By way of reminder, the three gi-normous chapters in Tom’s magnum opus, that carry most of the freight of his argument focus on: 1) monotheism redefined; 2) election/ecclesiology redone; and 3) eschatology freshly re-envisioned. We are in the midst of working through the last of these three major subsections of the study, and we will be covering the discussion in pp. 1128-51 in this post. A good deal of this material has been already covered in earlier chapters (particularly in the discussion of 2 mentioned above), and so now Tom is viewing some of these same things through an eschatological lens, or viewpoint. In other words, we are not dealing with mere repetition, but different angles of incidence into the central issues.
Beginning on p. 1129, Tom stakes out the views that he rejects when it comes to the issue of the relationship of Israel and the Church, and of course he does so on the basis of his view of election. He does not think that the two track, two peoples of God model works– against Gager, Gaston, Eisenbaum, W. Campbell etc. as a way of reading Paul. And he rejects the notion, sometimes noised about by that view point, that he is instead offering a form of super-sessionism, i.e. the church replaces Israel. As Tom stresses on this page, the discussion has been skewed in modernity by seeing this as a matter of dueling religions. The point is not about Judaism vs. Christianity, but rather we are dealing with two or more forms of the multi-faceted reality that was early Judaism. Tom stresses, that the very use of ‘fulfillment’ rather than replacement language should have helped make this clear. Why would a new ‘religio’ be interested in fulfilling the promises and prophecies of an old one, if it simply saw itself as the replacement of this other religion? So Tom on p. 1130 stresses we are dealing with an inner Jewish dispute, and in Galatians, which will be the focus of this post, we are dealing with a dispute between two different Jewish messianic approaches to the praxis of the faith focused on Jesus. As we would say— its an in-house debate between two groups of Jewish Christians, not a debate between even between Gentile and Jewish Christians. Tom believes that Paul sees Jesus as the Jewish messiah and those who embrace him as true Jews, the true Israel of God (see below on Gal. 6). Hence the rejection of the two track approach to Paul, largely based on a certain reading of Rom. 9-11.
Equally, Tom rejects the Dispensational, two-track model as well, rejecting the idea that there are still promises about land and the like being now fulfilled in non-Christian Israel, in the Holy Land. Rather Tom would insist that all the prophecies and promises of God are fulfilled in and through the Christ, and not elsewhere or as Paul would put it, they are ‘yea and Amen’ in Jesus.
Further, Tom rejects the universal salvation view, based in part on modern relativism. He stresses that the ‘all’ that sometimes shows up in Paul (‘God has shut up all in the prison of disobedience so he might have mercy on all’), must be understood in its proper context, and in some cases we are dealing with deliberate rhetorical hyperbole, as is clear from the other passages where Paul talks about only some being saved in the long run.
On p. 1132 there is an interesting personal reflection by Tom on his own journey and he admits that at one point earlier in his life, he took a view of a text like Rom. 11.25 to indicate that God still had plans for non-Christian Israel in the future, namely that they would one day be saved by Christ, perhaps at his return. He no longer embraces such a view. On p. 1133 he admits that it maybe he has misread Paul, and “if it turns out that Paul says things I do not want to hear, I shall live with it.” And I would say, Paul already said some things Tom doesn’t want to hear, and in various regards his earlier views of Rom. 11 are more nearly on the mark.
The bulk of the discussion in this section of the book focuses on the major proof texts that have been endlessly debated when it comes to the issue of election and how Paul views the church and Israel. First up to bat is Gal. 4-6 which we will concentrate on here, but it is worth saying that even his passing remarks, for example on 1 Cor. 10, do not inspire confidence that he is entirely on the right track (see p. 1150). He says about that latter text that Paul is reading the Corinthians into the story of Israel. No, actually he is not. He is doing a typology, and comparing two distinct groups, wilderness wandering Hebrews on the one hand, and sacramentally confused Corinthians on the other. The very nature of typology is based on the assumption that two unlike things are in some particular ways alike, and therefore can be compared. If the two were only two phases on the one thing, the typology wouldn’t even work, because clearly, there are many ways the Corinthians are very distinct from and different than the Hebrews. Paul in that text is simply saying that a reliance on OT or NT sacraments (to use the term loosely) while still practicing idolatry and immorality, will not save anyone either in the former or later case. No reading of the Corinthian story back into the Israel story. None.
It must be admitted, and Tom does admit, that the discussion of the allegory of Sarah and Hagar in Gal. 4 is fraught with peril. It is easy to go wrong. And Tom admits, rightly that this is a tale of two covenants, the only time he uses that specific phrase. I would stress that Paul does indeed have a two covenant way of thinking about the issue of those under the Mosaic Law as opposed to those who are characterized as having heard with faith the Gospel (Gal. 3). Paul connects the Abrahamic covenant with the new covenant, and sees the Mosaic covenant as an interim ‘paidagogos’ given to God’s people until they grew, until the time had been fulfilled and the Jewish messiah, Jesus was born (Gal. 4). The contrast between Sarah and Hagar, the children of the free woman and the children of the slave, the new Jerusalem and the present one, parallels the contrast between the Mosaic covenant and the new one. Paul’s point throughout Galatians is to insist to his largely Gentile converts that they do not need to get themselves circumcised and keep the Mosaic Law, they already have all the benefits through faith in Christ and the faithfulness of Christ. It should have been clear then that Paul is NOT talking about the renewal of the Mosaic covenant, and there are points where Tom seems to agree. He even says on p. 1140– “the law of Sinai is quite simply out of date”. Right. But this conclusion should have led to a different reading of Paul’s hermeneutic when it comes to the issue of covenant renewal or the start up of a new and separate covenant. Election and eschatology, as with monotheism, is definitely redefined around Messiah and Spirit, as Tom stresses, but he draws back from some of the proper implications of this fact.
