CHAPTER FOUR

"THE REDEEMER WILL COME FROM ZION" IN ROMANS 11

I say, then: "God has not rejected his inheritance, has he?" Romans 11:1

The rhetorical question in Romans 11: 1 marks the beginning of a new stage in Paul's argument. His astounding claim that has both "heard" and "known" of God's gracious plan to call the Gentiles to hirnself in Christ has been sustained by two important witnesses, and Isaiah, who stood forth, as it were, to testify against Israel with their own voices (10: 19-21). But having emphasized Israel's stubborn refusal to respond to the God who "all day long" stretch es forth his hands to "a disobedient and contrary people" (Isa 65:2/ Rom 10:21), Paul now asks whether Israel's chronic infidelity will finally overcome God's own faithful character (cf. Rom 3:3) and ren­ der null and void the promises God made to his people: "God has not rejected his inheritance, has he?" Could the election of Gentiles be a sign that God has now cast off Israel, the people he once chose to be his very own?! Although it will be some time before we encounter another quota­ tion from Isaiah (Rom 11 :8), it is crucial that we continue to follow Paul's argument as it unfolds, for in Romans 11: 1-7 Paul begins to

I Note once again Dia!. 119, where, in dependence on the very texts Paul cites in : 19-21, Justin arrives at the conclusion, all too common among Christian interpreters, that God has indeed chosen the church in place qf Israel: [We are] the nation that 10ng ago God promised to .... God promises to hirn a certain nation, of like /iüth, both god-fearing and righteous, pleasing to the Father-but it is not you, in whom there is no faith (119.4, 6). [~~El<;] LO 1:8vo<;, Ö miAUt L0 'Aßpaa~ 0 eEil<; lmEaXELo .... 'O~Ot61ttaLOV oilv n i!8vo<; Kat eEOaEßk<; Kat OlKUtOV, d)(ppa'ivov LOV lta.LEpa, lmtaxvE1Lat aln0, aAA' OUX u~a<;, ot<; OUK 1:an 1tlan<; fV aULol<;. In drawing this conclusion, of course, Justin directiy controverts Paul's explicit state­ ment in Romans 11:1-2 (Greek text ofJustin's Dialogue from Marcovich 1997:275-76). 220 CHAPTER FOUR deconstruct his earlier "misreading" of passages of scripture such as 2:2311:10, Isaiah 52:7, and Isaiah 65:1-2. The original con­ texts of these biblical texts promising Israel's restoration-texts that Paul has brazenly subverted into prophecies of God's redemption of Gentile~have, below the surface, exerted a subtle, but steady pull on the direction of PauI's reasoning. In Romans 11: 1-7, this under­ tow finally gains enough strength to sweep the argument out into the powerful scriptural current testifying to God's abiding faithful­ ness to Israel. If God has extended his grace to those "not his peo­ pIe," how much more will he remain faithful to his promises to redeem the people he has chosen as his very own inheritance? Careful attention to Romans 11: 1-7 will also enable us to properly contex­ tualize the Isaianic quotations that follow. The opening verses of Romans 11 reveal the theological convictions that shape Paul's appro­ priation of the Isaianic motif of Israel's spiritual blindness (Rom 11 :8) and that support his unwavering confidence, expressed in Isaiah's words, that God will ultimately act to save "all Israel" (Rom 11 :26-27). The opening words of Romans 11: 1, AEYW 01)V, draw attention to the importance of the following question for PauI, who has taken pains throughout these chapters to keep before his hearers his own intense grief over the plight of his kinspeople (9: 1-5, 10: I). The apos­ tle offers here his most explicit challenge yet to the notion of God's faithfulness to Israel. And yet, even now, his very manner of fram­ ing the question-"God hasn't rejccted his inheritance, has he?"­ anticipates the answer, a resounding /11] YEVOt'tO!2 However, Paul does more than merely protest in a shrill voice that, despite all appear­ ances, God can be trusted. He supports his all-important denial that God has forsaken Israel both with empirical data and with an elab­ orate and densely-allusive scriptural argument.

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE: ROMANS I I: I

At an earlier stage in the discussion, Paul could take for gran ted the fact that the "vessels of mercy" whom God has called include those "from among the Jews" (E~ 'IouÖalwv, 9:24). Now, as living proof that God has not forsaken Israel, he offers hirns elf: Paul, an Israelite from Abraham's seed, one of 's tribe (Rom 11: 1). Paul has

2 For the textual variant, "inheritance," adopted here, see below, p. 222.