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Unexpected Mercy: Echoes of a Biblical Motif in Romans 9–11
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Extract
Of the many problems which trouble interpreters of Romans 9–11, none rises more massively from its pages or casts a more impenetrable shadow than the relationship between Paul's argument in 9:6–13 and his argument in 11:25–31. The issue in both passages is whether God's biblical promises to save Israel have failed (9:6, 11:29), exposing the God of Paul's gospel as untruthful (15:8) and unrighteous (3:5, 10:3). In 9:6–13 Paul denies the charge by defining Israel on the basis of God's choice rather than on the basis of national affiliation. In 11:25–32, however, he denies the charge by pointing forward to a time in which God will fulfill his promises and secure the salvation of all Israel. The problem is that these two defenses of God's faithfulness seem to contradict one another, and the defense in chapter eleven seems not only to contradict the one in chapter nine but to oppose Paul's frequent and emphatic denial in several letters, and especially in Romans, that national Israel has any soteriological advantage over the Gentiles.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1994
References
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