Saturday 28 April 2018
- Bible Book:
- Romans
“The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (v. 29)
Psalm: Psalm 49
Background
Paul continues his arguments through verses 13-24 and then we come to our final passage this week. After largely debating these weighty matters with himself, he now addresses his Gentile audience in Rome (although it is very likely there were significant numbers of Jews in the Christian community there, members, perhaps, of the remnant referred to yesterday).
He tells them not to get above themselves. They must not imagine that Christianity totally supersedes Judaism. Christianity is rooted in the salvation history of Israel. The current problem that the bulk of Jews had not embraced Jesus Christ as Lord was, in fact, part of God’s deliberate plan to bring salvation to the whole of the world. But there is absolutely no doubt in Paul’s mind that all Israel will be saved (verse 26 – NRSV).
At the risk of caricaturing Paul and understanding his sophisticated thinking simplistically, he seems to be saying that once the Jews were in and everyone else was out. But for a time now, most Jews are out so that everyone else may be brought in. But eventually, everyone will be in. This sounds like the tea-towel joke rules of cricket, but Paul does seem to be saying something like it.
We end with a doxological flourish – an appropriately humble recognition that even a mind as great as Paul’s can only glimpse dimly the ways and means of God. Cardinal Newman’s great hymn Praise to the Holiest in the height (Singing the Faith 334), for all its confident telling of the story of salvation, still leaves us with ‘wonder, love and praise’, as another hymnwriter, Charles Wesley, put it.
To Ponder
- To what extent is theological theorising like Paul’s helpful?
- Or, is the mind of God so beyond human understanding that all we can do is gaze in awe? Have a look at the closing chapters of Job (eg Job 38-39). Psalm 49 is another corrective to human presumption.
- To come back to Earth, do you think Paul’s theology might promote anti-semitism? Or is it the opposite: a Christian defence of the place of the Jews in God’s providence?