), 153; Smiles, “Concept of ‘Zeal,’” 292-97. Cf. Westerholm, “Paul and the Law,” 227-31.
62. Contra Badenas (End of the Law, 109) and Pate (Reverse of the Curse, 246), who read Israel’s error here as refusal to obey; similarly Victor Paul Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968), 185; cf. 144; rightly Johannes Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (trans. Frank Clarke; Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1959), 149; Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, 324.
63. Gottes Ich und Israel, 70-71; also 62; likewise Prigent, Romains, 137; Ridderbos, Paul, 140. Jürgen Becker hints at this distinction between Rom 2 and 10 but does not draw it out (Paul: Apostle to the Gentiles [trans. O. C. Dean, Jr.; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1993], 359).
64. Gottes Ich und Israel, 71.
65. St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: A Pastoral Commentary (Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008), 256.
66. Vos, “Alleged Legalism,” 390-99; cf. Vos, “The Theology of Paul,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 357-58; Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Vol. 1, Grundlegung von Jesus zu Paulus (3d ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), 277; Schlier, Römerbrief, 307; Wilckens, Römer, 2:213-14.
67. See the helpful comments in this regard in Byrne, Sons of God, 230-31.
68. Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, in The Great Awakening (vol. 4 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. C. C. Goen; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), 460.
69. See Kuss, Römerbrief, 3:749-50; Jörg Frey, “Die paulinische Antithese von ‘Fleisch’ und ‘Geist’ und die palästinisch-jüdische Weisheitstradition,” ZNW 90 (1999): 74; Kim, Paul and the New Perspective, 156.
70. Theology of the Apostles, 102.