Sanders argued that Judaism at the time of Paul was “a religion of grace, with human obedience understood as a response to that grace.”12 Accordingly, he felt that “obedience maintains one’s position in the covenant, but does not earn God’s grace as such. It simply keeps an individual in the group which is the recipient of God’s grace.”13 God’s covenant to Israel was given in grace, and “doing the law” earmarked the way of life within the covenant,