This is a humbling reminder:
[I]t was his [i.e, Paul’s] conversion on the Damascus road that enabled him to see many things in a new perspective. . . . Even though he knows full well that he came to his Christian understanding via the Damascus road experience, and not in classes on exegesis, he also argues that what he, as a Christian and an apostle, finds in the Scriptures is actually there, and the reason unconverted Jews do not see it is because “to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it take [sic] away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts” (2 Cor 3:14–15). In other words, as far as Paul is concerned, conversion to Christ removes the veil to enable the reader to see what is actually there. Judging by his passionate handling of Scripture in Galatians, and in his slightly less passionate but scarcely less intense handling of Scripture in Romans, Paul is concerned to show that the gospel he preaches has in fact actually been announced by what we now refer to as the Old Testament: the δικαιοσύνη [i.e., righteousness] he announces is that “to which the Law and the Prophets testify” (Rom 3:21).
–D. A. Carson, “Mystery and Fulfillment: Toward a More Comprehensive Paradigm of Paul’s Understanding of the Old and New,” in The Paradoxes of Paul. Vol. 2 of Justification and Variegated Nomism (ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid; Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 181; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), pp. 410–11.
John says
Ah, yes, nothing like a little “Justification and Variegated Nomism” for some early morning devotion :)