Viii The Church As The People Of God

Viii The Church As The People Of God

VIII

THE CHURCH AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD

SECTION 53. TWO PRINCIPAL ASPECTS

The church also belongs to the central content of Paul's preaching. In all that has been said of the redemptive work of God in Jesus Christ, the church has continually been included. From a redemptive-historical point of view it has a fixed place in that work. It does not first come into view as a gathering of individual believers who have come to participate in the gift of Christ and the Holy Spirit, Rather, it has an a priori significance, namely, as the people that in his saving activity God has placed on his side and which he intends to be the exemplification of his grace and redemption. Consequently all that has been said in the foregoing about the salvation given in Christ has special reference to the church and to the individual believer because he belongs to the church. In treating the various facets of salvation this has frequently been evident.

This central and integral significance which Paul ascribes to the church in all his proclamation of redemption appears especially from the two principal points of view from which he considers the church: in the first place, the church is the continuation and fulfillment of the historical people of God that in Abraham God chose to himself from all peoples and to which he bound himself by making the covenant and the promises. In this Paul associates himself with the general view of the church as it is to be found in the whole of the New Testament, although in his epistles he provides his own thorough elaboration of it. In the second place, he gives his own form of expression to the real being and character of the church when he speaks of it as the body of Christ.

Both ways of viewing the church are indissolubly connected to each other, as we shall see still further, and together they constitute a unity. In the first the redemptive-historical aspect of the church predominates, and in the second the christological. In both, however, the salvation given in Christ bears a corporate character, and is given and received only in the fellowship of the people chosen and called by God to himself and of the one body of Christ. We wish now under both of these principal aspects to examine more closely Paul's pronouncements on the church in their diversity and unity. Because of the volume of material we shall distribute it over various chapters, and devote the first of them exclusively to a discussion of the church as the redemptive historical people of God.

SECTION 54. EKKLESIA

The redemptive-historical significance of the New Testament church as the people of God already finds clear expression in its most prevalent name ekklesia. Without going again into all the questions connected with the early Christian use of ekklesia,¹ with which Paul associates himself, it may be taken as established that the Christian church is thereby ascribed the title of the Old Testament people of God as the Q^ehal-Yahweh.² The frequent use by Paul of the qualification "church of God"can also point to this,³ the equivalent of Q^ehal- Yahweh in Deuteronomy. At the same time the use of this name for the early Christian church must not be taken as a simple repristination. Rather, in it the consciousness was voiced that in its existence as the Christian church the true people of God, the Messianic congregation of the great end time (cf. Matt. 16:18ff.), had been revealed, and that the privileges and qualities attributed to ancient Israel in the making of the covenant in the wilderness had found their God-intended application in this church. Paul associates himself with this usage and the thought contained in it,⁴ when for him too ekklesia constitutes the customary description of the communion of those who believe in Christ and have been baptized into him.

Just as elsewhere so (and especially) in Paul ekklesia is at one time the description of the church in its totality, irrespective of its being scattered over various localities, then again of the local church or even of the so-called house-churches (for this last use see Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2). As a description of the church as a whole the use of ekklesia in Ephesians and Colossians is particularly to be pointed out (cf. Eph. 1:22; 3:10, 21; 5:23-32; Col. 1:18, 24, although it is there also used of the local church and house-church [Col. 4:16, 15]). In the remaining epistles ekklesia usually means the local church. As a rule it is then called simply "church," although sometimes also plerophorically "the church of God" (cf. 1 Thess. 2:14; 2 Thess. 1:4; 1 Tim. 3:5 [and 1 Cor. 1:2 and 2 Cor. 1:1 (?); see below]). There are then outside Ephesians and Colossians passages of which it is usually judged that Paul speaks of the ekklesia as a whole, whether as the "church of God" (1 Cor. 10:32; 11:22; 15:9; Gal. 1:13; 1 Tim. 3:15), or simply as the "church" (1 Cor. 12:28; Phil. 3:6).⁵

To be sure, the attempt has been made to understand the passages mentioned above (apart from Colossians and Ephesians) of the local church. Thus Cerfaux, for example, has wished to make it plausible that ekklēsia tou Theou originally had reference to the church at Jerusalem and that when Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 15:9, Galatians 1:13, and Philippians 3:6 of his persecution of the church (of God) he is not thinking of the church in general, but of the church at Jerusalem.⁶ And so far as 1 Corinthians 10:32 and 11:22 are concerned, it is said that there is no reason to think of the church in general; rather, the gathered local church is again intended. Paul would then have transferred the title that originally pertained to the church at Jerusalem specifically to the church at Corinth in order to set its obligations clearly before it. In this sense 1 Corinthians 1:2 and 2 Corinthians 1:1 are consequently to be assessed as a simple designation of the local church.⁷

Now in our view one may with good reason maintain that, in addition to the local and universal church, ekklesia in Paul can have the significance of a religious gathering (cf. 1 Cor. 11:18; 14:19, 28, 34, 35). This is especially clear in 1 Corinthians 14:34ff. where "in the churches" stands over against "at home," and therefore can be translated "in the church meetings." In this sense 1 Corinthians 11:22, too, can be understood, not of the church in general, but of the church meeting. Here again "house" stands over against ekklesia as the place where one eats and drinks. One can also interpret 1 Corinthians 14:4 in this way. In other places, however, one can hardly deny the meaning of Gesamt-gemeinde, the church-in-general. Thus in 1 Corinthians 12:28 where apostles, prophets, etc., are spoken of as given by God "to the church." Here it is obviously a matter not only of that which applies to the individual local congregation, but to the church in general. Regarding 1 Corinthians 10:32 one may be doubtful because with ekklēsia tou Theou one can think both of participants in local church gatherings⁸ and of the church in general.⁹ In our view it is otherwise, however, with the three passages where Paul speaks of his persecution of "the church of God" (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13; Phil. 3:6). Although this name certainly will have been applied in the first instance to the church at Jerusalem as the mother church and to the churches afterward established in Judea (1 Thess. 2:14), it is apparent even from this last passage that "church of God" was not employed by him as a terminus technicus for the church in Jerusalem or in Judea. In the plural form of 1 Thessalonians 2:14 the principle is already clear of the particularization and extension of this name. Paul's attacks, too, were not directed only or in the first place against the primitive church at Jerusalem, but also against the Christians in cities abroad (Acts 9:2; 22:5; 26:11; Gal. 1:17). For his object was the complete extirpation of the name of Christ (Acts 26:9; Gal. 1:13).10 In the three places mentioned one is undoubtedly to think, therefore, of the church in general. (Acts 26:9; Gal. 1:13).10 In the three places mentioned one is undoubtedly to think, therefore, of the church in general. (Acts 26:9; Gal. 1:13).¹⁰ In the three places mentioned one is undoubtedly to think, therefore, of the church in general. (Acts 26:9; Gal. 1:13).10 In the three places mentioned one is undoubtedly to think, therefore, of the church in general.

