One of Paul’s purposes in Romans is to establish that the community of God’s people is marked out by nothing other than faith in Jesus Christ. In order to affirm faith as the sole criterion, Paul must, conversely, deny all others. The main target of his attack is the law, or ‘works of law’–Paul’s shorthand symbol for Jewish covenantalism–which he disqualifies altogether from consideration in this regard. But by denying the salvific centrality of the law, Paul endangers the centrality of the people of the law, whom God had placed in the centre of salvation history. [SS]