Tag: Israel

Hebrew Scriptures and the trajectory of the bigger circle

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Here is the sixth part on ‘Jew, Israel and Gentile’. Eventually / soon all the parts will be published as a pdf, but if you wish to follow along as I write…

A core Scripture giving Israel an identity was that of Exodus 19:5,6,

Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.

Peter utilises that Scripture in 1 Peter 2:9,10 (and goes on to quote Hosea concerning the casting away of Israel and the drawing back),

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
    but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
    but now you have received mercy.

Unless Peter is addressing an exclusive group of Jews who follow Jesus, he is clearly giving to these Jesus-followers descriptive terms that were used for Israel. Israel’s regathering into a relationship with God is fulfilled through those (Gentiles) responding to Jesus.

Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:16-18 pulls together a number of Old Testament passages as he warns the gentile Christians:

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said,
“I will live in them and walk among them,
    and I will be their God,
    and they shall be my people.
Therefore come out from them,
    and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch nothing unclean;
    then I will welcome you,
and I will be your father,
    and you shall be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”

He boldly quotes and alludes to a host of Old Testament texts here – among them are Leviticus 26, Ezekiel 37, Isaiah 52, Ezekiel 20, and 2 Samuel 7.Those Old Testament texts refer to Israel, with the latter allusion being to David! Paul cites texts that were Israel-centric and applies them to a (predominant / exclusive?) group of Gentiles converts. He follows the quotes and allusions with the provocative statement, ‘Since we have these promises’ (2 Cor.7:1). He does not write ‘since they have these promises’ but ‘since we’. He (and he is a Jew) aligns these converts with Israel!

He aligns converts, regardless of their ethnicity, with the ‘ancestors’ of Israel. Those ancestors are our ancestors:

I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea (1 Cor. 10:1).

Although the Corinthians are not ethnically part of Israel, Paul says they are incorporated into Israel. This seems to be something that is very consistent in Paul and when we come to the chapters in Romans (9-11) it will become very evident in his view that wild-olive shoots have been grafted into the one olive tree.

A longer passage is in Ephesians 2,

So then, remember that at one time you gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone; in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God (Ephes. 2:11-22, emphases added).

The passage needs almost no comment but I note that ‘gentiles / the uncircumcision’ who previously had a status as those who were once ‘outside the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant’ had been brought near so that the divide between the two groups had ended; the Gentiles had now become citizens with the saints and members of God’s household. To be ‘brought near’ was the language to describe what had taken place when Gentiles converted to Judaism. (Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost records that the promise was for those immediately present, the subsequent generations and for ‘those afar off’. The OT expectation that post-restoration Gentiles would come in, the mystery that has been revealed to Paul is that this was not some future event, but a current one and it was happening without the Gentiles submitting to the Torah as had been the requirement for those converting to Judaism.)

What is described is not ‘replacement’ but incorporation and the foundation being based on that of ‘apostles and prophets’. (In this context it is feasible to understand this to be the proclaimers of God’s will from what we can term (looking back) the Old Testament and the New Testament.)

In the chapter that follows Paul unfolds that what was not understood prior to the resurrection had now been revealed. That mystery is that the Gentiles had become sharers in the promise of God which could only mean that they were incorporated into Israel. The mystery revealed alters any expected time sequence – this is not something taking place after the restoration of Israel (as certain OT Scriptures seem to indicate) but taking place simultaneously, and it was taking place without the Gentiles submitting to the Torah.

In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Ephesians 3:5,6).

In these passages all those who are in Christ are now partakers as Abraham’s descendants, and so can be said to be incorporated into Israel (the Israel of God?). If we pull on Paul’s words in Galatians where he insists that the ‘seed’ of Abraham is singular and that singular seed is Messiah then it follows that all who are in Christ are therefore descendants of Abraham. (Neither in English nor in Greek is Paul on firm ground linguistically, but his point is theological.)

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

The people ‘in’ Messiah and Israel

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I am almost finished writing on ‘Jew, Israel and Gentile’ where I seek to work through those key chapters, Romans 9-11. Maybe by the end of the week I will finish and then some editing the week that follows. I have in four previous posts included the first parts of the writing (if you missed them just enter ‘Israel’ into the search box and they should show up. I will publish them all as a pdf when I finalise the writing. Here is the fifth part for those who wish to follow along.

The coming of Messiah in order to fulfil the promises to Abraham (Genesis 12 onwards) and to heal the sickness that creation endures (as outlined specifically in Genesis 1-11) is not simply a situation of the past progressing. We read the Scriptures historically and we read them with Jesus being their fulfillment; he fulfills what has been previously written. And yet there is something more that takes place. The resurrection of Jesus changes ‘time’. Not a change to the physical time, but one that changes expectations. An event (the resurrection) that was hoped would occur at the fullness of time had now occurred in time, we could say ahead of schedule. Death and resurrection might be separated by three days but they were part of one event, with the resurrection ushering in a new era, even what is termed ‘new creation’. Something of the future arrived with the resurrection of Jesus. The end is not something we wait for, but the end (in the Person of Jesus) is something we welcome. Hence when we turn to the New Testament there are surprises and twists with regard to fulfilment(s).