Furthermore, however one chooses to take 1 Corinthians 1:2 and 2 Corinthians 1:1, it is in our view incontrovertible that from the beginning Paul in his epistles ascribes more than one meaning to the title ekklesia: next to that of the local (house-)church and church meeting also that of the church in general, the church as a totality. The passages in Ephesians and Colossians (and 1 Tim. 3:15) are therefore not in conflict with the general usage of Paul, though it remains true that in Ephesians and Colossians ekklesia has the meaning almost exclusively of the church-in-general while elsewhere the majority of Paul's pronouncements concerning the ekklesia have reference to the local church or church gathering.

When one inquires after the relationship of both these meanings of ekklesia, the view that has frequently been advocated that the universal church is for Paul a secondary concept and is intended as the joining together or confederation of individual churches is to be repudiated even on the ground of the little that has so far been said about the ekklesia. For if the concept of the ekklēsia tou Theou has above all a redemptive-historical content and speaks of the church as the true people of God, the manifestation of the (Messianic) congregation of the great future, then it is clear that for Paul, not only in Ephesians and Colossians but in all his preaching, the thought of the universal church is primary and the local church, the house-church, and the church gathering can be denoted as ekklesia because the universal ekklesia is revealed and represented in them. Consequently we see that for unity and peace in the local church Paul appeals to the unity of the church as the body-of-Christ (that is, as we shall see still further, to the unity of the church as a whole; 1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12). The fact that the usage of ekklesia outside Ephesians and Colossians to a preponderant degree denotes the local church is thus in no way decisive for the fundamental idea of the ekklesia in Paul's epistles. It proves only that in these pronouncements he is occupied with relationships in the local church — which in view of the concrete purpose of his epistles is not to be wondered at — and that he regards and addresses these local churches according to what they are as the manifestations and representations of the people of God in general.

SECTION 55. "SAINTS," "ELECT," "BELOVED," "CALLED"

Along with ekklesia we meet with several other frequently recurring expressions in Paul that function as customary designations of the church and in which the same self-consciousness of the Christian church and the same apostolic judgment find expression as in the name ekklesia. First of all, the description of the church as the "saints" ( hagioi) is to be pointed out here. One finds it especially in the address at the beginning and in the greetings at the conclusion of various epistles (cf. ginning and in the greetings at the conclusion of various epistles (cf. Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:2; Rom. 16:15; 2 Cor. 13:12; Phil. 4:21, 22). In part this designation occurs next to that of ekklesía (1 Cor. 1:2). It is evident from this that one is not to make a specific distinction between the two (as though, for example, "church" were and "the saints" were not to denote a solidary relationship; we have to do here with synonymous expressions).¹¹ This expression "the saints" or "saints" occurs not only in these more or less formal passages, however, but also in the organic contexts of Paul's epistles where it denotes believers, whether thought of to a greater or lesser extent in a congregational relationship (cf. Rom. 8:27; 16:2; 1 Cor. 6:1; Eph. 1:15; 5:3; 6:18; Col. 3:12). Here, too, there is reason to suppose that, this name was applied in the first instance to the primitive church at Jerusalem. In more than one place by "the saints" Paul means specifically the Jerusalem church (Rom. 15:25; 1 Cor. 16:1; 2 Cor. 8:4; 9:1, 12). It is clear here as well, however, that this name came into effect wherever Christian churches sprang up.¹² Furthermore, this name was not first employed by Paul. Just as in the case of ekklesia we have to do with a general early Christian usage (cf. Acts 9:13, 32, 41; 26:10; Heb. 3:1; 6:10; 13:24; Rev. 5:8; 8:3, 4, et passim; Jude 3). Likewise the consciousness that was expressed in this self-designation of the Christian church and which was strengthened through its use by the Apostle Paul was none other than that which underlay the use of ekklesia. With it there was a harking back to the naming of Israel as the holy people of God (Exod. 19:6; Lev. 11:44, 45, etc.), also expressed as a substantive: "(the) saints" (cf. Deut. 33:3; Num. 16:3; Ps. 16:3; 34:10; 89:6), partly also in conjunction with "the people" or the "congregation." From this qualification of empirical Israel we again see a special use developing, namely, the designation of the true people of God that is preserved and delivered by the Lord from the godlessness and judgment into which empirical Israel is becoming submerged, and to which in the great future he will fulfill his ancient promises (cf., e.g., Isa. 4:3; 6:13; Dan. 7:18, 21ff.). This special and eschatological use of "the saints" is also to be found in the later Jewish apocalyptic¹³ and the sects,¹⁴ as has appeared anew from the Qumran scrolls.¹⁵

From all this the significance of this designation of the Christian church in Paul can also be clearly seen: as the communion of the "saints" it is the true people of God, the eschatological Israel, which may apply to itself the promises of God because of the salvation that has appeared in Christ. On the one hand the church is in this way identified with Israel as the people of God; on the other hand, however, it is thereby distinguished from empirical Israel. identified with Israel as the people of God; on the other hand, however, it is thereby distinguished from empirical Israel. identified with Israel as the people of God; on the other hand, however, it is thereby distinguished from empirical Israel. identified with Israel as the people of God; on the other hand, however, it is thereby distinguished from empirical Israel.

