Paul's Attention to Israel in Romans - Research Paper Example

Introduction In the book of Romans, Apostle Paul explains the apparent mystery of Israel. We learn that God has temporarily set Israel aside because of her unbelief. Many scholars have viewed Romans as something akin to Paul's last will and testament. However, Fitzmeyer argues that such a position is weak due to lack of any teachings on eschatology, ecclesiology or the Eucharist. Whereas Paul has explained the human side of the rejection of the Jews by God because of their disobedience, the mystery is that there is another side to this phenomena; a divine side. In chapters 9, 10 and 11, Paul the Apostle deals at length with the problem of where Israel fits in the program of God. He looks at Israel’s past, present and future. In these three remarkable chapters, Paul carefully distinguishes between the church and Israel where he explains that the church, which includes believing Jews and Gentiles alike, is called the body of Christ, which the nation of Israel never is. This nation consists only of Jews, most of whom are unbelieving and do not give credence to their own Scriptures. Apostle Paul reveals how God deals with both the Jews and the Gentiles on an individual basis. He also reveals Israel’s future conversion and glory and warns the Gentiles that like Israel, God could also cut them off. In addition, Paul explains Israel’s blindness stating that the length of their blindness is a mystery. In Chapter 9, Paul is in great sorrow for his fellow Israelites because they have rejected Christ, which has left them blinded and without a deliverer. However, he tries to abstain from all bitterness against them that he might not infuriate them. On the other hand, he concedes to them nothing to the injury of the gospel – he allows to them their privileges in such a way as not to detract anything from Christ. He explains how God had favoured Israel with a privileged status in his redemptive program - Israel was the seed of Abraham and heir of God's covenant of grace bound by oath, (Baugh, para3). To Israel belong the adoption, the covenants, the promises, the glory, the worship, the giving of the law and the patriarchs. The human ancestry of Christ, who is the Messiah and God overall, is also traced from Israel. However, in their unbelief, the Israelites who pursued a law of righteousness have not attained it for they pursued it as if it were by works. Paul candidly teaches divine election and predestination of the Jews to salvation and the hardening of whom God wills. He shows how the nation of Israel was glorious, why she was cut off and why the Gentiles have attained righteousness. Paul gives a description of some of these differences. He lists certain advantages and peculiarities that the unbelieving Jews still have and which can never be set aside or lost through the faithfulness of God. However, God has set aside the Israelites from their favoured position and He has turned to the Gentile world and has begun to take in Gentiles, unbelievers, pagans among others, who know not all the great things that God had taught Israel in the Old Testament. Paul foresees an objection, which that if the Jews were cast off, the promise of God to them that he would be their God would become void, and the preaching of the Gospel of Christ to them of no effect. He prevents it by distinguishing between the elect of God among the Israelites on whom the promise and preaching of the word had effect, and those that were not and according to the purpose of God He rejected them. To prove this, he gives the analogy of Isaac and Ishmael, the 2 sons of Abraham who were both Abraham’s seed yet one was a child of promise, and the other a child of the flesh. These two were symbolic of the children of the promise and the children of the flesh among the Israelites. He further confirms this through Jacob and Esau, who though twins; one was in the favour of God and the other was not. This was owing to the sovereign will of God in election, not to works, which he proves by making it clear that none had done good or evil (Warren, para4-6) Paul also foresees another objection that God must be guilty of unrighteousness if He loves one and hates another, both being in equal circumstances, as Jacob and Esau were. To this, he answers by detesting such a charge against God and by producing testimonies out of the torah, proving both election and reprobation as being not of the works of men, but of God’s will. He also proves that the choice of men to salvation is not according to the will of man, but according to the grace and love of God and that God having mercy on one and hardening another are according to His sovereign will and pleasure. Another objection that rises up is that if it is God who hardens men, He has no reason to find fault with them that are hardened in sin because they are according to his will, which no man can resist and in sinning fulfill it. This objection implies that God is cruel and acts unreasonably, and in response, Paul starts by reminding the objector that he was a man and a mere creature that started it against God. He also observes the folly and madness of replying against God and the farce of such an undertaking considering that one is a creature and the other the Creator. He also instances in the case of the potter who has control over his clay and can form it in whichever shape and use it as he pleases. Paul goes on pointing at God’s patience towards them which frees Him from the charge of cruelty. Paul makes it