Paul sums it up with his words in 2 Corinthians 1:20,

For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God.

All promises that God has made are guaranteed and fulfilled in Christ. Centring everything on Christ means the fulfilment at times might look different (the fulfillment is ‘beyond’ what was expected. Progressive revelation is from the lesser to the greater, never the other way round) to what was expected and we have to take care about simply taking an Old Testament promise and seeking to project forward. The eschatological fulfilment is more vital, and this seems to be why Paul says that Abraham was promised the ‘world’ (kosmos) not the ‘land’ (ge). (We have to do the same with the various laws. We neither abrogate them all except for the ones that are affirmed in the NT, nor do we hold them all except for the ones that have explicitly been cancelled! The tendency is to take one or the other approach. Continuity and discontinuity is involved and all Scripture has to pass through the Jesus filter.)

The church replaces Israel?

There is a theology termed supersessionism where the church is said to supersede / replace Israel. This can be expressed in a very simple way or nuanced better with Jesus faithfully fulfilling Israel’s calling and that those who are in Christ are where the purposes of God are centred. The contrary perspective is that which Dispensationalism expresses – that there are two different paths to salvation: one for Israel and one for those who have come to faith in Jesus. I once heard a Messianic Jew say, ‘In the New Testament the early believers were clear that Jews needed Jesus, they were just not sure about the Gentiles. Now two millennia later we have reversed that approach where we are sure that Gentiles need saving but we are not sure about the Jews!’ This is certainly true of those who hold to two paths for salvation.

We can look at the tussle that occurred in the early chapters of Acts. They are clear that there was ‘no other name’ by which people could be saved (Acts 4:12). Peter’s audience were Jews in Jerusalem and he said that they could not appeal to the patriarchs (‘other names’) as being their guarantee of salvation; then when Gentiles began to respond to Jesus the question was how were they to relate to the law. Gentiles who converted to Judaism took on board the Torah and its instructions – so what response was required of Gentiles who expressed faith in Jesus, the Messiah of Israel? Part of the offence in the new Messianic movement was that Gentiles were given full inclusion without submitting to the law.

(And we must not think of Judaism as being a religion of works; the law acted as a boundary marker and was viewed as God’s gracious gift to the people. Conversely we must not consider that the entry for the Gentiles was one of cheap grace (Torah-free is not lawlessness). Paul was committed to bring about ‘the obedience of faith among all the gentiles for the sake of his name’ (Rom. 1:5).)

The second of the two proposals that I wrote about in the previous paragraph (of two separate paths) is something I reject and the former view I wish to nuance somewhat.

The heading I have given as a question (‘The church replaces Israel’) in itself raises some questions. Always the danger of using the word ‘church’ is that almost inevitably we have injected into the word a predetermined meaning or concept. If, however, we transliterate the Greek underlying word (ekklesia) we can see that the question is indeed a strange one. Israel was termed the ekklesia! (The common word used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures when describing Israel as the community in response to God, hence Moses was said to be with the ekklesia in the wilderness (Acts 7:38).) It is bizarre to ask the question ‘does the ekklesia replace the ekklesia’!

We have to dig deeper. So let’s try and expand this some. As discussed earlier in this paper, fundamental to Israel’s identity was that of faith – faith triumphed over ethnicity. Israel was always smaller than the ethnic boundary and yet always bigger than that ethnic boundary as faith drew a bigger circumference.

If Gentiles became Torah-obedient they were included as part of Israel; this emphasis continued among certain Jewish followers of Jesus, hence the disagreements within the early Jesus-movement. The controversy that ensued was settled when it was decided that Gentile followers of Jesus were not required to be obedient to Torah.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Paul’s statistical use of Israel

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

Paul uses ‘Israel / Israelites’ 13 times in Rom. 9-11 and 7 in the rest of the  Pauline literature (we will look at those below); he does not use the term ‘Israel’ in Romans outside of these 3 chapters, but uses the term ‘Jew’ on numerous occasions, but only once does he use the term ‘Jew’ inside those three chapters. His focus inside these chapters is on ‘Israel / all Israel / restoration of the twelve tribes’; outside the chapters he is diving into the Jew / Greek issue (the world as categorised that he is working within). Those statistics alone should get our attention.