The same thing is true mutatis mutandis of the description closely linked with the qualification "the saints," namely, "the elect" (hoi eklektoi), "beloved" (ēgapētnenoi), and "called" (klētoi). Paul speaks in more than one place of (the) "elect" of God as a variation of the "we" of the church (Rom. 8:33; cf. vv. 31, 32) and as a synonym for "saints" (v. 28; similarly in 2 Tim. 2:10, cf. vv. 11ff), also as a title of the church (Col. 3:12: "God's elect, saints and beloved"); in Titus 1:1 he further defines his own apostolate as directed toward and having reference to the "faith of God's elect."¹⁶ Here again "God's elect" is to be taken as a designation of the church, as "a self-designation of Christians."¹⁷

This usage, which has its traces in the whole of the New Testament (cf. Matt. 24:22, 24, 31 and the parallel passages in Mark 13; Luke 18:7; 1 Pet. 1:1; 2:9; 5:13; 2 John 1, 13), just as the qualifications already discussed, is to be traced back to the Old Testament designation of Israel as God's chosen people (cf., e.g., Deut. 7:6, 7; 14:2, et passim; 1 Kings 3:8; 1 Chron. 16:13; Ps. 105:6, etc.). In a special sense God's people of the future are denoted in this way (Isa. 14:1; 43:20), that is to say, those whom the Lord will cause to remain out of the ruin and judgment that is to come upon sinful Israel (Isa. 65:8, 9), in distinction from those who have forsaken him (Isa. 65:15, 22). It is frequently employed in this sense in the later eschatological and apocalyptic literature.¹⁸

"Beloved" is used synonymously with "elect" by Paul as a designation of the church (cf. Rom. 1:7; 1 Thess. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13; Col. 3:12). This name, too, goes back to the peculiar relationship between God and Israel, qualified as a love-relationship especially in Hosea, but also elsewhere¹⁹ (cf. Rom. 11:28, where the still unbelieving Jews are called "beloved for the fathers' sake"); and it is employed in this sense in the later Jewish literature as well.²⁰

Finally, the qualification of the church frequently employed by Paul as "the called" is still to be mentioned here (cf. Rom. 1:6, 7; 8:28; 1 Cor. 1:2, 24). This expression is closely connected with the preceding, as appears, for example, from the combination klētoi hagioi in Romans 1:7 and 1 Corinthians 1:2, as well as from the relationship the apostle establishes between the church's having been called and chosen (cf. Rom. 8:28; 9:11, 12; 2 Thess. 2:13, 14). This designation of the "called" will also have to be understood with reference to the historical calling of Israel by the Lord (cf. Isa. 41:9 [in close connection with election]; 42:6; 43:1; 45:3; 48:12; 51:2). The expression klētē hagia in Exodus 12:16 and Leviticus 23:2ff, (LXX)²¹ is also of importance for our subject. It is certainly very possible that this combination lies at the root of the singular expression in Paul in Romans 1:7 and 1 Corinthians 1:2 (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9).²² One may accordingly consider whether klētoi is not to be taken as a substantive in this combination and therefore must be translated by "holy called ones."²³ It is certainly clear in any case how closely the notion "called" and that of ekklesia are connected with each other via the Old Testament.²⁴

That these various designations of the church as "saints," "elect," "beloved," "called," so far, too, as their specific meaning is concerned, are closely related to one another and reciprocally supplement each other can easily be realized. The leading idea of them all is this, that God has chosen and called²⁵ a people to himself out of all peoples, as Abraham was called out of Ur, and believers have been called by the gospel of God's grace and to himself. As such they are his beloved, and they are holy, placed on God's side and separated from the world. Just as the name "church," these qualifications denote believers in Christ as the church of the great future, the continuation and manifestation of the true people of God in the redemptive-historical sense of the word. Paul's concept of the church is here in full agreement with what is said of the new fellowship elsewhere in the New Testament, beginning with the primitive church at Jerusalem. In Paul, moreover, it comes to the fore that it is not only the holy remnant of Israel that belongs to this holy people of God, but likewise those from among the gentiles whom God has chosen, has called to himself, and wills to consider as his beloved (cf. Rom. 9:25, et al.). This of itself leads us to the question of the relationship of ancient Israel and the Christian church.

SECTION 56. THE NEW COVENANT.

UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR

The significance of the church — which has repeatedly come to light in the foregoing — as the continuation of Israel, as the elect, called, holy people of God, ought now to be defined further according to its content and essence. We have already seen in the analysis of these various designations that this "continuation" is no simple matter. On the one hand, in a positive sense it presupposes that the church springs from, is born out of Israel; on the other hand, the church takes the place of Israel as the historical people of God. This means a new definition of the people of God, and likewise a new concept of Israel. The question is how one is to conceive of this redemptive-historical transition, on the one hand with regard to the historical Israel of the Old Testament that God has chosen to himself and to which he has given his promise, on the other hand with regard to the unbelieving Israel that has rejected Christ and thus placed itself outside the fulfillment of the divine promises to Abraham and his descendants.

Paul himself is occupied with this matter time and again and in various contexts in his epistles. Three different points of view admit of being clearly distinguished in them:

(a) In the foreground is the new — new, that is to say, as given with the revelation of Christ — definition of the essence of the people of God, which may be expressed as well in terms of the New Covenant.

(b) This new definition at the same time represents the real nature of Israel's election and the content of God's purpose with respect to his people.

(c) This new definition does not exclude continuing concern with historical Israel; the latter, even in spite of its unbelief, as the once chosen people of God remains involved in the fulfillment of his promises.

The new definition of the essence of the church as the people of God stands first. It is not the natural, national, or ceremonial prerequisites that are decisive here. What counts is to be of Christ, faith, sharing in the gifts of the Spirit.

In Paul's preaching this finds expression in a great many ways in the definition of "seed of Abraham": they who are "not only of the law, but also of the faith of Abraham" (Rom. 4:16); they who "are of Christ" are "Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29). Similarly he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and that may not be called circumcision which takes place externally in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one in secret, and circumcision is that which takes place in the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter (Rom. 2:28, 29).

This last pronouncement in Romans 2 is also of importance for the reason that without directly mentioning the name of Christ it signifies a radicalizing of the concept Jew, and thereby of the definition of the essence of the people of God. We have already stated that such a renewing of the concept Israel, congregation of God, etc., is found not only in Paul and in the New Testament, but also in certain currents and movements within Judaism itself, particularly where men had in view the prophecies of the great end time and the people faithful to God, the holy remnant of Israel, revealing themselves in it. The great distinction between this contemporary Jewish radicalizing of the concept of Israel, people of God, etc., on the one hand, and the Pauline on the other, however, is that the former comes about altogether within the sphere of the law and of national Judaism, while for Paul, even when he speaks of being a Jew in the heart and the Spirit, faith in Christ and his gift of grace are all-important, and therefore natural descent from Abraham is no longer a determinative factor for belonging to the people of God.

