CONCLUSION Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law (Rom. 3:28-31).
The deeds of God's law do not justify fallen man.(1) This means that the work of the law, which is in every man's heart (Rom. 2:14-15), cannot redeem anyone. But neither can the Mosaic law. The Jew, no less than the Greek, was in need of saving faith. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). Through saving faith, both Jew and Greek are justified by God.
Why should there continue to be strife within the institutional church over the law of God? Paul was asking an important judicial question in this epistle. He recommended ways to end such strife: church courts (Rom. 6), the acceptance of people's differences (Rom. 13:12-14:13), and the patience of the strong regarding the weak in their mutual Christian liberty (Rom. 15:1-6).
In seeking the basis of cooperation within the church, Paul raised issues of revelation and law that applied to the relations of church members with covenant-breakers. He told church members not to take each other into civil courts run by and for covenant-breakers. He also told them that covenant-breakers cannot escape from God's revelation of Himself and the work of His law. This was a clear statement regarding the principle of natural law: it cannot be fully trusted in civil affairs. Nevertheless, as a matter of epistemology, it can be relied on by political necessity to some limited degree in a covenant-breaking social order, for there are limits on the ability of covenant-breakers to suppress the truth and act contrary to it. This is a blessing of common grace.
This common revelation of God and the work of God's law in every human heart are the biblical epistemological foundations of political and judicial assessments regarding social justice and social utility. Were it not for the image of God in man, including the work of God's law, the methodological individualist could not logically say that civil judges or voters can accurately aggregate individual utilities or values in their attempt to derive both a concept of social utility and a workable application of it to specific cases.
Social cooperation requires a shared discourse. Without this, society would disintegrate in the war of all against all. Original sin and total depravity would undermine society. God's common grace prevents this outcome. This is necessary for the fulfillment of the dominion covenant (Gen. 1:26-28; 9:1-3). Without the division of labor, there could be no fulfillment of the dominion covenant. The command was given to all men. All men are expected to do their part to fulfill it.
Romans 12 parallels I Corinthians 12. It describes the institutional church as a body. This organic metaphor for an oath-bound covenantal association can be used to make sense of the economy. While the economy is not oath-bound, it is contract-bound. Paul's organic metaphor of the body is superior to mechanical metaphors to describe the auction process that best describes the free market. The ideal of the division of labor applies to the free market, just as it does to the church. There is coordination in society through individual decision-making and contracts. The unity of the church is secured by Christ as its head. There is no head for the economy, for there is no covenantal oath to bind its participants. The market derives its coherence from the interaction of enforceable contracts. There is justice, however: civil law. This is an oath-bound covenantal organization, and Paul goes so far as to identify it as a ministry (Rom. 13:4). The free market is not autonomous. It is established through innumerable contracts made by owners of property -- families, individuals, corporations, partnerships, trusts -- who are in turn bound by civil government. There is a court of appeals outside of the free market that can settle the conflicts that are not resolvable, violence-free, within the free market. Paul did not reject the legitimacy of civil courts. He argued only that they are no place for covenant-keepers to settle their disputes. He affirmed their legitimacy in non-ecclesiastical matters.
Paul recommended social cooperation, both inside and outside of the institutional church. His argument for the work of the law in every heart can be used to justify the idea of non-Christian civil government as a default position, but Paul offered no case against theonomy as the civic ideal. It is the ideal for the church. The church is superior to the State as a source of justice, as he made plain in Romans 6. Its courts are not open to everyone; they are open only to its oath-bound members.
Cooperation is a fact of life. Without the cooperation of the modern division of labor, most people wouyld die. But most men need to believe in something to put their faith in that is higher and more personal than the free market. The same is true for their faith in providence in contrast to the survival of the biologically fittest. They want to believe in cosmic personalism. Paul says that God is sovereign over all (Rom. 9). He is the source of order. He is the source of meaning, too. Man is made in God's image, so man can understand God's providence. But men rebel and worship products of their imagination. God restrains this through His common grace, but false worship and rebellious behavior go together (Rom. 1:18-22).
Footnote:
1. It would be very hard to argue that they did not justify Jesus, whose righteousness is imputed to His people. I think this idea underlies James' affirmation that deeds do justify covenant-keepers "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only" (James 2:24). These are Jesus' works imputed to men judicially, and predestined before time began: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10).
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