If Jesus teaches Jewish hearers in John 8 that belief which saves from dying in sins must be expressed by abiding in his word, then it would create an ethnic boundary of a certain kind if Paul later taught that Gentiles could be saved by a different, obedience-free form of faith. That would mean there were two gospels operating simultaneously: one demanding persevering discipleship from Jews, another requiring only belief from Gentiles. The New Testament itself explicitly rejects that possibility.
Paul is adamant that there is one gospel for Jew and Gentile alike. “There is no distinction,” he says, because “the same Lord is Lord of all” (Romans 10:12). The unity he insists on is not merely that Jews and Gentiles are saved in the same way abstractly, but that they are brought under the same lordship. If Jesus is Lord, then allegiance to him cannot mean one thing for Jews and another for Gentiles. A divided standard of discipleship would undermine Paul’s claim that Gentiles are fellow heirs and members of the same body.
This is why Paul’s rejection of “works of the law” cannot mean a rejection of obedience to Jesus’ teaching. The ethnic boundary Paul dismantles is the requirement that Gentiles adopt Jewish identity markers in order to belong to God’s people. What replaces that boundary is not a lower moral or discipleship standard, but a new, shared identity defined by union with Christ and life in the Spirit. Both Jews and Gentiles are called to die to sin, to walk in newness of life, and to live under the “law of Christ.”
Seen this way, John 8 and Paul’s letters converge rather than diverge. Jesus defines true discipleship without reference to ethnicity, and Paul applies that same reality across ethnic lines by removing Torah as the gatekeeper while retaining obedience as the fruit and expression of faith. To suggest that Gentiles are exempt from holding to Jesus’ teaching would not only contradict Jesus’ words, but would reintroduce a deeper and more troubling division than the one Paul labors so hard to abolish.
AI wording prompted by Stephen D Green