Of the seven references outside of Romans 9-11 when Paul uses the term ‘Israel’, he is referring to historical / ethnic Israel. Only once does he use ’Israel’ to refer to a current entity, the ‘Israel of God’ (Gal. 6:16), 

As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

‘And (καὶ) upon the Israel of God’ can either be indicating two groups – ‘those who follow this rule’ and ‘the Israel of God’, or the use of the καὶ can be ‘epexegetic’ and thus carrying a clarifying meaning – those who follow this rule who are the Israel of God. We can further contrast this phrase to Paul’s use of ‘Israel according to the flesh’ (1 Cor. 10:18). There ‘Israel’ is clearly a reference to ethnic Israel (τὸν Ἰσραὴλ κατὰ σάρκα); in Galatians his term is τὸν Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ. The contrast – if both terms are applied to ethnic Israel simply suggests that ‘not all who are (ethnically) Israel are of God’s Israel’. The reference then is either to that portion within ethnic Israel that has responded to Messiah (the Galatian letter is about how Jew and Greek are included in the Messiah) or he is pushing his view that those who respond in faith (who follow this rule) are descendants of Abraham (whether Jew or Gentile) and thus are the ‘Israel of God’. Regardless he is not advocating two ways to salvation!

Paul never uses the terms ‘Jew’ and ‘Israel’ synonymously (he maintains the distinction between the terms as other Jewish writers of the ‘second temple’ era do). Outside of Romans 9-11 his normal contrasting language is ‘Jew and Greek’ (Rom. 1:16; 2:9, 10, 17; 3:1,9; 1 Cor. 1:22, 24; 12:13; Gal. 3:28) or ‘Jew and Gentile’ (Rom. 3:29; 9:24; 1 Cor 1:23; Gal. 2:14-15).

I end this section with the important understanding when coming to Rom. 9-11 with the foundation that ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’ are not synonymous terms. ‘All Israel’ cannot mean ‘every Jew’ and has to extend beyond those living in the land.

This is the fourth post seeking to follow what I am currently writing. I am about to get into the three chapters of Rom. 9-11, so it is likely to be a little while before there are other posts on this theme.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Israel or Jew

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

This is the third post of what I am working on with regard to the phrase in Paul ‘and all Israel will be saved’. This post begins to show the distinction between the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’. They are not synonymous.

Israel or Jew

A common response and understanding of the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’ is to see them as simply synonymous, such as we read in the following quote,

Generally speaking, the terms Hebrews, Jews, and Israelites all refer to the same people – the nation which sprang from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob, a nation promised and chosen by God in the Old Testament (https://www.timberlandchurch.org/articles/is-there-a-difference-between-hebrews-jews-and-israelites#:~:text=Generally%20speaking%2C%20the%20terms%20Hebrews%2C,the%20Old%20Testament%20(Genesis%2012%3A1%2D3).

The work of Jason Staples has shown that the two terms are not simply two descriptions for the one entity and that Paul follows the distinction that writers such as Josephus and Philo make.

Josephus (37-100AD) who wrote the Jewish Antiquites (a history of Israel) referred to Israel/Israelites 188 times in the first 11 volumes but does not use those words outside of those 11 volumes; he uses the term ‘Jew’ only 26 times in the first 10 volumes, but in the remaining 9 volumes he only refers to the term ‘Jew’ (1162 times), never using the term ‘Israel’. If the terms were interchangeable we would expect a much more even spread. Something happened in the history to highlight ‘Israel’ in the earlier period but ‘Jew’ in accounts relating to the later history. It was only ‘Jews’ who returned from the exile in Babylon – Jews being from the southern kingdom of Judah.

When these Jews (Ioudaioi) learned of the king’s piety towards God, and his kindness towards Ezra, they loved [him] most dearly, and many took up their possessions and went to Babylon, desiring to go down to Jerusalem. But all the people of Israel remained in that land. So it came about that only two tribes [Benjamin, a smaller tribe is included, also some from Levi who were distributed in both the northern and southern kingdoms] came to Asia and Europe and are subject to the Romans, but the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates until now and are a countless multitude whose number is impossible to know (Ant. 11:132-133).

Jospehus writing in the Roman era describes the other 10 tribes as being beyond Roman territory. His change of usage indicates that ‘Israel’ (the 10 northern tribes that were taken away in the Assyrian conquest) did not return and he could not use the term ‘Israel’ of returning Jews. Israel was either used to refer to the whole people or the northern tribes; the Iuodaioi (Jews) were the southern kingdom that did return after the Babylonian exile.

The later volumes of Josephus cover the history after the northern kingdom went into their exile (never to return), hence those that remain are referred to as ‘Jews’. Once the Southern kingdom later returns from Babylon the people are only referred to as ‘Jews’ by Josephus; Jews then are a subset of Israel and all Jews together do not constitute Israel – this will become important when we come to Paul’s statement of ‘all Israel will be saved’.

