Corpus-Paul

["rabbisaul" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>]

John Brand writes,

> In Tim Gallant's essay 'Paul and Torah,' he writes:
>
> "there can be no question of allowing Gentiles to come under Torah's
> yoke.  This would be to make them slaves in a covenant which not only
> was never intended for them, but further, would seal them into a
> covenant whose grace has been withdrawn."
>
> (http://www.rabbisaul.com/overview.htm)
>
> I am thinking that Tim's statement is expressive of what is
> traditionally Protestant: Torah is a covenant that has been abrogated
> so that the Jew is outside and needs to come in. This has been called
> a 'replacement theology' and appears to be what Sanders is assuming
> in his writing.
>
> Please clarify.

Not sure if John is asking me to clarify, or Mark.  But my position is 
essentially this:  Paul's great charge against Israel, in placing her "under 
Sin" alongside the Gentiles (Rom 3.9), is unbelief.  Specifically, from the 
outset of Romans, he has appealed to the prophetic witness to Israel's 
Messiah (1.2ff); by failing to believe her Messiah, Israel has been 
unfaithful with the "oracles" of God (3.2), an unfaithfulness which comes to 
its most poignant expression in Israel's judgment against Him (which, I 
believe, is the point of Paul's citation of the LXX of Ps 51.4).

In chapter 2, Paul has laid the groundwork for all of this, by standing in 
the prophetic tradition (note the echoes of Jeremiah and Isaiah in 2.17ff). 
He has argued that it is possible for a Jew to break covenant, possession of 
the law notwithstanding.  To demonstrate this, he has appealed to a handful 
of extreme sins (adultery, theft, sacrilege; Rom 2.21-22) - sins which, no 
doubt, he thought would be unusual and serious enough that his Jewish 
interlocuter would be compelled to agree with him, that even a Jew would be 
classified a covenant-breaker if he practiced such law-breaking.  (In other 
words, the frequent charge that Paul is illogical and implying that all Jews 
are guilty of sins which were in fact rare is fundamentally misguided.) 
Thus in 2.17-29, Paul shows that circumcision and possession of Torah are 
not absolute guarantees that a Jew will not be "reckoned" a Gentile (2.25); 
likewise, a Gentile who has the law written on his heart (i.e. becomes a 
recipient of the promised new covenant) will be counted as if he were 
circumcised.  In other words, a reversal of covenantal roles is possible.

The unfaithfulness Paul charges Israel with, then, is not generic 
covenant-breaking (contra common Protestant readings of Romans); it is the 
rejection of the saving reign of God in His Messiah.

What about Romans 11.11?  Dr Nanos has suggested that Paul explicitly says 
that Israel has *not* fallen.  I demur.  Paul certainly does say that Israel 
has not stumbled *so that* they should fall.  I take this to be a denial of 
purpose, but not a denial of result.

To clarify.  Paul writes:  "I say then, have they stumbled that [hina] they 
should fall?  Certainly not!"  The hina construction can denote either 
purpose or result (although I grant that the former is more common).  The 
question is whether Paul denies both.  I say that this cannot be.

Why not?  Because what immediately follows presupposes precisely that Israel 
has indeed fallen:  "But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, 
salvation has come to the Gentiles.  Now if their fall is riches for the 
world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their 
fullness!" (11.11b-12).  Paul affirms salvation and riches for the world; 
hence necessarily he affirms Israel's fall.  In truth, the language in 
11.11-12 parallels the language in chapter 5 regarding the Adamic fall. 
(Paul uses paraptoma for a singular event, which is unusual for him; 
occasionally he uses the term in the singular generically; usually he 
employs the plural.  Only in Romans 5 and 11 does he use the singular 
particularistically.)

Moreover, Paul speaks in 11.19ff of the breaking off of branches; surely it 
is not overstating the case to call this a "fall."

God's purpose is not for Israel's fall.  But what does that denial mean?  In 
the context, it means that the point of this fall was not the ultimate 
rejection of Israel.  Rather, it was life for the world, and even the 
ultimate restoration of Israel.  Paul's eschatology (which echoes that found 
elsewhere) appears to be that once Israel accepts the reign of her Messiah, 
the resurrection will occur with the renovation of all things (see 11.15). 
Hence, Israel's fall literally has meant life for the world; had Israel not 
fallen through unbelief, the Gentile world would have perished altogether. 
Thus God's pattern of sacrificing a firstborn son, and then raising him up, 
appears to hold true for Israel as well.  This, I think, is the point of Rom 
11.30-32:  the Gentiles have received mercy precisely through Israel's 
disobedience, but Israel will also obtain mercy through the same mercy which 
God has displayed to the Gentiles.

tim


Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church
(Conrad, MT)

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