This emerges very clearly in the differing conception of contemporary Judaism on the one hand and Paul on the other concerning the New Covenant which according to prophecy God would establish in the great future, and in which the Old Covenant made at Sinai would receive a new and better realization.²⁶ In addition to that which was already known, for example, from such writings as the Book of the Jubilees and from the publication of the Document of Damascus found at Cairo in 1909, it is particularly the scrolls of the Qumran sect discovered near the Dead Sea that have given us an insight into the way this idea of the New Covenant lived on in certain circles of later Judaism that regarded themselves as members and as the fellowship of this New Covenant, in distinction not only from the gentiles but also from those in Israel who had left the true service of God. The New Covenant thus conceived remained entirely restricted to the descendants of Abraham and in essence consisted in nothing other than in a stricter view of the law, the worship of the temple, the ceremonial regulations, etc., and remained therefore wholly particularistic and legalistic in nature.

On the other hand, for Paul the promise of the New Covenant is one of the great supports of his spiritual and universal definition of the church as the people of God and the new Israel. To be sure, he speaks only in a few places explicitly of the New Covenant, namely, in I Corinthians 11:25 and 2 Corinthians 3:6ff., but it has frequently been pointed out rightly that the idea of the New Covenant in Paul's conception of the New Testament church and the salvation given to it plays a much greater role than may be gathered from the sparing use of this datum of revelation and from the slight attention that has been paid to it in the history of interpretation.²⁷

In this context the pronouncement of Romans 2:28, 29 just cited ought immediately to be pointed out. The apostle is reflecting here on such passages as Deuteronomy 10:16, 30:6, and Jeremiah 4:4, in which the spiritual circumcision of the heart (and not only that of the body) is promised to Israel as future redemptive gift and at the same time is laid down as a demand; and he draws from this the conclusion that the criterion for being a Jew and circumcised does not lie in distinctive external marks but in fulfilling the commandments of God (cf. vv. 26, 27). We meet with the same thought in the significant mention of the "so-called circumcision or uncircumcision" (Eph. 2:11), or when physical circumcision is ironically characterized as "mutilation" and the (true) circumcision is qualified as the worship of God by the Spirit (Phil. 3:2, 3). In these and similar pronouncements being a Jew and being circumcised acquires a purely spiritual significance, and the natural and empirical factors are not even taken into account any longer.

This spiritual disposition now forms the real content of the New Covenant of which Paul calls himself the minister (2 Cor. 3:6), and which, as the administration of the Spirit and of the righteousness given in Christ, he sets as the privilege of the New Testament church over against the administration of death and of condemnation, under which the Israel not yet converted to God lives (2 Cor. 3:16; cf. Gal. 4:24, 25). It is nowhere more apparent than here what a central significance the notion of the New Covenant occupies in Paul's preaching in general and in his definition of the essence of the New Testament church in particular. This New Covenant is grounded in the blood shed by Christ on the cross, in which the congregation receives a share in the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:25).²⁸ And the evidence that this New Covenant has taken effect and that the church of Christ may understand itself in terms of it is the spiritual renewal of the church itself, which he terms an epistle of Christ, prepared by his labor as a minister of the New Covenant, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone, but on tables of flesh in the hearts (2 Cor. 3:3).²⁹ In all these qualifications the apostle is clearly reflecting on that which had been promised in prophecy concerning the New Covenant (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 11:19; 36:26). It is on account of this fulfillment of the prophecy of the New Covenant in the Christian church that all the privileges of the Old Testament people of God in this spiritual sense pass over to the church. To it, as the church of Christ, the pre-eminent divine word of the covenant applies: "I will be their God, and they shall be my people.... I will receive you, and I will be to you a father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters" (2 Cor. 6:16ff.). Out of this fulfillment in Christ the whole nomenclature³⁰ of all the privileges Israel as God's people was permitted to possess recurs with renewed force and significance in the definition of the essence of heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:29; 4:7); sharing in the inheritance promised to Abraham (Rom. 8:17; cf. 4:13; Col. 1:2); being heirs of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9, 10; 15:50; Gal. 5:21). For this reason the church may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (Rom. 5:2; 8:2]; 2 Cor. 3:7ff, 18; Phil. 3:19), the splendor of the presence of God among his people, once the privilege of Israel (Rom. 9:4). Likewise the worship of God, at one time the prerogative of Israel (Rom. 9:4), is now the distinguishing mark of the Christian church as "spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1), the service of God by the Spirit (Phil. 3:3), as Paul knows himself to be the leitourgos of Jesus Christ who in the priestly administration of the gospel has to see to the irreproachableness of the offerings of the gentiles (Rom. 15:16; cf. Phil. 2:17). In a word, all the richly variegated designations of Israel as the people of God are applied to the Christian church, but now in the new setting of the salvation that has appeared in Christ. Conversely, the wretchedness of the gentiles before their conversion to Christ can be described not only as being dead in sin, etc. (Eph. 2:1), but also as having been "excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise" (Eph. 2:12), and their salvation can be characterized in the spiritually understood terminology of the covenant: no longer are they "strangers and sojourners," but "fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19). As Israel was once the peculiar possession of God (Exod. 19:5), so the church in all its parts, Jews and gentiles, is now the people of God's possession (Eph. 1:4; cf. Tit. 2:14). The more one views the Pauline epistles from this vantage point, the richer the materials prove to be that characterize the New Testament church in its continuity with ancient Israel on the one hand, and as the church of the New Covenant qualified by the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit on the other.

This new definition of the essence of what may be called the seed of Abraham and the people of God furthermore signifies a breaking through of the boundaries that obtained till now, a universalizing of salvation and with it of the church as the people of God. "There is no question of Jew or Greek, of slave or free, male or female" (Gal. 3:28; cf. Col. 3:11). It pertains to the essence of Paul's proclamation and of his overall significance in the history of redemption that with all pneumatic force, the adduction of evidence from the Scriptures, and theological argumentation, he placed beyond dispute this universal character of the Christian church as not bound to national, social, racial, or other anthropological prerequisites and embracing all sorts of men. This occurs notably in his running polemic with Judaism and Judaistic Christianity, in particular as that becomes evident in the epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans. But likewise where the antithesis element comes less markedly into the foreground, as, for example, in Ephesians and 1 Timothy, this universal character of the Christian church is central again and again, and the newness of the time of salvation that has dawned with Christ's advent is pointed out in the fact that the particularism of the old dispensation no longer obtains. This last perhaps occurs most emphatically in Ephesians 3:2ff, where Paul calls the participation of the gentiles in the promise the content of the mystery of Christ. Here he concentrates God's whole plan of redemption revealed in Christ with respect to the fullness of the times (cf. 1:9) in the universality of the people of God. Or, as he terms it in Ephesians 2:12ff: those who once were far off have now been brought near by the blood of Christ, through his having broken down the wall of partition that made a division; thereby those who were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and had no share in the covenants of the promise (v. 12) have become fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God (v. 19), and they have received a place in the building of God and are builded together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (v. 22); all these are descriptions of the privileges of the people of God that were once restricted to national Israel but are now without distinction the portion of those who belong to Christ.

