the charge involves neither (as claimed by the “old perspective”) a deficient understanding of the relationship of law and grace, nor (as claimed by the “new perspective”) ethnocentric exclusion of gentiles, but rejection of the covenant and mercy of God now fully revealed in Christ (Rom 10:5–13). The core issue in Romans 9:30–10:13 (as Sanders rightly recognized) is christological (that is, focused on the person and identity of Jesus), but the thought (as Sanders failed to recognize) is Jewish and