clear that it is the will of God that the Gentiles should be called among the Jews through His free and distinguishing grace and that they have been justified by the righteousness of Christ so that such who were far off from it and did not seek after it should enjoy it. Israel stumbled at Christ and rejected him and his righteousness and thereby sought after a wrong righteousness in a wrong way. Though Paul read the law in the Old Testament and was not ignorant of its central place in the life of Israel, some people say that he appears to leave it almost no place. However, he did not reject the entire Jewish covenant but only the notion that the Law provides identity markers that determine who can lay claim to the salvation offered by God (Koperski, p148). The Apostle also objects to the Israelite’s use of this Law to gain acceptance with God, that is justification by works. These people were piling up merits to buy their way to God's favour and to heaven. Paul wishes to make the Israelites understand that the Law cannot save and that God gives His favour freely without any deserving on their part, in election and covenant. The Law was to show them how to live within the covenant in order to maintain their relation to Yahweh, not to create it (Ziesler, p103). To ensure that saved Gentiles do not look down on the Israelite because of their failure, Paul makes them understand that the Israelites are the natural branches of an olive tree and have been broken off due to unbelief and that the Gentiles are a wild branch grafted into the olive tree through a wild olive shoot and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, which supports them. In other words, branches were broken off so that God could graft the Gentiles in through faith. He warns the Gentiles against any form of arrogance arguing that if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare them either if they sin and rebel against Him. Paul gives hope for the Israelites that if they do not persist in unbelief, God will readily graft them back into their own olive tree because they still possess the root that God himself had given to them. The olive tree represents God's grace, goodness and favour. As a branch of this tree, a Christian is under the protection of the tree but if he or she falls back into unbelief, God would cut him or her off. It is important to note that God never rejected the trunk and the vine's roots, which are a symbol of source of life, but just some of the branches. This means that the kingdom of God is still to a large extent an Israelite Kingdom. The kingdom is still rooted in the Patriarchs, the twelve tribes, the teachings and promises, the prophets, the house of David, and Christ who is the most important of all Israelites. Paul also lets the Gentiles in on a divine mystery that was previously unknown, which is the hardening of Israel (Baugh, para2). This is an act of God whereby in His sovereignty, He makes their hearts dull, insensitive and obstinate. Israel is therefore unable to turn to God. This is another warning to the Gentiles of the severity of God, which ensures that they remain humble as they evaluate Israel’s rebellion. Paul goes on describing the nature and substance of this mystery so that the Gentiles can refrain from pride and instead worship God. He explains that Israel's hardening by God was not known in the Old Testament, but it was only revealed to the apostles after the resurrection of Christ. Paul expresses aspects of this mystery that form the basis for his urge to the Gentiles to be humble. To begin with, Israel’s hardening is partial meaning that it is not on every person in Israel but only on the nation as a whole. Not all Israel has been hardened but only a certain number of Jews, enough to be called the nation, were hardened. Through Paul's ministry, many Jews had come to Christ and indeed this was the divine plan, but the nation as a whole rejected God and His Messiah. Another aspect of this mystery is that it is temporary. This means that Israel’s hardening will continue only until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Here, the term fullness refers to the numbers of Gentiles who God will save or add to make up the total elect. A better view of this term is that it suggests the blessings to come to the Gentiles and the world as a whole, which in turn will even be super abounded by the fullness of Israel when God will turn back and deal with Israel as a nation and save them spiritually. Paul makes it clear that Israelites did not stumble in order that they might fall. Although the stumbling led to rejection and judgment in some generations of Israel, the final rejection and judgment on the people as a whole was not the purpose of God. Apart from the merciful purpose of God of bringing salvation and hence riches to the Gentiles, He had other purposes in hardening the Israelites. For instance, God wanted to make Israelites jealous of the Gentiles. God designed the hardening and trespass of Israel to bring salvation to the Gentiles and salvation to the Gentiles is designed to make Israel jealous. In doing so, God intended that Israel may return and lay claim on her Messiah and become part Christ’s Church. A further purpose, which is even greater, is that when God's mission to the Gentiles is complete and the hardening of Israel is over, what will follow is the coming of the Lord and the dead will rise, and saints will enter the kingdom of God with everlasting joy. Paul clearly indicates that as sure as Israel's hardening was