Paul speaks of this insight and of his corresponding apostolic activity as the stewardship (oikonomia) of the divine grace given him with respect to the gentiles (Eph. 3:2), a mystery of redemption that in earlier generations was not made known to the children of men, but now has been revealed to God's apostles and prophets by the Spirit (v. 5). The universal character of the church pertains to the fullness of the time, constitutes as well the content of the mystery, and is evidence of the coming of the eschatological time of salvation. As such it also pertains to the gospel preaching of the new creation of God that has become effective with Christ (cf. Eph. 2:15).

In Paul's epistles this universalism is further explained in all sorts of ways. It proceeds from the grace-character of the righteousness of God revealed in Christ. Hence this righteousness is for all who believe, and there is no distinction (Rom. 3:22; 10:12). The gospel is a power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, but also for the Greek (Rom. 1:16). Hence God is not only the God of the Jews, but also of the gentiles (Rom. 3:29). And, to mention still another context of thought, in 1 Timothy 2 the apostle commands — certainly here again in view of the Judaistic heresy (cf. 1 Tim. 2:7) — that in its intercessions the church is to remember "all men"; for God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (vv. 2, 4), whereby under "all men" one is again to understand all sorts of men, not only Jews, but also gentiles (cf. v. 7).

It is remarkable, moreover, that Paul not only refers this universality, this lack of distinction in the proclamation of the gospel, back to the character as grace and faith of the salvation that has appeared in Christ, but time and again thrusts through more deeply and in so doing brings into the picture the whole of the knowledge of God given to Israel. In particular the confession of the unity of God held before Israel in the Shema (cf. Deut. 6:4), and reiterated by Judaism with never ceasing vigor, is for Paul — otherwise than for the Jews — the proof of the divine redemptive will. Compare the following:

Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the gentiles also? Yes! of the gentiles also, since God is One, who will judge the circumcised . . . and the uncircumcised . . . (Rom. 3:29, 30).

God will have all men to be saved.... For God is One; One also is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all . . . (1 Tim. 2:4, 5, 6).

From the fact that God is one and that there is no other God than he who has revealed himself to his people Israel, it is therefore concluded that the God known and worshipped by Israel must also be the God of the gentiles. Precisely that which for the Jews was the ground for their particularism — apart from Israel's God there is no God — here becomes the ground for the universalism: all men have to do with one God in judgment and in grace. It is that God who judges without respect of persons and will render to every man according to his works (Rom. 2:6, 11), but who will validate the faith of the circumcised and uncircumcised equally (Rom. 3:30). As the one God he has to do, not with Jews only, but with all men (Rom. 2:9, 16; 3:28). Because God is one the knowledge of his grace is also a knowledge that concerns all men. As apart from him there is no Judge, so apart from him there is no Deliverer and Savior, and his salvation has to do with all men (1 Tim. 4:10; Tit. 2:11). For this reason there is one Mediator who is the Mediator between God and all men, and the Mediator is so very emphatically called the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself for all (all men, without social or national distinction, without distinction in kind). The revelation of the mystery of the righteousness of God by faith alone teaches us — so we may say — to discover the grace of God, but in that grace God himself in his universal redemptive will also teaches us to discover man anew in his never —not even in his deepest alienation from God ("without God in the world" [Eph. 2:12]!) — abrogated relationship to God. Without this universality both in his judgment and in his demonstration of grace God cannot be one, God cannot be God, and man cannot be man. That the divine election of Israel and of the church as people of God is not herewith nullified, but rather is maintained in its sovereign character as grace will be discussed further in what follows. It is of importance here to point out that for Paul the universality of the church is a reality that not only proceeds from the revelation of the mystery in the fullness of the time, but also has its ground in the fundamental revelation, antecedent to everything else, that had been given to Israel as the people of God, that God the Lord is one. Here on the one hand the Jewish synagogical particularism has been broken through, which indeed maintained that God is the God of all men, in that they were created by him and will stand before his judgment seat, but which further could not regard heathendom in any other way than as the massa perditionis that without hope of salvation had fallen into Gehenna and had no share with Israel in the future world.³¹ At the same time the way was prepared for the new understanding of the prophecy that made mention of the future redemption of the gentiles together with Israel. In proof of the universal mercy of Christ for the gentiles as well as for the Jews Paul appealed, i.a., to the prophetic pronouncements in which the gentiles are exhorted to rejoice with God's people and to sing and to praise the Lord together and in which it is said of the root of Jesse raised up to rule over the gentiles that in him the gentiles shall hope (Rom. 15:9-12). Indeed, how much the universality of the salvation revealed in Christ governs the whole of his understanding of the Old Testament appears in a very striking manner when, for the pronouncement "not from the Jews only, but also from the gentiles" (Rom. 9:25, 26), he appeals to the words of the prophet Hosea, which in their original context have reference in the first place to the receiving again of the people Israel that had fallen away from God and was therefore first cast off by him: "I will call that my people, which was not-my-people; and her beloved, that was not beloved. And it shall be, that in the place where it was said unto them, You are not my people, there shall they be called sons of the living God."

The not-my-people (Lō'-'Ammî) and the not-beloved (Lō'-Ruhāmâ) is therefore no longer restricted to the penitent members of the people Israel, but extended to the gentiles; a transition in interpretation that on the ground of the sovereignty (understood in a new way) of God's grace in Christ brings to full explication in its previously not understood inner dynamic and hidden import the qualitative content of the prophecy that speaks of this same grace.