A few paragraphs later Josephus writes,

From the time they went up from Babylon they were called by this name [Ioudaios] after the tribe of Judah. Since the tribe was the prominent one to come from those parts, both the people themselves and the country have taken their name from it (Ant. 11:173).

Jews are those from the tribe of Judah – the southern kingdom. It was the tribe of Judah and Benjamin that went into Babylonian captivity and who returned.

Within the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) and the books that are post-Babylonian exile the term ‘Jew’ only refers to those who were from the tribe of Judah (and Benjamin and some from Levi who were distributed across the northern and southern kingdoms). Philo of Alexandria (20-50AD) likewise uses the term Israel(ite) eighty times in his Greek works, but he never uses it synonymously with Jew, nor does he ever refer to the contemporary people as Israel or Israelites. Like Josephus, he uses Ioudaios to refer to contemporary Jews.

The shift that takes place is the demise of the northern kingdom who are taken into exile by Assyria and eventually are scattered among the nations. That northern kingdom carried the name ‘Israel’ whereas the southern kingdom was termed Judah – the tribes splitting after Solomon dies. Israel could be used as a term describing the whole people (descendents of Jacob/Israel) or of the northern kingdom by itself, but the southern kingdom was never referred to as Israel.

This distinction remains consistent in the Old Testament Scriptures. It is the ‘elders of the Jews’ (Ezra 6:14) who are those who rebuild the Temple and when the Temple is dedicated a sin offering is made for all Israel, twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel (Ezra 6:17). ‘Jews’ have returned from the Babylonian exile, but the remainder of Israel had not, hence the elders were the elders of the Jews. Yet a hope persisted for the restoration of the twelve tribes (Israel / all Israel) such as was articulated by Paul,

And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this hope, Your Excellency, that I am accused by Jews (Acts 26:6,7).

The prophetic hope was for the twelve tribes, but Paul was accused by Jews! The hope was expressed in different passages but the ‘I will make a new covenant’ passage in Jeremiah is a good summary of the future hope of restoration (emphases added below) of Israel – the fullness of the 12 tribes:

At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people… The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord… The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jer. 31:1, 27-28, 31-33).

[A sidenote – there was a partial return of the northern kingdom but it was ethnically mixed, being based in Samaria they were known as Samaritans. They are never known as Jews, but did refer to themselves as ‘Samarian Israelites’ or as ‘guardians of the Torah’, thus further making the identification of ‘Jew’ with those of the southern kingdom. They viewed themselves as Israelites (not as Jews) while the majority of Jews viewed them as illegitimate. The debate was not whether they were Jews – that point was agreed on by all: they were not Jews. The debate was whether they were legitimately part of Israel. Thus again we see that even the sum total of all Jews could not be termed ‘all Israel’.]

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Ethnic or faith

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Israel is both bigger than we might suppose ‘Israel’ to be and also smaller! The name Israel is used for the covenant people because of the patriarch ‘Jacob’ whose name was changed to ‘Israel’. [Israel has three applications: the land of Israel; the whole 12 tribes; and the northern ‘10 tribes’ sometimes also called ‘Ephraim’. Jews, as we will see, are part of Israel, but are not ‘Israel’. They are those who are of the tribe of Judah (and Benjamin is included, along with some of Levi who were originally distributed throughout the land).] They are the covenant people who come from the line of ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’. The twelve tribes we might assume are descended from the 12 sons of Jacob / Israel but that is only approximately true. Joseph’s two sons (Ephraim and Manasseh) are described either as two tribes or as half-tribes with the two together making up the tribe of Joseph. The bigger point though is one of ethnicity. The sons of Joseph are born in Egypt to the daughter of the priest of On; Asenath, Joseph’s Egyptian wife, gave birth to two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. They are not only included but give identity as tribes so much so that in later history ‘Ephraim’ can be given as an umbrella name for the 10 northern kingdom tribes. Ethnicity is not in view! 

[There are various lists of the tribes; for example ‘Joseph’ is included in the blessing of Jacob over his sons prior to his death (Gen. 49: 3-27); in the census of the tribes (Num. 1:20-43) Ephraim and Manasseh are included (Joseph nor Levi are listed); and in Revelation 7:5-8 the list includes Manasseh, Levi and Joseph but drops Dan and Ephraim.]

At the time of the Exodus we read that not only those descended from Jacob’s immediate family exit the land but that an ‘alien’ who joined themselves to those of ‘Israel’ were to be considered as ‘natives of the land’ and as a result a ‘mixed multitude’ left Egypt (Exod. 12: 36-38). Those who enter the land are not all descended from Abraham. They are considered to be part of Israel though they are not ethnically descended from the patriarchs.

