One of the staples of NPP discussion with regard to Second Temple Judaism is that, contrary to the OPP, the first-century Jews were not merit-legalists, but that rather they adhered to a religion of grace. In the set-up of the problem, according to many NPP advocates, we are not told that the first century Jews were “guilty of merit-legalism” but rather that they were “actually guilty of other horrific sins against God.”
So the issue is not really whether it would be acknowledged that their undue adherence to “boundary markers” was a sin. I believe that at least the evangelical wing of the NPP (represented by men like Wright) would acknowledge that it was a sin. But what kind of sin? At what level?
I have written about this elsewhere, but last year I asked N.T. Wright to distinguish between the “blamelessness” of Zecharias and Elisabeth (Luke 1:6) and the “blamelessness” of Saul of Tarsus (Phil. 3:6). I asked him what Zecharias would have thought of Saul had the two been privileged to meet. He acknowledged that Zecharias would have thought Saul a dangerous hothead, and I know that Wright does not approve of that hotheadedness, thinking it sinful at some level, in some degree. But, at the root, Wright still takes the use of the word blameless in the two instances in roughly the same way, as belonging to the same universe.
But here is the problem. In the NPP discussion, the polemical voltage (against whatever the problem of the Pharisees was) never appears to reach New Testament levels. It never even comes close. Wright takes Saul’s profession of legal blamelessness at face value, thinking that he was of course a sinner in certain areas, just as Zecharias was. And Wright believes that Zecharias had more of his act together than Saul did. But in his view, they were both “blameless” members of the covenant people, not meaning by this sinless perfection, but rather meaning some form of covenant faithfulness.
Now I grant that Zecharias was a sinner, needing forgiveness. Yet I take Luke’s record of his blamelessness straight on, taking it to mean that Zecharias was a faithful covenant member, honestly availing himself of the means provided for sins within the covenant arrangement. But in my view, Saul was in a difference realm entirely. Saul was a flaming hypocrite before his conversion, and not like Zecharias at all. Before Christ came, had Zecharias and Saul been hit by the same truck, Zecharias would have been saved and Saul lost. This would have happened on the same principles that lead us to believe that David was saved and Korah was lost.
This is not an obscure point. Saul tells us this in a number of places, including in this passage of Philippians under discussion. He is clearly mocking himself, because right before he tells us of his so-called “blamelessness,” he identifies the people who currently think just like he used to think as dogs, as evil workers, as mutilators of the flesh (Phil. 3:2). Is he wanting us to believe that he was a blameless dog, a blameless evil worker, a blameless mutilator of the Abrahmic sign?
I believe it was Tolstoy who characterized the difference between revolutionary violence and reactionary violence as being the difference between dogshit and catshit. Borrowing the metaphor, and acknowledging that Saul used it first in Philippians, we have to acknowledge how strongly Saul felt about this point after his conversion. Many are currently trying to resurrect his old way of life as “not that bad,” or being “at bottom, a religion of grace,” while what they are trying to resuscitate is dismissed by Saul in the next breath after his so-called “blamelessness” as being so much dogshit (skubalon). Do I speak too strongly? Is this too crass? No, it is good example of how our petty pietisms about vulgarity can get in the way of the gospel. This is the divinely inspired assessment (Phil. 3:8). And I grant that some Lutheran-influenced advocates of the OPP may been genuinely inadequate in their abilities to distinguish between light brown and dark brown. But at least they knew the genus.
So I cheerfully grant that the Pharisees were not merit legalists. They were a different kind of legalist. And what they offered up to God to get Him to receive them was a different kind of shit than the medieval shit.