For the rest, it should be borne in mind that in this new concept of the people of God given in the revelation of Christ a new restriction and in a certain sense a new particularism is implied. No one is excluded, but neither does anyone belong to the people of God as a matter of course by virtue of birth, or by virtue of his humanity. They who are "of Christ" are the seed of Abraham and heirs of the promise (Gal. 3:29). These are those who have been called (Rom. 9:24), who are of the faith, who walk in the steps of the faith of Abraham (Rom. 4:12, 16ff.). This is the meaning of the joining together of the proclamations of redemption for the gentiles and the announcement of calamity on Israel, at the close of Romans 9, for instance. But this is also the meaning of the warning issued to believing gentiles, that is, against boasting in their privilege, lest God pluck out the wild twigs grafted into the olive tree, just as he has not spared the natural branches (cf. Rom. 11:17ff.). Even the most universal pronouncements of the apostle, therefore, in which he speaks of the redemptive will of God with respect to all men and of his own universal commission as apostle and teacher of the gentiles, are never to be detached from belonging to Christ and from the unconditional requirement of faith (cf. 1 Tim. 2:4, 7; 4:10; cf. v. 8). For this reason in the parallel between "the many," "all," and "all men" who through Adam have been constituted sinners and through Christ have been justified, etc. (cf. Rom. 5:15, 18, 19; 1 Cor. 15:22), it is not a question of equal numbers of persons, but first of "the many" (or "all") who by virtue of descent have been comprehended in Adam, then of "the many" ("all") who belong to Christ by faith.³² For it is only in Christ, who by God has been made a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, as well as a foundation by whom none shall be put to shame, that Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, have become the new unity, the one new man (Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:15); in him the people of God, Israel, circumcision, promise, sonship, and heirship receive their new definition and content; therefore in him, too, is the only and utterly decisive criterion of what may be called by the name of Israel (cf, Rom. 9:33).

SECTION 57. THE NATURE OF ELECTION. GOD'S PURPOSE

If in the foregoing the new and spiritual concept of the church as the people of God clearly emerges, the second point of view indicated above (p. 334) deserves no less attention, namely, that of the unity and continuity of the divine work in the election and gathering in of his people.

However much, in harmony with the whole revelation of redemption in Christ, we may speak of a new definition of the essence of the congregation of God, this does not mean that it may be said to represent a radically new character, a reality supported by an entirely new root. One would form a wrong notion of Paul's idea were he to understand the New Testament church as a novum quid that has broken away from the fetters and scales of ancient Israel and in relation to the legalistic and particularistic character of the Old Testament people of God is a spiritual and universal communion. The ties here are much deeper than that.³³ The new definition of the essence of the church does stand in absolute contrast with the legalistic-synagogical concept of the New Covenant and the people of God, but not in contrast — and all the emphasis must now fall on this — with the intention God himself had from the beginning with the calling and formation of Israel as his people. And this holds not only for the blessed and universal future of this people, as that had already been foretold in Old Testament prophecy, but no less for the manner in which God dealt with his people from the very beginning, for the nature of his election, for the distinction he made between Abraham's children, for his whole purpose with respect to his people and its effectuation.

We touch here the deepest foundations of the Pauline conception of the church. He is pressed to unfold them by his polemic with Judaism. Is he not a revolutionary and innovator in his spiritual and universal understanding of the people of God? Does he not nullify the law and trample on the privileges of the offspring of Abraham? Paul's answer is that he rather upholds and does justice to the law, that is, the book of God's great acts in the past (Rom. 3:31). And he endeavors to show this just by permitting the history of Abraham to speak in all sorts of ways. Abraham's calling and election is the secret of Israel. In God's promise to Abraham all the prerogatives and privileges of Israel are contained. But how has God dealt with Abraham and how has he spoken to him and given him his promises? To this history of Abraham Paul returns again and again to substantiate the soundness of his spiritual and universal conception of the people of God and the seed of Abraham.

First of all, one should point here to the extensive argument from Scripture in Romans 4, the chapter in which an answer is given to the question as to the way in which Abraham, "our father according to the flesh,"³⁴ became the recipient of God's promises and the great Testator of Israel (Rom. 4:1). What is at issue here is of course the appeal of the Jews to their natural descent from Abraham. Over against this Paul sets the fact that God's promises to Abraham and his seed applied, not to the circumcised, but to believing Abraham, so that his fatherhood is extended but also restricted to all who believe. The spiritual criterion for belonging to the seed of Abraham and to the people of God is not therefore a revolutionary breaking through of the boundaries that were appointed of old to the people of God, but rather answers completely to the manner in which God revealed himself already to Abraham.

Of no less importance is the argumentation in Galatians 3:15ff. Here, too, the question is under discussion as to who are to be understood by the seed of Abraham mentioned in the promise. Paul appeals here, very remarkably,³⁵ to the singular "and to thy seed," to which he gives the interpretation "which is Christ" (v. 16), and to which he then joins the conclusion that all who have been baptized into Christ and have put on Christ are the seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise (v. 29). Then he expressly states that there is no longer any distinction between Jew and Greek, slave or free, male or female. For they all are one³⁶ in Christ Jesus. The thought of the one body is clearly present here, although the word is not mentioned. Because of this unity, however, the promise of the one seed can have reference without distinction to all who are in Christ. The christological determination of the idea of what may count as the seed of Abraham, heirs of the promise, etc., is here inferred in a very pregnant manner from the way in which God himself spoke to Abraham of "thy seed." without distinction to all who are in Christ. The christological determination of the idea of what may count as the seed of Abraham, heirs of the promise, etc., is here inferred in a very pregnant manner from the way in which God himself spoke to Abraham of "thy seed."

It should be noted that this argumentation does not rest merely on the incidental seizing on a particular expression. In the Epistle to the Romans, which was written later, the background of this chain of reasoning becomes clear to us. Here the question as to the true nature of Abraham's seed and of God's election of his people comes up for discussion in a sharply defined manner when in Romans 9-11 Paul sees himself placed before the enigma of Israel unbelieving and therefore excluded from God's promises.

The point of departure for this profound argumentation in its entirety³⁷ is again that in order rightly to understand the address of the promise given to Abraham and to his seed one is not to start from natural descent from Abraham. From the very outset God himself made a distinction among the children of Abraham. He did not without more ado reckon all the seed of Abraham as the children in whom he would bless all the nations, but he eliminated Ishmael and designated Isaac. Paul qualifies this further as follows — and here the criterion of this discriminating activity of God also becomes visible — "... it is not the children of the flesh that are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned for the seed" (Rom. 9:8).

