NT Text: Romans 3:30
OT Source(s):
Source: N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (Eerdmans, 2008)
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment
Anchor Text: Deut 6:4-5 — The Shema
Significance: Paul makes the Shema the engine of his argument for justification by faith for Jew and Gentile alike: "since there is only one God (εἷς ὁ θεός), who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith." The logic is purely monotheistic — because God is one, He cannot be the God of the Jews only; the oneness of God entails one way of salvation for all peoples (cf. 3:29). Paul thus draws out of the Shema a universal implication that was always latent: the God who is one is the God of all the earth, and the unity of humanity under one Creator demands a single justifying righteousness received by faith. What Deut 6:4 confessed against the many gods of the nations, Paul presses toward the inclusion of the nations: the same one God justifies circumcised and uncircumcised by the same faith. The telos: the Shema's "the LORD is one" is good news for the Gentile — there is not one God for the insider and another for the outsider, but one God who in Christ has opened the same righteousness to all, so that the oneness of God becomes the ground of a shared, blood-bought hope and the dissolving of every barrier at the cross.