[There was a lot to say about Romans 9, so I had to divide the post into two. For the first half of the study, see here.]
Election and Freedom
The other week we saw that when the Bible speaks of God’s sovereign prerogative to choose, there are a few consistent themes:
- Election is about God’s grace.
- Election is corporate
- Where election language is used for specific individuals, it is vocational, rather than redemptive
- Election is not an excuse for self-satisfied spiritual laziness, but involves living a life dedicated to God’s peacemaking ways.
How does what Paul says here in Romans 9 fit into these patterns? As it turns out pretty well. Election is corporate: all of these stories about individuals are used to justify God’s faithfulness to Israel as a whole. But some individuals continue to be chosen to fulfill specific roles. Even outside of Israel, ‘not chosen’ does not mean outside the purview of God’s grace — Ishmael received similar promises to his father Abraham and Esau had a very successful life and eventually reconciled with Jacob. And with the stories of God’s renaming Israel “Not-My-People” as the Northern Kingdom was conquered and its people scattered before restoring them as “My-People,” there is a reminder that being chosen is not an excuse for entitlement. It must be lived out faithfully (Witherington 254ff). And all this is about God’s grace. The message of the passage is about God’s forbearance and patience. God has every right to choose what to do with creation, and what God chooses is mercy and grace — that grace by which we are all saved anyway (Kruse 386; Witherington 255f). As Paul Achtemeier concluded, in Romans 9:
[Paul] is not writing about the fate of each individual. He is making a statement about how God dealt with Israel, and continues to deal with it, even when it rejects his Son; namely he deals with it in mercy, even when it deserves wrath. (Romans 164f, quoted in Witherington 244 n 674)
In the broader scope of Romans, that same family-making grace is opened to Gentiles through our faithful participation ‘in Christ’. As tempting is it is in translating and interpreting Romans 9 to use language like “new people” or “true Israel,” it is critical for Paul that there is only one people. Even if ethnic Israel may have stumbled in Paul’s mind when it comes to Jesus, this is ultimately that “all might rise up by the grace of God” (Witherington 256).
Challenge
We often think about this passage being about Israel’s rejection of Jesus, but Paul never explicitly says this. Where he says his people have stumbled is in failing to accept that their own tradition is all about faith (9.30ff). But we know now that Second Temple Judaism would not have understood itself as a ‘works religion’ in the way that Luther and Calvin would come to understand the idea. And there was wide range of attitudes about the Law. These definitely include a myopic scrupulousness that could ignore the greater intention behind the Law, petty legalism, and hypocrisy, but could also include healthier attitudes. What would have been a greater stumbling block — and indeed is the theme Paul comes back to time and time again in his writings — is how faithfulness to God could be expressed outside of the Law, and therefore, how Gentiles could be considered faithful without undergoing conversion, including circumcision and following food laws. And, we have to agree that the early Christian redefinition of the Law (which the Gospels link to Jesus’ own teaching), its purpose, and relation to faithfulness was a pretty big one — a bridge too far without really good reason.
And that does bring us back to the question of Jesus and his identity as the Messiah. I often say that the Apostles, and the early Church more generally, saw the world, including their Jewish Scriptures and traditions, through ‘Christ-coloured glasses’. So great was Jesus’ impact on their lives that he became the lens through which they understood everything. But of course in order to see what they saw, you have to put those glasses on, and in order to put them on, you need to be convinced that they’ll help you to see more clearly. So let’s look at what the New Testament tells us about Jesus, and why some Jews would have been convinced he was the Messiah, but others not so much.
Messianic Expectations in Second Temple Judaism
The most important thing for Christians to understand about messianic expectation in and around the time of Jesus is that it was not just ‘one thing’. It encompassed a wide variety of beliefs and associations, some of which were contradictory. Because messianism grew up in the context of political oppression and the gap between the prophets’ visions of good rulers and their real-time fulfillments, always had a political component. The messiah was first and foremost Israel’s anointed king, who would overthrow their enemies and usher in an era of unprecedented peace, security, and wealth. But some expected this king to also be a high priest and renew Israel’s liturgical life; even more, in some quarters, this priestly sense overwhelmed the royal aspect, such that it was not a king who would also be a high priest, but a high priest who would govern the people in his priestly role. And still others emphasized the Messiah as one who would renew Israel’s relationship with the Law of Moses.
As Christians, we see Jesus in some way fulfilling all of these aspects of messianic hope: he renewed the Law by radicalizing adherence to include the thoughts and impulses not just actions, and emphasizing the traditional summary of the Law (’love of God and neighbor’) over scrupulous rule-following. He tried to renew the work of the temple by cleansing it of those who tried to profiteer off of pilgrims. And, he was the king, a rightful descendant of King David sent to usher in God’s reign, not through conquering Rome, but through conquering Israel’s greatest enemies, sin and death.
And yet, while we see Jesus in these roles, we also have to admit that he and his followers had to reinterpret and redefine them. His — and Paul’s — attitude towards the Law was to many tantamount to abandoning it altogether. He ran afoul of the priests by making dismissive comments about the temple that they interpreted to be veiled threats against it. And, not only did he consistently reject violence against Rome, but he died as an enemy of the empire without picking up a sword. This is hardly a glorious vanquishing of Israel’s enemies leading to an unprecedented reign of peace! The Messiah does not leave Israel just as politically oppressed and colonized as it was before! So even from a perspective of faith, we have to see why many Jews of Jesus and Paul’s day would have dismissed him — especially after his death.
Even Jesus’ disciples had to be re-educated about what the Messiah was to be. For example, when Peter declares Jesus to be the Messiah, he and Jesus immediately get into an argument about what the means (Mark 8.31-32).
As I’ve previously written about this:
The Messiah could do many things according to the first-century imagination, but what the Messiah categorically did not do was suffer, be rejected by his people, and die. Jesus was the Messiah, but redefined what that meant. It wasn’t Samson’s ravaging enemy armies, David’s uniting the country, Solomon’s wise rise rule, Elijah’s calling down fire from heaven, or Ezra’s zealous passion for the Temple. It was Isaiah’s Suffering Servant.
And for many, this strange new vision of what the Messiah that we as Christians celebrate was a bridge too far.
Expand
In Romans 9 Paul tackles two big issues on which Christians tend to stumble: understanding God’s faithfulness to Israel and the balance between divine sovereignty and human freedom. The interpretation that has emerged here helps us to grow in faith by highlighting that God chooses mercy and family-making. Moreover, the Challenge section reminded us that accepting Jesus as Israel’s Messiah was no clear or obvious decision. It took a lot of faith and creativity to be willing to unlearn what people thought they knew about God and God’s destiny for them. This is helpful for us by reminding us that we too need to take such an open posture when it comes to the life of faith. We all have things wrong about God, and we need to always keep our hearts and minds open lest our false certainties lead us down the wrong path.
Summary & Conclusions
The general Jewish rejection of Paul’s gospel hung over his whole ministry. And here we see that Paul took it very hard. But, as far as he was concerned, all was not lost: for God had a long history of making family out of strangers, of faithfulness despite Israel’s (and all humanity’s) unfaithfulness, and of patiently awaiting the fruition of God’s peaceable destiny for all creation.
* For full references, please see the series bibliography.
Matthew Root 