As they enter the land we read of Rahab and her household being added to the covenant people and later of Ruth (a Moabite) who becomes an ancestor of David. In the Rahab story Achan and his household (Israelites) are cut off from the people while she and her household are incorporated. Matthew in his Gospel that is very ‘Jewish’ lists both those women as part of the genealogy of Jesus.

Caleb (a great hero) was a Kennizite as was Othniel, the judge. The Kennizites were either a tribe in Canaan or descended from Kenaz, a grandson of Esau.At that level ‘Israel’ is not confined to those whose genealogies are ethnically off ‘Israel’, but includes a larger group whose allegiance is to the God of Israel,

[Y]our people shall be my people and your God my God (Ruth 1:16).

We can further add the challenges from the New Testament, such as John the Baptist’s statement that confronted the claim to ethnicity as the marker,

We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham (Matt. 3:8).

Or Paul’s pushback on ‘external’ factors as defining who is a ‘Jew’,

For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans (Rom. 2:28,29).

In those passages we have both a widening of those who are of Israel and also a narrowing. Either way faith seems to take precedence over ethnicity.

‘Israel’ being smaller than ‘Israel’ is summed up in Paul’s words,

It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all those descended from Israel are Israelites, and not all of Abraham’s children are his descendants (Rom. 9:6,7).

This was not unique to Paul, for within Judaism (Judaisms?) this ‘narrowing’ view is what fuelled the diverse sects. The stricter the sect the more they saw themselves as truly Israel and others as not being faithful to the ways of God. The ‘sinners’ we read about in the Gospels were those considered not to be part of the covenant people, even though ethnically they might have been pure. 

‘Being cut off from this people’ meant in spite of ethnicity a failure to keep the covenant required those people to be excluded (Lev. 7:27, 18:29, 23:29); Peter uses the same understanding (now provocatively as he centres everything in on Jesus) with his entreaty to his audience to,

Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. (Acts 2:40)

Ethnicity is further challenged by Jesus in Matthew 21:43,

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits.

The complexity of Israel being both larger and smaller than ‘Israel’ means we cannot simply draw (for example) a straight line from the Israel of the Bible to the state of Israel today.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

And (all) Israel?

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I am reading, not just some history, but material around the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’, hopefully ending up with around 10,000 words that I can put out as a pdf and then when I get back to Spain will look to host an open Zoom around the material. I thought in the process of writing as I get some material ready I will post it here and also hope that any comments will provoke me further. The final pdf might not follow the posts exactly…

All Israel will be saved (Ro. 11:26)

The verse is toward the end of Paul’s discourse that had begun in Ro. 9 and is a fitting conclusion to his statement in 9:6

It is not as though the word of God has failed.

In these chapters he is concerned to show his understanding of how God has been faithful to his promises to Israel, ending then with the fuller statement ‘And in this way all Israel will be saved’. He is focused primarily on how (‘this way’) not on a time-table (translating or reading καὶ οὕτως (kai houtōs) wrongly as ‘and then’).

In eschatology there is often a focus on the land of ‘Israel’ and events that can indicate what the time is on ‘God’s clock’. There are accusations of ‘replacement theology’ (church has replaced Israel) on the one side and of ‘Christian Zionism’ on the other, with the extreme being of two ways of ‘salvation’. This paper will suggest that we need to distinguish between two central descriptions, that of ‘Israel’ and of ‘Jews’. The central verse of Romans 11:26 (‘and all Israel will be saved’) has been taken as a statement about the future and understood to mean that in the ‘end-times’ or at the parousia there will be a wholesale turning to Jesus as Messiah. There are many difficulties with such a reading:

  • It does not use a temporal clause, such as ‘and then’ or ‘after this’.
  • It does not say ‘all Jews’ but ‘all Israel’.
  • With such a reading that proposes a future event, what about all those from Israel or all Jews who had lived prior to this future event – would this Scripture be limited to those alive at this future event? If it extends beyond this we would expect somehow that anyone ethnically of Abraham’s seed would have been ‘saved’ all along – something hard to align with the preaching in Acts (calling the audience to a response and at first the audience is only a Jewish one) or to the ‘conversion’ of Paul.

We will explore this Pauline statement, but for now I note that there is no temporal statement in this verse and to translate it as a ‘and then’ clause is simply in error. ‘In this way’ is the only valid way to translate καὶ οὕτως (kai houtōs) as it is not a temporal clause, but indicates an outcome or a result.

A second factor to consider is how the term ‘all Israel’ was used here by Paul. He has already stated that,

For not all those descended from Israel are Israelites, and not all of Abraham’s children are his descendants, but “it is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” (Rom. 9:6,7).

We thus enter an interesting scenario: not all those descended from Abraham are considered to be ‘Israel’, and as we will explore, ‘Israel’ is bigger than those who are called ‘Jews’! (Smaller and larger!)

One final Scripture to add in this introduction is that of Paul’s statement before Agrippa,

And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night (Acts 26:6,7).