It is a question, therefore, of the manner in which Ishmael and Isaac were conceived and born. Whereas Ishmael was a "child of the flesh," that is to say, was begotten and received by Abraham as a son in the natural way, Isaac was a "child of the promise." With these last words Isaac's origin is pointed out. He was not only the bearer, but in the first place the fruit of the promise.³⁸ For "the word of the promise is as follows: about this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son" (v. 9). We have to do here with the same thought and with the same idea of the promise as in Galatians 4:28, where Isaac, and believers, are spoken of as children of promise, i.e., children who have been born out of the strength of the promise and not by virtue of natural procreation ("after the flesh"); for this reason the expression "according to the Spirit" can be employed as a synonym for "children of promise" (Gal. 4:29).

The distinction God made from the beginning in the election and formation of his people is therefore very plain. In the birth of Isaac and with the elimination of Ishmael he indicated clearly that the ground for his election of Israel in no respect lay in any human quality, in the potentialities of human "flesh," or in natural descent, but only in his own divine work, in the quickening strength of his promise, in the power of his Spirit.

Paul points to this same principle in the birth of Jacob and Esau, even if it manifests itself there in another way. Here a "natural" birth does take place, but God once more intervenes by designating, not the elder, Esau, but the younger, Jacob, contrary to all custom and expectation, as the continuation of the holy line³⁹ of the people of God. Here again, however, there is no arbitrariness, but God acts according to the same motive and pattern as with Isaac and Ishmael: "... that the electing purpose of God might continue [in force]: not upon the strength of works, but of him who called..." (Rom. 9:11).

That the seed of Abraham as the people of God would be carried on in Jacob and not in Esau was not because of Jacob's excellence above that of Esau. For when they had not yet been born and had not yet done anything either good or evil (v. II), this decision was already announced to Rebekah. In setting the younger above the elder it became manifest anew in what way and according to what standard God has formed his people: to cause his electing purpose to continue in force.

It is of great importance to understand this expression (hē kat' eklogēn prothesis) correctly in its complexity. There is mention of God's "purpose," his method of dealing determined beforehand with respect to the formation of his people. Of this it is now said that it bore an "electing" character, or rather, that it took place "according to the nature of election." In "election" there is not of itself the thought of a decree⁴⁰ (although a decree or purpose can also be electing). "Election" was used originally⁴¹ to describe the manner in which Israel became the people of God, that is, through God's having called it to himself out of all peoples, having placed it on his side in distinction from those others. In so doing the emphasis was constantly placed on the fact that this electing, distinguishing character of Israel's calling did not rest on Israel's excellence above that of others, but had its cause only in God's good pleasure (cf., e.g., Deut. 7:6ff.; 9:4, 5); "election" therefore denotes the sovereign, gracious character of God's calling of Israel, not motivated by the object of the election.

The purpose of God thus qualified now asserted itself in relation to the birth of Jacob and Esau. It was not Esau, the elder, but Jacob, the younger, who was destined to be the bearer of the promise. This election is accordingly described in the following words: "not upon the strength [or ground] of works [or qualities in man], but only upon this ground, that he called." The whole formation of the people of God and therefore also of belonging to this people — this is the conclusion — rests on nothing other than the sovereign, electing character of his grace.

In what follows (vv. 14ff.), the apostle upholds the freedom of this sovereign grace and the right of that freedom. God is free to have mercy on whom he will; on the other hand he is free to pass by others with this mercy and even to harden them in their sin. Paul is not guided here by an abstract concept of divine freedom, but by the free-dom of God's grace as this has revealed itself in the history of Israel. The apostle observes a clear divine intention in it. If God has mercy on whom he will and has compassion on whom he has (will have) compassion, Paul paraphrases this as follows: "it is not dependent upon whether anyone wills, or whether anyone runs, but upon God who has mercy." For God is free to maintain the validity, not of human effort or strength, but of his grace only. He is also free, therefore, to make the resistance of others, in this case of Pharaoh, subservient to the sovereignty of his grace and the glory of his name revealed therein by hardening them in this resistance.⁴² When in vindicating that Paul reaches out for the familiar Old Testament figure of the potter, this occurs in order to throw light on the purposefulness of this might and freedom in addition to God's sovereign command over what he has made. If the potter is free to give the objects he makes of clay the destiny that seems best to him in the conduct of his work as a potter, would God then not be free, in order to show the power of his work and the riches of his glory on those whom he has destined to that end, not as yet to give up immediately to judgment those to whom his wrath goes forth (because of their sin) and who are therefore ripe for destruction, but first to demonstrate to them the power of his grace on his people?

The purport of Paul's argument is not to show that all that God does in history has been foreordained from eternity and therefore, so far as his mercy as well as his hardening is concerned, has an irresistible and inevitable issue. Rather, it is his intention to point out in the omnipotence of God's activity the real intention of his purpose. Everything is made subservient to the electing character of God's grace, not based on human merit or strength, and of the calling and formation of his people. So did God originally display it in Israel and to Israel, contrary to all human calculations, and contrary to all human resistance. And so does God maintain this sovereign electing character of his work of redemption over against Israel, when Israel misjudges this nature of its election as the people of God and has come to trust in its own righteousness, instead of in the righteousness of God (9:30ff.). Thus it can happen that Israel because of this misjudgment of its calling and election is placed next to Pharaoh as the exemplification of God's reprobation and hardening, and that what applied to Pharaoh holds for Israel as well, namely, that God by Israel's hardening and fall has chosen to make known the riches of his mercy (to the gentiles) (Rom. 11:7-10, 12, 15). At the same time, however, it is evident that one may not identify the omnipotence and sovereignty of God's grace thus upheld on the one hand and of his reprobation and hardening on the other with irrevocable "eternal" decrees, in which God would once and forever have predestined the salvation or ruin of man: for God has not only reprobated and hardened Israel in order to display his mercy to the gentiles, but no less to provoke Israel itself to repentance and "jealousy" (Rom, 11:11ff.). This concept of election denotes the omnipotence, not the deterministic character of God's work of grace and of the formation of his church. Election is an election of grace ( eklogē charitos), that is to say: it does not take place on the ground of works (Rom. 11:5, 6). This contrast between grace and works dominates the whole argument of Romans 9-11 with respect to the calling and election of the people of God.

Meanwhile it has been apparent that in the course of his argument in Romans 9 the apostle also reaches back for the divine work of redemption in history to the purpose of God underlying it and says of that, too, that it bears an electing character (Rom. 9:11). Elsewhere there is still more extensive mention of this divine purpose with respect to the formation of the people of God, and it is appropriate here to go further into the nature of this purpose.

