This semester I took a class on Romans through Fuller Seminary. Studying this text was an incredible challenge and delight. We had to complete two one-sitting readings of the text, which gives a great sense of its sinewy power as a letter.
I had to write a short (5-page) exegetical paper on a short passage. The paper was supposed to raise questions more than answer them, and to address some issues of “reading from location.” I chose Romans 11:25-26. FWIW, here’s what I wrote.
The section I have chosen is Romans 11:25-27. This section raises challenging and related questions about (1) Israel’s historical role in the economy of salvation; (2) the future of the Jewish people in the economy of salvation, particularly those who do not become Christians; (3) the relationship between Jews and Christians; and (4) the scope of God’s final salvation.
Paul begins this section by stating that he is disclosing a “mystery” (μυστήριον) to the “brothers and sisters” he has been addressing in the letter.[1] (Rom. 11:25.) The Pauline corpus regularly uses μυστήριον to refer to Christ’s death and resurrection as something not previously revealed or know as part of God’s saving plan (see 1 Cor. 15:51; Eph. 1:9; Eph. 3:3; Eph. 6:19; Col. 1:26; Col. 4:3; 1 Tim. 3:9). Here, the focus of the μυστήριον is different: “part of Israel” has experienced a “hardening,” which will last “until the full number (πλήρωμα) of Gentiles has come in (εἰσέλθῃ – enters).” Paul’s rhetorically dramatic disclosure of this “mystery” is puzzling because he has already spent the past 10 ½ chapters explaining that Israel has been “hardened” to the Gospel to make room for the Gentiles. It seems that Paul wants to make this point very carefully, so that his Gentile readers are not at all tempted to become “wise” in themselves. (Rom. 11:25.)
Immediately after disclosure of this μυστήριον Paul says “[a]nd so all Israel will be saved. . . .” (Rom. 11:26 (NRSV)). A key question for this part of the text is what Paul means by “all Israel,” and, relatedly, what he means by “will be saved.” Is Paul referring here to every ethnic Jewish person in all of history, to ethnic Jewish people alive when Romans was written, to a perhaps small remnant of Jewish people who recognize Jesus as the Messiah, or to something else? And by “salvation” is Paul referring to an immediate this-worldly reality, to an immanent this-worldly judgment, to a future other-worldly eschatological state, or to something else?
Modern commentators note the difficulty of addressing these questions after the Holocaust.[2] Thoughtful Christians today recognize the Church’s terrible history of anti-Semitism and painfully remember that this history helped feed the Holocaust. These concerns are an important part of what motivated many commentators in the generation immediately following World War II to argue for a Sonderweg – an alternative path or “two covenant” theology, informed in significant part by this text in Romans, under which the Jews remain God’s people apart from any specific recognition of Jesus as Messiah.[3] The post-Holocaust reading of Romans can be seen as an important example of reading from location. Indeed, the kind of liberation theology reflected in our reading from Justo González, and the feminist theology reflected in our reading from Elsa Tamez, developed starting in the 1950’s and 1960’s in no small part because the shock of the Holocaust forced the Church to reevaluate its rhetoric and dogmas about race, class and creed.[4]
Most contemporary commentators agree, however, that whatever the merits of a Sonderweg, this is not what Paul had in mind in Romans.[5] Nevertheless, James Dunn asserts that “[t]here is now a strong consensus that πα̑ς ᾿Ισραήλ must mean Israel as a whole, as a people whose corporate identity and wholeness would not be lost even if in the event there were some (or indeed many) individual exceptions.”[6] In contrast, other commentators, particularly from Reformed and evangelical perspectives, argue that Paul’s use of “all Israel” here invokes either a “spiritual Israel” or a “remnant” theology, under which Paul envisions true “Israel” to include only followers of Jesus. I was surprised that N.T. Wright adopted a particularly strong form of the “remnant” perspective in his commentary.[7] Yet other commentators suggest a sort of middle ground approach, under which all ethnic Jews will recognize Jesus as Messiah at the Parousia. There are multiple variants of this middle ground approach, under which either (1) all ethnic Jews alive at the time of the Parousia will recognize Jesus when he appears; or (2) all ethnic Jews who did not recognize Jesus in life but who have died before the Parousia will be resurrected and recognize Jesus at the Parousia; or (3) some combination or variant of (1) and (2).[8]
It is helpful to note that the exegetical question here is not solely driven by post-Holocaust concerns. An interesting pre-modern source for this discussion is Thomas Aquinas. Scholars have only recently begun to focus on Aquinas’ understanding of the Jews in his Commentary on Romans.[9] Some Aquinas scholars today argue that in his commentary on Romans, Aquinas indicates that all the Jews eventually will be saved, perhaps in the eschaton.[10] A principal passage from Aquinas’ commentary for these scholars is the comment on Paul’s use of the word “until” in Romans 11:25. Aquinas there noted that
the word until can signify the cause of the blindness of the Jews. For God permitted them to be blinded, in order that the full number of the gentiles come in. It can also designate the termination, i.e., that the blindness of the Jews will last up to the time when the full number of the gentiles will come to the faith. With this agrees his next statement, namely, and then, i.e., when the full number of the gentiles has come it, all Israel should be saved, not some, as now, but universally all . . . .[11]