I get ahead of myself, but simply wanted to flag up one key direction that I will be taking, and that is the difference between the term ‘Jew’ and the bigger definition of Israel, or as Paul uses here the ‘twelve tribes’.

There are a number of aspects we need to keep in focus as we progress.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Jew to Gentile to Gentile to Israel

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

OK still working on all of this (Rom. 9-11) and why Paul uses the term ‘Jew’ in most of his writings but then seldom uses ‘Jew’ (but uses Israel) in those chapters in Romans… leaning heavily on Jason Staples’ writings and hopefully will get a pdf out before we leave Sicily. In popular understanding ‘Jew ‘ and ‘Israel’ are synonymous and used simply for variation… however it does seem to stack up in ‘second temple’ writings nor in the NT. (This is my little break in the days from concentrating on the land here…) A lot to cover yet but before I get too deep into it all two Scriptures are with me ‘Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel‘ (not to us Jews) and then one of my ‘central’ verses from the Pauline writings,

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal 3: 12,14).

I think Paul does not go to penal substitution at any point in his writings and also we have to work with a Jew / Gentile progression (so common in Romans ‘to the Jew first then the Greeks). In these verses in Gal. 3 he presents the cross as the answer to a Jewish problem (and I use ‘Jew’ here not ‘Israel’ as his language in the previous chapter has been Jew / Gentile and then he follows in this chapter with ‘neither Jew nor Greek’. This is not to suggest that the cross is not universal in scope – it certainly is and has also to be coupled to the resurrection. Greek / Gentile I do think are more or less synonymous – the Graeco-Roman empire. Outside of the Roman world are the Barbarians, Scythians and the like!).

The curse is the curse of the law so Paul is tightly focused on the Jewish problem – he became a curse for us (usually in his tight arguments ‘us’ is us ‘Jews’. The redeeming nation is under a curse. Far from being blessed as Abraham’s seed and hence a blessing to the nations, thus they are unable to fulfil being who they were called to be for the ‘world’ / nations. Hence no hope for the world until deliverance is brought to the ‘chosen’ nation. Jesus is Israel’s Messiah. Hence it follows if ‘in Messiah’ they are the descendants of Abraham. ‘All’ who are in Messiah! Jews are not alone at being descendants of Abraham – we have to think ‘Israel’ (12 tribes, not 1), hence the change of language in Rom. 9-11.

‘Redeemed us’ so that Abraham’s blessings might not be locked up but flow to the gentiles (language ‘us’ and ‘gentiles / nations’). And then comes something that I have missed in the past as it seems to be even more tightly put… so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit (through faith). The ‘we’ language is used again. I understood that to be an inclusive ‘we’ (= ‘all’) but am being pushed to understand that Paul has in mind the promised Holy Spirit who will write the torah on the heart (OT hope particularly in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, with new covenant language applied to both the house of Israel and the house of Judah). This is for all the ‘us’ – wider than Jews but defined by who are descendants of Israel. indeed to ‘us’ (those of the house of Israel). I think this is what is expanded in Rom. 9-11.

Galatians ch. 4 (written to Gentiles, or if not exclusively to them, for them) is where Paul pulls together who are the children / descendants of Abraham. Beginning with the last verse of ch. 3: And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. He then continues in ch. 4,

And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:6).
Now you, my brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, like Isaac (Gal.4:28).

Remove the curse, the blessings can flow beyond any former boundary, for within that flow the promise to Israel can be fulfilled. There is a sequence: death in Jerusalem to unlock / break the curse open resulting in (Abrahamic) blessings to the nations and within that flow Israel also receives all that was promised – not because of ethnicity, but through faith. Far from there being some ‘end-time’ timetable, the cross is the end and the beginning, and thus (to jump to where I will eventually get to when I write) in that way all Israel will be saved. A process has been under way since that first Easter as the invitation has gone out to respond in faith to Messiah. For there is no other name under heaven by which salvation comes. No patriarch, no other god – covering both ‘to the Jew first, also to the Greek’.

I appreciate this has been a little tight with a lot of ‘what on earth do you mean by / what about this Scripture etc’… I am in process but wanted to get some of this perspective in this form ere too long.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Israel – two states?

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I closed yesterday’s post with a comment on the flotilla en route to Gaza; this morning I read that, ‘The Israeli navy has intercepted boats carrying aid to Gaza and detained the activists aboard, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.’

Not all ‘prophetic acts’ have a ‘successful’ outcome. Jesus’ key protest act in the Temple when he turned over the tables did not end in a permanent table-free Temple, but the effects are ongoing – an eternal protest whenever God’s house is turned into a money-making venture that in particular exploits the vulnerable (see my post https://3generations.eu/posts/2024/12/a-time-to-protest/ where I highlight the focus on the ‘dove sellers’).

