Sublime

They are to hold fast to Wisdom, which is to be found in Torah, and their god will deliver them, judging the nations and exalting Israel as his people. This is substantially the same message as can be found in much apocalyptic writing.

Jehovah Tsidkenu, which means “the LORD Our Righteousness.”

Paul is not primarily talking here about the salvation of "the Jew."

The sermon—to take it for the moment as a whole—is not a mere miscellany of ethical instruction. It cannot be generalized into a set of suggestions, or even commands, on how to be ‘good’. Nor can it be turned into a guide-map for how to go to ‘heaven’ after death. It is rather, as it stands, a challenge to Israel to be Israel.

You might think of Augustine as offering a hitchhiker’s guide to the cosmos for wandering hearts.

I had stumbled, without realizing it, on a weak spot in the general structure of Christian faith as it has come to be expressed in today’s world—and, I suspect, for a lot longer than we might imagine. Here is all this material in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Why? What are we supposed to make of it all?

Torah could regulate certain aspects of human behaviour, but it could not touch the heart. That did not constitute a criticism of Torah; Torah operates in its own sphere. But when the promises of scripture were fulfilled, then the heart itself would be changed, and the supreme position of Torah would in consequence be relativized. What was at stake

Thus God taught in emblematic form that the Decalogue was foundational, its applications secondary, contextualized, and temporary.

The first and inarguable conclusion is that legalism and antinomianism are much more than doctrinal positions.