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  • From: "W.S. Campbell" <WS.Campbell AT lamp.ac.uk>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Romans 10:1-4
  • Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 12:26:18 +0100


The discussion about knowing or understanding God's ways is explicit in Rom
10:19-21; note that the issue as to whether or not Israel has heard is
answered but whether or not she has understood seems to be left open at
this point -God's hands are stretched out still.Note also the verbs used
here and in 10:3.Th.Zahn, Der Brief des Paulus an die Roemer. 3.Aufl.,
Leipzig 1925,(pp.491f.) claims that the issue is not so much to do with
Israel's unbelief as with the order of events in the divine economy of
salvation; he takes the 'first' with the preceding clause ie did "Israel
not believe first ?" Leenhardt says of Zahn's interpretation, "Grammar
supports this but the meaning loses",(Romans p.275).There is a good
discussion of this issue in J.Munck, Christ and Israel, Philadelphia 1967.



At 14:40 02/04/00 PDT, you wrote:
>I mentioned earlier that one of the differences between Rom 10 and Jeremiah
>8 is that Jer. speaks of God's ways and Rom. uses the phrase God's justice
>or righteousness, but that the words aren't very different, since they are
>used somewhat synonymously a few times in the OT.
>
>However, there is a difference, and I think it deserves some consideration.
>The OT sometimes says that people don't know God. Jeremiah says that they
>don't know his ways. These are pretty general terms: people don't know or
>understand him or what he does. Paul uses a more restricted term, justice.
>It seems that he could just as well have used another term like goodness
>since all that God is and does is good. But he doesn't. Perhaps he is
>speaking of God's justice because that is the particular point he is making.
>
>It wasn't uncommon in the OT for God to be questioned about the "rightness"
>of what he was doing: Jer 12:1 "Yet I would speak with you about your
>justice...." Jer 14:9 "Why are you like a man taken by surprise?" Ezek 18
>and Hab 1:2;2:1 "And I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me."
>
>God's justice is also an issue in Rom. 9:14 "There is no injustice with God
>is there?" His justice was questioned because so much of what was happening
>didn't seem to fit with what the Jew understood the OT to mean. Paul seems
>often in Rom to be explaining or defending God. For example, it's not what
>you know but what you do that delivers from judgment because God is
>impartial. It's inner circumcision that makes a true Jew. It's Abraham's
>faith that God regarded as good. It's the promised ones that God regards as
>"the seed."
>
>Perhaps the Jews didn't understand God's righteousness as they should have.
>God didn't want obedience just in certain things, but he wanted them to do
>everything that he said, including trusting in the rock that would make men
>stumble.
>
>John C. Wilking
>
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Dr. William S. Campbell
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Wales, Lampeter
Lampeter
Dyfed
SA48 7ED

Tel: 01570 424708 x415
Fax: 01570 423641




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