The NT hermeneutical appropriation of the OT: Snapshots (b)To continue my analysis of the early Churches uses the OT, let’s look a little closer at how the matter of the ‘Land’ and ‘Temple’ are treated in the two passages in the NT. Again, the focus is on the hermeneutical moment.
Land in Rom 4.
Paul can claim in Romans 4:13: ‘For the promise that he [Abraham] would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith’. Did you get that? The promise that he would inherit the world. What was the promise God made to Abram actually (cf. Gen. 12)? To give him the specific strip of land in Canaan, of course.
So what is going on? This incongruity apparently doesn’t appear to bother Paul because he reads the OT through the Christ-event. The promise has been fulfilled in Christ, promises that, in light of Christ, were meant to suggest a universal reading all along.
To summarise far too much too quickly: it mustn’t be forgotten that God chose Israel to be a light to the nations; the world was always his concern, not just this land and this nation as an absolute end in themselves (cf. e.g. Gen 12:1-3, Isa 42:6; 49:6 etc.). Yet Paul realizes that this nation’s mission has been fulfilled and thus set in motion in Christ (ergo, including those who are in Christ), and so now God’s purpose through Christ is as testimony to the whole creation (cf. the structure of thought in Col and Eph – I can expand on this if anyone wants). God’s light has indeed dawned through his chosen Messiah of Israel to all the nations. Understood as a narrative, Paul is suggesting that in Christ we see the climax of a story, the reached end of a plan set in motion long ago. From the specific one sees, through Christ, the universal intentions that God had all along (Wright expands on these points in his Romans commentary. And for an interesting parallel analysis – at least to my mind – cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV, 1)
(Image from http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/landofisrael.html)
8 comments:
Chris,
These have been excellent. Please let me know when you have the series complete and I can link to them all. I REALLY want to undermine the CZ nonsense.
Thanks for your hard work on this.
mlw-w@insightbb.com
Christ, do you think it's important that both the Hebrew (eretz) and Greek (ge) translated 'land' can also mean 'earth'? Paul isn't being entirely arbitrary in his reading. By selecting cosmos here in Romans 4, he wants to emphasise the universal potential that was already inscribed into the promises (hmmm, perhaps a messy way of putting it).
Byron, I fear Chris's excellent blog has led you into some highly dubious theology. Or is it just a typo?
...should I have said Chris-ology?
By the way Chris, I'm thoroughly enjoying your series. Glad you're well again.
Thanks for the encouragement Michael. I would add that CZ comes in many shapes and sizes, and many CZs are lovely Christians. Most in Germany are CZs which makes life interesting sometimes!
Byron, thunderbolts are reserved in heaqven for me after that! I personally don't think we can do too much with the eretz/ge words, as the wider context in Genesis delimites the meaning rather thoroughly. However, I do think Paul saw the universal seeds in God's plan in light of Christ, but not necessarily in that word. That is an equally messy way of responding, sorry! Thanks for your thoughts!
Thanks, Mark! I'm really glad you are following this. Still, I feel I've yet to really get to the point!
I love understatements. ;-)
Byron and CT,
I think the ge/eretz ambiguity does arise in Matthew 5:5, J's use of Psalm 37 (originally referred to the Land, but probably leaning cosmic; cf. 5:13-16).
Hi Chris,
I also have enjoyed following your blog. However, I think you do indeed "summarise far too much too quickly" when you say, "it mustn’t be forgotten that God chose Israel to be a light to the nations; the world was always his concern, not just this land and this nation as an absolute end in themselves (cf. e.g. Gen 12:1-3, Isa 42:6; 49:6 etc.). Yet Paul realizes that this nation’s mission has been fulfilled and thus set in motion in Christ..."
Have you read Don Robinson on the ongoing signifcance and purpose of Israel post-Christ? He focusses on the Jewish apostles and the Jerusalem church who fulfill Israel's purposes of bringing light to the nations. Yes, Jesus is the perfect Israelite and succeeds where national Israel largely failed in the OT, but this doesn't invalidate or frustrate God's purposes for physical Israel. In Ephesians, Gentiles are joint heirs with, not instead of, Israel ("we who were the first... and you also"). In Romans 11, (a) Gentiles are grafted in to the Jewish olive tree; and (b) "life from the dead" (which I think in the context means gospel blessings to the Gentiles) comes as a result of the restoration of physical Israel to belief in her Messiah. God still has a commitment to and a role for phsyical Israel. The question is: does this include the gift of the land? And is Romans 11:28-29 - one of the key planks in the argument of restorationist writer Erroll Hulse - relevant here?
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