Another exegete who is controversial on this point for some modern commentators is Karl Barth, who of course wrote in part as an opponent of Hitler and an exile during the Holocaust.[12] In the Römerbrief, Barth understood the relation between Israel and the Church in terms of the existential crisis through which God brings salvation.[13] While Barth here sounds supercessionist, his overall perspective is eschatological: “[b]ut men are saved on in the Futurum resurrectionis, when they perceive the unobservable existentiality of God.”[14]
Barth’s exegesis of Romans 9-11 is far more extensive in the Church Dogmatics II.2 as he develops his doctrine of election.[15] Since Barth’s doctrine of election focuses on Christ as both the rejected and the elect one – as both Jacob and Esau – he understands the “branch” in Paul’s metaphor of the vine to represent Christ. It is then from Christ that both Israel and the Church spring.[16] In CD II.2, Barth does not understand Paul’s statement that “all Israel will be saved” to “mean the totality of all Jewish individuals,” but at the same time he thinks the phrase is not limited to “the totality of the elect members of Jesus Christ from the Jews” – that is, to Jews who become Christians.[17] Barth therefore says that “in accordance with the election that has happened to Israel . . . even the Jews who do not now believe are beloved of God for their fathers’ sake.”[18] Israel’s status as elect and beloved, Barth says, is “the last word which in every present and in respect of every member of this people has to be taken into account in relation to Israel’s history from its beginning into every conceivable or inconceivable future.”[19]
I do not find any of the proposed solutions fully satisfying, either in terms of the worlds “behind” the text – Paul’s location as a Second Temple Jewish convert to Jesus – “within” the text – Paul’s unique rhetorical style and use of the Old Testament – or “in front of” the text – our location after the Holocaust.
Concerning the worlds “behind” and “within” the text, Paul connects his statement that “all Israel will be saved” to a quotation from scripture (καθὼς γέγραπται, “as it has been written,” a common invocation in the New Testament and in Paul of the Old Testament), which seems to be derived from the Septuagint versions of Isaiah 59:20-21 and Isaiah 27:9:
“Out of Zion will come the Deliverer;
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”
“And this is my covenant with them,
when I take away (ὅταν ἀφέλωμαι) their sins.”
The actual text in Isaiah 59:20-21 differs from Paul’s paraphrase or allusion in syntax, content, and meaning in some important ways:
And he will come to Zion as Redeemer,
to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the Lord.And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the Lord, from now on and forever. (NRSV).
In the actual text in Isaiah 59, the Redeemer (גָּאַל, LXX ῥυόμενος) comes “to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” and God’s “covenant” is that His “spirit” (רוּחַ, LXX πνεῦμα) and “words” (דָּבָר, LXX ῥήματα) will not depart from “them.” While some of Paul’s specific phrasing seems derived from the Septuagint, the overall flow of Paul’s quotation / paraphrase / allusion suggests a different sequence of events.
First, In Isaiah, the Redeemer comes “to Zion” (לְצִיּוֹן֙ – note the preposition לְ, to) or in the LXX “for the sake of / because of Zion” (ἕνεκεν Σιων) while in Romans the Redeemer comes “out of / from Zion” (ἐκ Σιὼν.). Why has Paul apparently flipped the Redeemer’s origin in such a significant manner? Dunn suggests that “a deliberate alteration by Paul is quite conceivable: even though he quotes the passage as a foundation or confirmation of his hope of Israel’s salvation, he does not wish to rekindle the idea of Israel’s national primacy in the last days,” because Paul “is in process of transforming—not merely taking up—the expectation of an eschatological pilgrimage of Gentiles to Zion.”[20]
Second, in Isaiah, the Redeemer comes “to those in Jacob who turn from their transgression,” while in Romans, the Redeemer “will banish ungodliness from Jacob” when he appears. It seems that, in Isaiah, God sends the Redeemer to the repentant remnant, while for Paul, there is no faithful remnant except for the Redeemer, who rises up from within the community to purify it. Here, Dunn notes that “for Paul ὁ ῥυόμενος is to be understood as a reference to Christ in his Parousia (Cf. 7:24, and particularly 1 Thess 1:10), whereas the original reference was probably to Yahweh himself.”[21]
Finally, in Isaiah, God presently makes or affirms a covenant that his spirit and words will never depart from Zion, while in Romans, the subject and timing of the covenant is unclear. Here Paul apparently substitutes a quote from Isaiah 27:9 in his final line instead of the further covenantal language in Isaiah 59:21.[22] Dunn suggests that “[t]he association of forgiveness of sins with Israel’s final vindication or specifically with renewal of the covenant was sufficiently well established in Jewish expectation . . . for Paul’s adaptation of it here [from Isaiah 27:9] to be reckoned a justifiable variation.”[23] But in Romans, is the covenant a present promise that God will take away Jacob’s sins in the future? Or is the covenant the promise that God will send a Redeemer to banish ungodliness from Jacob, with the result that their sins will be taken away? And if the sense is the latter, how is the “banishment” of ungodliness accomplished? Are the ungodly purged from the community of Jacob, or do the ungodly repent?