God's sovereign choice, so also is her ultimate salvation and restoration. According to His time and initiative, God will fulfil His covenant with the nation as a whole by sending a Deliverer who will save all Israel. Paul says that God will most definitely fulfil His purpose for Israel because He has called her into existence through the patriarchs. First, he deals with Israel's present relation to the progress of the gospel and then speaks of God's wonderful purpose of granting mercy to all. Presently, Israel is an enemy in relation to the gospel- they are accursed and cut off from Christ but will eventually experience God's mercy. In other words, they are enemies at this time in the progress of carrying out of the gospel in the world, but in the future, this same message will save them as well. It is important to note that the Israelites are beloved for the sake of their fathers according to election. God purposed to bless Israel and to bestow His love on the fathers freely and gave them promises to which He will remain faithful since His gifts and call are irrevocable. God created and called Israel and preserved her for a special purpose and role in history, the most important of which is to bring forth the Messiah. He has also used her in many ways, which is a demonstration that He is in control of the destiny of the planet. Paul emphasizes that just as mercy has come to the Gentiles when they were disobedient, so also Israel is now disobedient in order that God may show her mercy by means of the mercy that has come to the Gentiles. Overall, Paul says that it was God's ultimate purpose to consign all to disobedience so that He might have mercy upon all. The idea of God’s confinement of all to disobedience is similar to His sovereign decision of hardening Israel and is a reflection that it does not depend on man's effort, but on Him who is all merciful (Herrick, Para4) Paul uses an example that is easy for the Jews to understand when he says that if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy. In their ritual, which they could take dough, the Jews could make a big pile of dough from the first grain harvest and the priest would take a handful of that dough at the beginning and offer it in the temple or the tabernacle service to God. If that handful offered to God at the beginning were holy, then the whole lump of dough would likewise be acceptable to God. The bible symbolically refers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who are Israel’s patriarchs, as the first fruits. God had called these men to Himself and because of their faith; God accepted them and gave them the gift of eternal life. This constituted the offering of the first fruit. Paul is simply saying that if God could accept these patriarchs and make them holy, He can also do the same with Israel as a whole. In chapter 11 of the book of Romans, Paul asserts that there is a remnant in Israel chosen by grace. He explains this using the passage about Elijah in the scripture where Elijah, thinking that the Israelites had killed the Lord’s prophets and that he was the only one left, God answered that He had reserved for Himself seven thousand who had not bowed to Baal. The remnants in Israel are the minority that believe in Christ as their Messiah and represent the true Israel in God's sight. This minority may have been small at different periods of history but it has always existed and always will. They are the first fruits and the assurance that one day, God will save the whole nation (Zeidan, para2). Paul quotes Isaiah who cries out concerning Israel saying that though their numbers were like the sand of the sea; God will only save a remnant of them. According to Paul's understanding tied to the argument for God's righteousness in upholding the promises of the covenant to Israel, the remnant comprise of the children of the promise. This brings to our attention that Israel consists of two groups – the children of the flesh and the children of the promise meaning that not all Israelites truly belong to Israel and not all of Abraham's children are his true descendants. In these two groups, the children of the promise are the ones who are the children of God and as descendants. Paul has thus denied the argument that all those who are of the physical lineage of Israel are automatically saved by being a part of that family. This implies that the new covenant does not have ties to physical families, but instead it is borne through faith. By saying that not all Israel who are of Israel, Paul means that the elect Israel and national Israel are not coextensive. God says clearly that Israel of the promise is not defined as a nation, since they are not all Israel that are of the nation Israel. The nation’s remnant is Israel. In other words, not all Israel abide in the House or Tabernacle that is Christ; therefore, they cannot truly be the Israel of God's defining. From this, we can conclude that anyone who makes the claim that all Israel as a nation will be saved or that the Israel of God is the Jewish people or the earthly ethnic nation, or that Israel of the promise is by bloodline or heritage, has directly contradicted the word of God. According to Ziesler, Paul uses the analogy of grafting new branches into an olive tree to make a critical point about the relation between the Israelites and the Christians, to maintain the continuity of the two and to stress the reliance of the Gentiles on their newly found ancient roots. He also uses it to point forward that in the end, God’s people