Back to Israel… their land promised for ever. So complex: promised the land for ever,

And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding, and I will be their God.” (Gen. 17:8).

´Olam translated here as ‘a perpetual holding’ has the meaning of a long or indefinite time. Achish (Philistine king) believed David would always (´olam) serve him in other words during his lifetime. It could mean during the entire life-time of all descendants of Abraham, but I think Paul (again! he does have so many perspectives, that man) throws a curve ball when he says that Abraham was promised that he would inherit the ‘world’ (kosmos; Rom.4:13).

That curve ball rather changes (for me) the trajectory we look for. The re-gathering of Israel (a bigger term than ‘Jews’… gather all Jews would not gather all Israel) as a result of Pentecost (Acts 1:8; Rom. 11:28) is because the Gospel is gathering all peoples across the planet into the one olive tree, and so as that happens ‘in this way all Israel will be saved’.

Anyway all of the above is probably going to fuel my next longer article.

Back to flotillas, Israel of today (and I don’t think there is a straight line from OT Israel to the modern state), Palestine and Gaza. By any standards what is taking place today is genocide and the deep issue is we have two peoples who are reacting from trauma and peoples who are being exploited by those who claim to represent them.

Maybe an aside – maybe more than an aside – the route to the Middle East (Israel if you like) is through the Islamic world. The three Abrahamic faiths (allow me to suggest, one that was not able to make the step into the era initiated through the death and resurrection of their Messiah, the truly human One; another that has taken the Abrahamic story in a different direction; and one that sees fulfilment through the Son of Man) are, I think, central to where we are. A key principle if ever we need help to see where God is at work we can look to where the devil is at work – and vice versa. Look at the conflicts and the rhetoric that is in the public space to fuel suspicion, fear and hatred.

I hold that God is motivated by love that seeks to reconcile all. The choice of Abraham was not to damn the world (wrong view of salvation); Israel in her land was never to blanket exclude all others based on ethnicity (Rahab, Ruth, two half-Egyptian sons of Joseph et al); and post-the-resurrection a whole new creation was brought into being.

So here is my take. Political solutions go so far. The healing of historic trauma is needed, but if there is one place on the planet that should be open to being a land for all peoples it is the place where the cross demonstrated that God’s arms are outstretched to all. Breaking the curse of the law from ‘us’ (Jews) so that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles (Gal. 3:13,14). A two-state solution might indeed be a step toward. A step. Prayer and protest can establish steps.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

All Israel… who?

Anything but conclusions

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Toward the end of Paul’s (definitely not) aside on Israel in Rom. 9-11 he says ‘all Israel will be saved’. It has been an anchor point for the claim that at the end of this age there will be a mass turning of Jews to their Messiah… however, to hold to such a view logically would only involve Jews alive at the coming of Jesus, thus all those who had lived before that would not be ‘saved’. A further issue is that the phrase, sometimes translated ‘and then’ is NOT a temporal phrase (kai houtos, has to be translated ‘in this way‘). There is no time reference in what he writes but the means of ‘salvation’ coming is what he has been consistently writing about in these chapters. The question is ‘how’ will all Israel be ‘saved’ not when.

And a twist I am trying to think about is the distinction between ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’. The work of Jason Staples in ‘The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism’ argues that the two are not synonymous, with ‘Jew’ referring to those who belonged to the Southern kingdom and Israel referring to the bigger entity of the 12 tribes. This morning I was reading Paul’s defence before Agrippa and took note of what I had not seen before:

I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain… It is for this hope… that I am accused by Jews! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead.

He was accused by Jews and he claimed his hope was the hope of Israel! [I am thinking this might give yet another twist to ‘Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel at this time?’.]

The northern kingdom (the ‘ten tribes’) ‘disappears’ with the Assyrian exile leaving (eventually post-a trip to Babylon) Judah, Benjamin and some of Levi, the ‘southern kingdom’ that had been faithful to David and his line. Generally speaking that is what is referred to as ‘Judah’ and gains the description ‘Jews’. Then we can add so many twists but how about this one: Ephraim and Manasseh are elevated to the position as tribes. They are the sons of Joseph and ‘Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On’. Joseph’s wife: an Egyptian and from a dodgy spiritual line!! Ethnic purity – NOT. [And Jewishness comes through the mother’s line?]

‘All Israel’… and not ‘all those descended from Israel are Israelites’… wow, all a tight knot that is not simple to undo(!) but leading surely to where Paul is headed in these chapters – ‘so that he might be merciful to all’. And ALL is a big term.

