Paul: Servant of the New Covenant

Book excerpt: Taking 2 Cor 3:6 as its starting point, the new and updated essays here assembled investigate the key passages in Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians in which the covenant content and eschatological context of Paul's theology interpret one another. Developed over thirty years, Scott Hafemann's close reading of Paul's arguments, with an eye toward their OT/Jewish milieu, also advances the larger thesis that the various Israel/church, works/faith, and justification/judgment polarities in Paul's thinking do not represent a material contrast between a "law-way" and a "gospel-way" of relating to God. Rather, they epitomize an eschatological contrast between the character of God's people within the two eras of salvation history in which, by virtue of the Messiah and the Spirit, the Torah of the "old covenant" is now being kept in the "new."