Think you can stump a scholar? No question is too tough or too radical (this IS the Bible after all — a tough, radical book) for our new Stump a Scholar series at Patheos Progressive Christian. Every Tuesday, we’ll answer your questions about the Bible, Christian history, the Church, theology; and we’re bringing in the experts to tackle your questions.
This month, we’re focusing on the Bible and have invited Jerry L. Sumney, professor of biblical studies at Lexington Theological Seminary, to be our resident scholar. Sumney is the author of Colossians: A Commentary (2008) and Identifying Paul’s Opponents (1990). He is also the editor of Reading Romans (2012) and the coeditor of Theology and Ethics in Paul and His Interpreters (1996) and Paul and Pathos (2006). He’s also the author of the brand new Bible: An Introduction, Second Edition from Fortress Press, a dynamic interactive digital textbook for learning about the Bible on your own.
Professor Sumney will be answering your questions about the Bible for the next several weeks here at the Faith Forward blog (subscribe to the blog on the right so as not to miss any of the series!). The third question from our Facebook inquiry (to which many of you responded) and is from David W. Keep the questions coming in the Comments section below or on Facebook! Your comments on Prof. Sumney’s answers are also welcome, below.
David W. asks:
Does God still have a plan and purpose for natural, ethnic Israel, i.e. the current, modern state of Israel? Are they still God’s special people? If so, what is their role?
Professor Sumney responds:
This is an important question because answers to it have led to anti-Semitism and conversely to support for the modern nation of Israel. The first thing we have to do is to separate the question of the modern nation of Israel from what the New Testament says about Jews. These two things have been connected because some 20th century end-time schemas contend that the nation of Israel must exist for the Second Coming of Christ to be possible. Those schemas do not represent a clear reading of the end-time thought of any New Testament writer.
So what does the New Testament say about the place of Jews in God’s plan? The most extensive discussion of this issue is Roman 9-11. But before we turn there, let me say a word about the Gospels of Matthew and John. Both of these Gospels have harsh things to say about Pharisees or “the Jews.” The first thing to note is that the authors of Matthew and John are Jews. So whatever they have to say is inner-family argument. Matthew caricatures the Pharisees because they are the main competitors of his church. Matthew’s church and the Pharisees are the main alternatives for how to live for God that Matthew sees in his day (a time after the Temple has fallen). If he can make the Pharisees look bad, people are more inclined to join his movement. So the disputes between them and Jesus are framed to make the Pharisees look disingenuous. So we should not take Matthew’s presentation of Pharisees as representative of what they were really like. Judaism of the first century was not focused on details and was not legalistic.
The Gospel of John also writes to a church that is composed predominantly of fellow Jews. The claims his church members make about Jesus have led their home synagogues to expel them. He writes out of the pain of being excluded from the congregations in which his church members were raised. When he talks about “the Jews,” he does not mean all Jews because that would include him and most members of his church. Most scholars of John think that John’s references to “the Jews” means the folks who are in charge in Jerusalem. Since he writes after the temple has fallen, those Jerusalem officials stand for the officials in his own community who have expelled his church members. So when John uses the phrase “the Jews” he means “those other Jews who oppose us.” John can say that being a descendant of Abraham (a central factor in being a Jew) is good even if being one of those other “Jews” is not a good thing. Again, this is an argument among people who are all Jewish.
Romans 9-11 is one of the most contorted and difficult passages in the New Testament. Paul, who is Jewish, writes about the place of Israel in God’s plan. He writes this passage because he has claimed throughout the first eight chapters of this letter that God responds to human need through Christ; that God grants people a new and intimate relationship with God through Christ. But that is only comforting if you can trust God. One way to decide whether you can trust God is to look at how God has treated God’s people in the past. If God has made promises and then reneged, then believers in Christ cannot trust God because God might do the same thing to them. So the question of Romans 9-11 is about whether God’s dealings with Israel show God to be trustworthy or of questionable character.
When Paul writes this, he is in pain for his own people. As a Jew he knows the advantages and privileges they have. He lists them off right at the beginning of the discussion (Rom 9:1-5). But he also knows that few of his fellow Jews are accepting his gospel. Yet, their election is irrevocable (11:29). If it is revocable, God cannot be trusted. So the election of Israelites is permanent. We will have to give careful thought to what it means to be the chosen people of God, but Paul is convinced that this is and will always be the case for Jews. There is no easy way for Paul to see how Jews are the objects of God’s election and how they reject the gospel. After a long and tortuous path through discussion of the meaning of election and the definition of Israel and the assurance that Israel can turn to Christ, he still has no simple resolution. He has two things that are both foundational and which must be true: 1) all salvation is in Christ, 2) God is faithful to Israel so that they are God’s people. He ends with a doxology, a statement of praise, about God’s unsearchable and unknowable wisdom. He is not quite sure how it works, but both of these things must be true.
So Jews remain the elect people of God. To be such, they do not have to play a role in some scheme of how the world ends or Jesus returns. Like the church, they are chosen to be a sign of who God is to the world.
Got a question? We’ve got an answer! Join the new Stump A Scholar series every Tuesday here at Patheos Progressive Christian!
And to learn more about the Bible on your own, check out The Bible: An Introduction, Second Edition interactive digital textbook by Jerry L. Sumney here!
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