This chapter of the book is on eschatology, and it is precisely because eschatology is an already and not yet matter, that the discussion of God’s people is also an already and not yet matter, as is the discussion of salvation, justification, etc. By this I mean that Paul certainly does believe what he says in Gal. 3.28 that the people of God are Jew and Gentile united in the Jewish Messiah Jesus, and therefore there is a sense in which there is no Jew or Gentile etc. in Christ. Were this all Paul said, then Tom’s analysis that by Israel (e.g. in Gal. 6) Paul means the church, Jew and Gentile united in Christ, would be cogent. But it is not. Paul believes that God is not finished with non-Christian Israel yet, and he deliberately avoids calling the ekklesia of God, the Israel of God, unless of course Gal. 6 is an exception. Perhaps Paul does think that one day, when Jesus returns, all the saved, both Jew and Gentile, can be called Israel, but for now, since it is an already and not yet situation, Paul is stressing, especially in Rom. 9-11 that God has not forgotten, nor forsaken his promises made to non-Christian Jews. It’s just that they will not be finally and fully brought to pass until ‘the Redeemer comes forth from heavenly Zion and turns away the impiety of Jacob’ (Rom. 11). This in turn means, that the story of God’s people is incomplete, and will be incomplete until the Lord returns. In the meantime, God has blessed the foreshadowing and preliminary edition of the final eschatological form of God’s people (Jew and Gentile united in Christ), without forsaking his first chosen people. What matters in the long run is new creation, and all must experience it to be saved, whether Jew or Gentile. What is obsolescent is the Mosaic covenant. Paul is not a supercessionist when he argues like that (and BTW, Tom is also wrong about 2 Cor. 3–it is indeed about a contrast between two ministries, based in two covenants, and resulting in two different sorts of glory– one fleeting the other enduring), rather Paul is a Jewish completionist— the people of God are being brought to completion in their Messiah Jesus. The promises and prophecies about Messiah are being fulfilled in Jesus the Jew, and those who are in him. But until Jesus finishes the job at the eschaton, the Good News is still for the Jew first, and also the Gentile, precisely because God is not finished with either as Paul says. And this brings us to Gal. 6.15-16.
If one reads my commentary Grace in Galatia, on these verses, one will see that I have varied over the years on how I have read the phrase ‘the Israel of God’. Tom conveniently sets out the options on p. 1148—
1) “peace and mercy a) upon them (i.e. those who walk by the rule that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters) and b) upon the Israel of God” (a different group from ‘them’).
2) “peace a) upon ‘those who walk by this rule’, and b) mercy even for the Israel of God (a different group from ‘them’).
OR 3) peace and mercy upon those who walk by this rule, yes even upon ‘the Israel of God’ (the same group). Tom favors the third option, and I used to do so. I now think it does not work grammatically, or otherwise. Tom carefully lays out the parallels with Jewish prayers like the bit from the 18 benedictions “show mercy and peace upon us, and on thy people Israel” where the ‘us’ is a subset of Israel. Now it should be stressed that Paul of course still sees himself as a Jew, indeed a faithful one, and so he would include himself within both the Israel of God, and the ekklesia if asked… indeed he does so for example in 2 Cor. and Phil. in the autobiographical passages.
In context however in Gal. 6, it would seem likely that ‘the Israel of God’ refers to 1) non-Christian Jews who have caused Paul’s stigmata (mentioned closed by this verse); and 2) the Jewish Christian agitators who have been bewitching the Galatians and Paul. In neither case, or even if we take the two groups together is it possible to simply equate Israel of God=ekklesia of God, precisely because the term Israel is limited to Jews, whether just non-Christian Jews, or Jewish Christians like the agitators, or both.
And this brings up a further point— the reason for peace and THEN mercy being mentioned is because Paul has been troubled and bothered by, and even persecuted by these folks, and here he is tell them ‘may God have mercy on you’. Paul’s Galatian converts may be exasperating, but Galatians does not lead us to expect he would suggest they need God’s mercy in the way that the agitators and persecutors do. On the contrary, the Galatians thus far have been following the rule he mentions, and they are the ‘them’ on whom peace is wished (view 2). Furthermore, there is an extra ‘kai’ in this whole sentence, as Tom rightly points out. And that ‘kai’ can certainly be translated ‘even’ so the sentence would read ‘peace on those who keep the rule, and mercy EVEN on the Israel of God’. This reading favors the argument above, not Tom’s argument. Even if the sentence reads ‘peace and mercy on those who keep the rule, even on the Israel of God’ the final ‘kai’ surely distinguishes the former group from the latter.
Pp. 1150-51 in this part of the argument remind me of the old joke where the preacher writes in the margin of his sermon notes— ‘not sure of this point, pound the pulpit harder’. Tom trots out the heavy rhetoric on these two pages saying that if Paul means by ‘Israel of God’ something other than the church of God, this makes a nonsense of the whole letter. Well…. no. It doesn’t. It simply means that Paul knows there is still work to be done to bring even the agitators, and even Pharisaic Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (see Acts 15.1ff.) around to being truly full participants in the eschatological people of God– Jew and Gentile united in Christ. It means Paul knows the Gospel still needs to reach non-Christian Jews. It means he is a man who stands in two worlds— being the Jew to the Jew, and otherwise to Gentiles. He is a man who knows only a minority of Jews have accepted Jesus as the Messiah. This means he knows there is still an Israel of God out there that God is not finished with yet. And the apostle to the Gentiles is prepared to even say, I could wish myself to be anathema, cut off from God, if my fellow Israelites could be brought to the Lord.
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