The Two-Hundred-Sixty-Eighth (Paul's "Confusion" Made Clear)

Last week, we looked at how the people of Israel entered into a marriage covenant with YHWH at Mount Sinai. We saw the fire, the smoke, and the voice that shook creation when the Almighty descended to seal His marriage contract, His ketubah, with His people. That moment, when Israel said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8), became the foundation upon which every later covenant stands.

But when we reach Paul’s letters, especially to the churches in Rome and Galatia, many of us have trouble understanding exactly what he was talking about. The language of law (nomos) and grace (charis), of faith and works, of old and new, has left generations of believers divided. Some imagine that Paul overturned the very covenant God made with Israel, others claim he merely redefined it. And yet, when we read Paul through the lens of that Sinai marriage, the confusion dissolves. What seemed contradictory suddenly becomes crystal clear.

Paul was not writing as a Greek philosopher dismantling the Torah but as a Hebrew bridegroom’s herald explaining what had happened when Messiah, the Husband Himself, came in the flesh, died, and rose. The Torah, given at Sinai, functioned as the written covenant vows between YHWH and His bride. When Israel broke them through idolatry, she violated the ketubah and fell under the curse of adultery (Jeremiah 3:8). According to that covenant, death was the only lawful release from the marriage bond (Romans 7:2-3). So when Messiah came, He bore in Himself the consequence of that broken covenant. In dying, He dissolved the binding of the first marriage, not by abolishing righteousness but by satisfying its legal requirement.

This is the meaning behind Paul’s words: “You also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead” (Romans 7:4). The Greek phrase dia tou sōmatos tou Christou (“through the body of Christ”) points directly to covenant death. In Him, the old marriage ended, in His resurrection, the new marriage began. The Law (nomos) was never evil, it was the terms of the covenant.  But once its penalty was paid, a new covenant could begin with a resurrected people no longer bound to the condemnation of the first.

That is why Paul can say in the same breath, “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12), yet also, “We are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive” (Romans 7:6). The difference is not moral but relational: the covenant partner has changed. The bride who once stood trembling at Sinai has been born again by the Spirit and united to her Bridegroom in grace.

When Paul writes to the church in Galatia, his tone grows urgent. The believers there had begun returning to the old covenant system for justification and righteousness rather than relying on their faith. He warns them tenderly but firmly: “My little children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you…” (Galatians 4:19). The imagery is not of cold legal debate but of covenant intimacy. He contrasts two covenants using the story of Hagar and Sarah: one representing bondage to sin under the old marriage contract, the other representing the freedom from death and a new marriage of love (Galatians 4:24-26). “Jerusalem above,” Paul says, “is free, and she is our mother.” This is a reference to scriptural prophecy where Israel was considered the daughter of Jerusalem, and Paul is making the parallel that the spiritual, heavenly Jerusalem is the mother of the faithful and obedient Israel in the new marriage covenant.  The covenant that believers today are in.

To the Galatians, the issue was never whether obedience mattered. The question was, to which covenant do you belong? The Torah’s written code could expose sin but could not cleanse the heart, it was a mirror reflecting the bride’s unfaithfulness. The new covenant, written by the Spirit upon our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:3), gives what the old could only demand: a faithful heart. Thus, when Paul says we are “not under the law but under grace” (Romans 6:14), he is not freeing us from obedience but from condemnation. The Husband Himself now dwells within His bride, empowering her to walk in holiness (hagiasmos), not as a servant under compulsion but as a wife in love.

Paul’s words in Galatians 5 become radiant in this light: “For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope… For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:5-6) Faith working through love is the language of marriage. The Greek pistis di’ agapēs energoumenē carries the sense of a faith energized, made alive, by covenant love. It is no longer external conformity but internal unity, the oneness Yeshua prayed for when He said, “I in them and You in Me” (John 17:23).

In both letters, Paul’s reasoning is deeply Hebraic. He draws from the prophets who spoke of Israel’s unfaithfulness and YHWH’s promise to woo her back: “I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in loving devotion (chesed) and in compassion” (Hosea 2:19). The same covenant vocabulary flows through his Greek. When he uses charis (grace), it does not mean leniency but covenant favor, when he uses pistis (faith), it means loyal trust, when he uses dikaiosynē (righteousness), it means covenant fidelity. Paul is a Hebrew apostle describing Hebrew marriage in Greek words.

That is why Romans 11 climaxes with the imagery of the olive tree: one root, many branches, all nourished by the same covenant life. Some were broken off for unbelief, others grafted in by faith, but the tree itself was never replaced (Romans 11:17-18). The Husband did not abandon Israel, He redeemed her. Through Yeshua, the promises given to Abraham have now embraced every nation, just as the prophets foretold. The "Gentiles" are not a different bride, they are estranged children returning to the same household through the same covenant mercy.

And so the "confusion" with Paul’s wording melts away in this new understanding. The law reveals the Husband’s character and grace reveals His heart. Faith unites the two. When we read his words as courtroom arguments divorced from covenant relationship, they seem contradictory. But when we remember that he is writing as a witness of the renewed marriage between God and His people, every verse becomes clear and aligns with YHWH's plan for the redemption of the bride that stood at Mount Sinai.  

The question for us, then, is not whether we will live under law or grace, but whether we will live as the faithful bride who keeps her vows out of love. The same Spirit who wrote the covenant in stone now writes it in our hearts. And through that Spirit, we hear again the familiar voice from the mountain, not in thunder but within us, saying, “I will be your God, and you will be My people.” (2 Corinthians 6:16)

What would change in our lives today if we stopped trying to “balance” law and grace, and instead saw both as the heartbeat of one faithful Husband who has never stopped loving His bride?  Think about that as you go through this week.  Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!