may include those who presently believe in Christ and those who seem to have refused to be part of that people. Ziesler suggests that the figure of grafting into an old tree materially assists our comprehension of Paul’s argument in Romans. Some critics suggest that since Paul was a townsman, he had no direct knowledge of oleiculture, which makes his description a ridiculous and impossible procedure. Further they argue that if he surely knew oleiculture, then he knew that what he was talking about was a botanical nonsense and against nature. Nevertheless, analogically speaking, the impossible happens through the miraculous operation of the divine grace. Others though aware that the botanical process may not have been a total impossibility, are still reluctant to exploit it exegetically since it does not seem to express the right message about that same miraculous operation of divine grace, or because it may tend to suggest that the tree owes something to the branches. In Koperski’s text “What are they saying about Paul and the Law?” Ziesler is quoted to have interpreted Paul as having implied that faith in Christ as the criterion for righteousness excludes every other criterion, including torah obedience. To Paul, God called Israel to be His people, but this was always more than a matter of call and promise than of keeping the law. Ziesler concludes that Paul's statements about the law are problematic and difficult to reconcile with one another and that it would be rash to claim that Paul's interpretation does away with all the difficulties. His thinking is that perhaps no interpretation is likely to do away with all the difficulties and that one may be forgiven for suspecting that Paul had not managed to sort the whole matter out for himself. To him, in Romans, Paul more radically and consistently rejects the torah both as the definitive guide to life under God and also as a means of salvation than is sometimes allowed. Veronica Koperski features critics who see in Paul a rejection of the law where he states that the law leads one to believe that salvation is attainable through one's own efforts thus fostering an attitude of pride. According to Paul, the law refers to legalistic moral achievement that Christ has abolished. To some critics, for Paul, what is wrong with the Law is not legalism but that the Law is not Christ. Some scholars argue that Paul’s understanding of the Law is that it is restrictive in availing salvation only to the Jew. Davis has an interesting suggestion that Paul knowingly turns on its head the common identification of the olive tree as a symbol of Greco-Roman culture. Romans 9-11 are of great value for modern relations between Jews and Christians. It clearly brings out the fact that the Church, comprised of the followers of Jesus Christ, is the true Israel. The Gentile Christians will inherit all Israel’s promises by faith in Jesus Christ the Messiah. However, the Jews as a whole have not come into terms with this fact. They believe that they are the only ones who are entitled to God’s promises. To date, most of them do not believe that the Messiah is a part of God or Divine in any way. Furthermore, Christianity contradicts Jewish theology. For instance, while Christianity breaks the notion of Trinity into three separate beings: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Jews believe that the Lord is one. According to the scriptures, the Jews and the Gentile Christians who have become the true Jews by faith in Jesus Christ should be one. The spirit of interaction between them should be like the father to the elder brother. The opposition between Christians and the Jews is also an opposition between an attitude of human effort which is prone to pride and humble acceptance of a gift from God. Sanders and others argue that the contrast is "Through Christ versus not Through Christ". For Dunn and others, the opposition is "Particular versus Universal". Conclusion In my opinion, the Apostle Paul whose call was divine and is full of the Holy Spirit has a strong argument, which he backs up by frequently referring to the Old Testament scriptures. The three chapters of this great epistle are very important. They show Paul's treatment of the great issue of the way God deals with humanity throughout history. They are the conclusion of all Paul has stated and argued for in chapters one to eight of the book of Romans as he presents the great doctrines of man's depravity and of God's free grace. . Works Cited Baugh, S. M. God's Purpose According To Election: Paul's Argument in Romans 9. Retrieved 20th March, 2009 from: http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/etc/printer-friendly.asp?ID=423 Davies, W.D. Jewish & Pauline Studies. SPCK1984 pages 123 to 152 Fitzmeyer, J. A. Fitzmeyer's commentary on Romans. Anchor Bible series. (1993). Pages 539 to 635 Herrick, G. A Translation. Retrieved 20th March, 2009 from: http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1157 Holy bible: New Revised Standard Version. Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapters 9-11 Koperski, V. What are they saying about Paul and the Law? 2001. Paulist Press. Warren, T. The Mountain Retreat: The Israel of God, (1993). Retrieved 20th March, 2009 from: http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/eschatology/israel.shtml Ziesler, J. A. Pauline Christianity. Oxford University Press. 1990 pages 103 to 117 Zeidan, D. The Burning Bush. Retrieved 20th March, 2009 from: http://www.angelfire.com/az/rescon/BURNBUSH.html Read More