I have some unpicking still to do but it seems Paul is not arguing for some great future event but a process that is ongoing that we should not reduce to being able to produce some physical DNA results as evidence. The hope of Israel, the twelve tribes… Paul, from the tribe of Benjamin, becomes an apostle to the non-Jews (Gentiles), so that the ‘hope’ of God might be fulfilled, that of a transformed world, in which the hope of Israel will also be fulfilled. Israel is bigger than Jewishness; Israel is ‘dirtier’ than ethnicity. And above and beyond it all God’s ‘hope’ is bigger than my hope, or the hope of Israel.

I have no direct conclusions as yet on the tight knot, but ‘in this way’, in God’s way there is an eternal ever expanding reach toward all of humanity.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

One of my perplexed questions

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

For a long time I have pondered concerning the actions and prayers of ‘believers’ – if we are pushing in a wrong direction does that cock things up, does it even work against a godly resolution – I will come to Gaza and Israel before I finish this post, but maybe start a little back from that. Of course what I write are ‘perspectives’ but they are based on certain presuppositions (I hesitated to write ‘truths’!!):

  • I do not believe that God controls the future in the sense of exercising omnipotence over all things. For sure God works in all things for a good / the best outcome. God is love, and that love is non-controlling (although I struggle with certain aspects of Oord’s ‘God can’t’ I certainly go with the premise of ‘Uncontrolling Love’). To believe in ‘sovereignty’ in the sense of control runs up against the justifiable ‘problem of evil’ objection.
  • There is no divide between the God of the OT and the God of the NT, but we are not invited to read OT genocidal commands as coming from heaven… we are invited to continue to read and in reading discover that the God who is one (Old and New Testaments) is the ‘Christlike God’. We must engage with the intra-canonical dialogue and disagreement of Scripture. Scripture disarms us as much as parts of it need to be disarmed.
  • (Relevant to Gaza / Israel – surely it is remarkable that there are no NT Scriptures that seek to pull on Ezekiel-type passages concerning Armageddon, the land as promise etc… The only way to get there is to start with a system and then fit the passages into that – something completely absent in the NT… and I include Revelation as apocalyptic (and certainly far from literal) literature in that assertion, which of course does mention the mythical place of Armageddon.)

We spent much time praying into the effects of the Civil War in Spain – and into some of the underlying history from centuries prior to that. A big concern was the burial of Franco inside a huge ‘cathedral’ hewn inside a mountain with the largest cross of its type above the tomb – some 200 metres high. That raised the question as to whether by placing the cross there corrupted the meaning of the cross but co-opted some of the power it symbolised. That is a huge assumption and if true (I think so) indicated why it was such a battle to see Franco’s body exhumed and moved. That experience and journey left me with a conviction that when something that is genuinely ‘of Christ’ is used (abused) it is not something neutral but co-opts what should be present for transformation and reconciliation for something that stands against genuine transformation and reconciliation. Moving on…

This then has given me my perplexed question. What happens if I as a believer in Jesus start to pray for (say) judgement against my enemies – does that in some way release something spiritual that has an outworking against my ‘enemies’, all the while Jesus is saying ‘Martin, love your enemy, bless those who curse you’?

What if, prayers that are ‘wrong’, in the sense of not flowing with the Christlike God and for the kingdom to come on earth as in heaven, actually frustrate the coming of that kingdom or indeed go further and they actually resist the kingdom of God coming? This is the heart of my perplexed question… and if (as I suspect I am partly on to something) it really troubles me.

My guess is that since so much of evangelical Christianity is shaped by (a modified) form of Dispensationalism there are huge amount of prayers that are along the lines of ‘give Israel victory, restore the boundaries to them’ being offered up to heaven in the current war scenario. If not prayers, then I doubt if from that quarter there are prayers being offered up for peace and reconciliation, or if peace is viewed as a good outcome it is as per Rome who built their temple dedicated to the god of peace (Pax) literally on the field that was dedicated to the god of war (Mars). Peace but how? Through war and subduing all the enemies – the way of all Imperial kingdoms / basileia . So different to the path of peace forged through the blood of Messiah – the way of the kingdom / basileia of heaven.

Into Gaza and Israel we have generational trauma on both sides; both groups have been wronged, and of course until we are healed of such wrongs we tend to believe that any wrong that we are now involved in comes under the heading of ‘justice’ – two wrongs making a right / a justice.

The kingdom does not advance and rejoice when blood is shed – blood shedding being one of the primary actions that pollute land and polluted land draws demonic strongholds to it in increasing measure.

I wish I could resolve my perplexed question with the answer that God does not listen to ‘wrong’ prayers, but sadly and painfully I have not been able to do that. If I am only partly right I pray God have mercy on us, forgive us as we do not know what we are doing. I have to increase my faith that God works in the midst of all the mess we have helped create.

God have mercy on… Israel, Jews, Gaza, Palestinian Arabs (many of whom have Jewish ancestry), God have mercy on us who claim to follow the Prince of Peace.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink
Perspectives