Relating these thoughts to the world “in front of” the text, my tentative conclusions borrow from Dunn, Barth and Aquinas. I am unconvinced by the hyper-evangelical reading of this passage, including Wright’s approach. I am also unconvinced by the notion that Paul was thinking of a Sonderweg for the Jews. It seems to me that Romans 11 is a kind of prophetic-dialectical Christological-eschatological meditation, which indeed concludes in an expressly doxological hymn in verses 33-36. In the section I have considered closely, verses 25-27, Paul oscillates between the prophetic hope for Israel in Isaiah and the new prophetic hope for all of humanity in Christ. By noting that Paul’s overall thought here refers ultimately to the eschatological future, I think Dunn, Barth and Aquinas start to capture the sense of Paul’s wrestling. The final consummation of history in Christ’s return will vindicate all of God’s purposes, both for Israel and for the Gentiles. Separated Israel remain God’s people, though not in virtue of a separate path of salvation, and also in a unique, difficult role because of their separation. But in the end, however precisely God will accomplish it, Jew and Gentile will be united again – humanity will be united again – in Christ.
This suggests that Christians act appropriately in relation to their Jewish neighbors when we make our central confession that “Jesus is Lord” and invite Jews to recognize that Jesus is first their Messiah, whom we know only derivatively because he is first their Messiah. At the same time, it suggests that Christians should recognize Jews in their own particularity, even when they do not yet recognize Jesus, as also God’s people whom God will redeem.
Image: St. Paul by Rembrandt van Rijn
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[1] “Brothers and sisters” is the NRSV’s gender-neutral rendering of ἀδελφοί, which the NRSV presumes must mean the church in Rome.
[2] See N.T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in Leander Keck, ed., The New Intepreter’s Bible, Vol. X (Nashville: Abingdon Press 2002), “Overview” of Rom. 11:1-36.
[3] Ibid.; see also, e.g., Robert W. Jenson, “Toward a Christian Theology of Judaism,” in Carl Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., Jews and Christians: People of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2003); Richard N. Longnecker, NICOT: The Epistle to the Romans (Eerdmans 2016), 629-633, n. 50 (summarizing sources for the Sonderweg position).
[4] See Justo L. González, Out of Every Tribe & Nation: Christian Theology at the Ethnic Roundtable (Nashville: Abingdon Press 1992); Elsa Tamez, “Justification as Good News for Women: A Re-Reading of Romans 1-8,” in Sheila E. McGinn, ed., Celebrating Romans: Template for Pauline Theology (Essays in Honor of Robert JewettI) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2004). As Mark Lindsay has argued, “[i]n a very real way, the event of the Holocaust instantiates the semper reformanda.” Mark Lindsay, Reading Auschwitz With Barth: The Holocaust as Problem and Promise for Barthian Theology (Eugene: Wipf and Stock 2014), 4.
[5] See Longnecker, supra Note 3.
[6] James D.G. Dunn, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 38B, Romans 9-16 (Waco: Word Books 1988), comment on Rom. 11:25.
[7] See Wright, supra Note 2, commentary on Rom. 11:26a.
[8] See, e.g., supra Note 3, 629-633 (surveying options and noting that “[m]y own view is that Paul is here speaking of the salvation of the Jewish people who will be alive when the course of God’s salvation history is brought by God himself to its culmination.”)
[9] See Holly Taylor Coolman, “Romans 9-11: Rereading Aquinas on the Jews,” in Matthew Levering, ed., Reading Romans With Thomas Aquinas (Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press 2012).
[10] Ibid., 104.
[11] St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, trans. Fr. Fabian Richard Larcher, O.P. (Lander: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine 2012), Lecture 4, ¶ 916.
[12] See Angus Paddison, “Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Romans 9-11 in Light of Jewish-Christian Understanding,” Journal of Studies in the New Testament 29:4, 469-488 (June 2006). Barth’s failure to mention the Holocaust in the Church Dogmatics or his other writing, however, presents difficult problems for appropriating his theology for contemporary Jewish-Christian relations. See Lindsay, supra Note 4.
[13] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (Oxford: OUP 1968), 415. Commenting on Paul’s statement that “[a]ll Israel shall be saved,” Barth says: “[t]he salvation of the lost, the justification of those who are not justified, the resurrection of the dead, comes whence the catastrophe came.” Ibid.
[14] Ibid, 416.
[15] See Paddison, supra Note 12.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Karl Barth, CD II.2 (London: T&T Clark Study Edition 2009), § 34.4 [300].
[18] Ibid., § 34.4 [303].
[19] Ibid.
[20] Dunn, supra Note 6, comment on Rom. 11:26.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.