Paul speaks of this purpose in all sorts of places and in more than one way. In addition to purpose ( prothesis, protithemai; Rom. 8:28; 9:11; Eph. 1:9, 11; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9), he makes mention of foreknowledge (proginōskō; Rom. 8:29; 11:2), foreordination ( proorizō; Rom. 8:29, 30; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:5, 11), to prepare beforehand ( proetoimazō; Rom. 9:23; Eph. 2:10), but then further of God's good pleasure ( eudokia; Eph. 1:5, 9; cf. Phil. 2:13), the counsel of his will ( boulē tou thelēmatos autou; Eph. 1:11), his mystery (mystērion; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph, 1:9; 3:9). As is evident from the places cited, this thought is especially prominent in the conclusion of Romans 8 and in the first chapters of Ephesians. The distinguishing feature of all these pronouncements is that they have reference to God's counsel with respect to his work of redemption in Christ in the fullness of the times. Especially typical of that is the redemptive-historical expression "mystery," which we have already discussed at length.⁴³ In 1 Corinthians 2:7 it is spoken of in a very explicit sense as "the wisdom of God consisting in the mystery which God foreordained before the ages with respect to our glory" (cf. Eph. 1:9; 3:9). The christocentric character of this purpose also finds clear expression in Ephesians 1:9, which speaks of God's good pleasure that he purposed in Christ with respect to the "economy" of the fullness of the times; and in Ephesians 3:11, where the apostle speaks of God's eternal purpose that he formed in Christ Jesus. The expression "purposed in Christ" is difficult to define adequately, but certainly makes it clear that Christ was the object and the center of this purpose and that its execution would take place in him and through him.

In this relation to Christ the church, too, has a place in this purpose of God and is its object. He has, so it is said in Ephesians 1:5, predestined us unto sonship through Jesus Christ in him.⁴⁴ Similarly Romans 8:29 says that God predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son, and Ephesians 1:11, that we have received the heritage in Christ, destined to that end according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. In all these passages it is evident that the church was the object of God's predestination and counsel in virtue of its belonging to Christ.

All this finds its most pregnant expression in that God even "before the foundation of the world" chose the church to himself in Christ (Eph. 1:4). Here again it is a matter, as always with election, not simply of a decree of God that only later comes to realization, but of the actual appropriation of the church to himself before the foundation of the world. How this is possible and how one is to conceive of it are seen from the words "in Christ." Paul speaks here, too, of the comprehension of the church in Christ. As it, although still on earth, has in Christ received a place in heaven (Eph. 2:6), and thus in Christ participates in the heavenly blessings (Eph. 1:3), so —Paul makes the connection here expressly⁴⁵ — it was already united with the pre-existent Christ and thus chosen by God in him. The inclusion of the church in Christ, its corporate existence in him, Paul traces back to this preexistence. As its life is hid in God with the Exalted One (Col. 3:3), so its election is in him before the foundation of the world. Even there the church's being in Christ can be spoken of, and thus its election in him in whom God purposed his good pleasure, indeed, who himself can be called God's "Foreknown" before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:20).⁴⁶

Of particular importance is the question as to what purport this reference to election before the foundation of the world has, or, in general, what function all these pro-concepts fulfill in the whole of the Pauline doctrine of salvation.

In general they must be understood within the framework of the basic biblical notion⁴⁷ that all things in heaven and on earth come to pass according to the antecedent counsel and intention of God, Thus, for example, Paul speaks in Ephesians 1:11 of the church as having been destined beforehand for the future glory, in accordance with the purpose of him (God) "who works all things after the counsel of his will" (cf. Gal. 1:4; Rom. 9:19). All that is said here of God's purpose with respect to the church stands in the great context of the counsel of God the Creator and Consummator of all things. With this the "depthaspect" of the divine activity is pointed out, and this activity is seen to be "free from what we know in the world to be arbitrary and precarious" and our attention is directed "to what can be called the opposite of chance and contingence."⁴⁸ It is a question here of course, not of formal concepts that speak only of the existence of a plan of the divine counsel antecedent to everything else, but of the counsel and will of that God who in his saving acts has revealed himself to his people.⁴⁹ It is consequently on the ground of this counsel of God, realized in Christ and revealed in the gospel, that Paul extols and worships the unsearchableness of God's decrees and the inscrutableness of God's ways and at the same time rejects every human counsel or deliberation (Rom. 11:33,34).

The frequent mention of God's purpose with respect to the church must also be understood in this light. Paul's intention is not to point to its "having once been thus determined," but rather to elucidate the meaning and significance of the salvation revealed in Christ in terms of the priority of God's counsel and plan. In particular this reference serves to throw light from still another side on the absolutely gratuitous character of the salvation given in Christ, on its not resting on human merits.

This emerges clearly in the expression of Romans 9:11 already discussed, where the significance of "the electing purpose of God" is explained by the words "not upon the strength of works, but of this, that he called." The appeal to the purpose of God functions here, therefore, as the proof that the formation of and belonging to the people of God rest only on the antecedent sovereign grace of God and not on human works. 2 Timothy 1:9 is also very clear in this respect, where it is said that God saved and called us "not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and according to the grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal."⁵⁰ Here too God's purpose stands over against human works. It is a matter not of the activity of God alone over against human activity, but of antecedent divine grace over against human merit. The contrast is of a purely soteriological nature. "Purpose" and "grace" are here coordinated as a kind of hendiadys, at least as two concepts that further define each other reciprocally. In Titus 3:5 Paul expresses the same thought with the words: "not upon the ground of works of righteousness which we should have done, but according to his mercy." What in 2 Timothy 1:9 is called God's purpose and grace is here simply called his mercy. The reference to God's purpose has as its object, therefore, the placing of all the emphasis on the precedence and priority of divine grace and thus on the absolutely gratuitous character of God's saving work and of his calling to salvation. God has not thereby been guided by what might be found by way of meritoriousness or excellence in man, but in the full sense of the word has taken "reasons from himself."⁵¹

On closer examination of the passages in question this intention of the appeal to the divine purpose so clearly emerging in Romans 9:11 and 2 Timothy 1:9 (Tit. 3:5) appears time and again to form the meaning of the frequent mention of God's purpose, his foreordination, his counsel of redemption with respect to man's salvation. In handling this motif certain nuances and diversities are to be observed according to the extent to which these are involved In the train of thought. Thus in 1 Corinthians 2:7, where Paul has to do battle not with Jewish legalism but with the Greek gnosis, God's hidden wisdom consisting in the divine mystery that God foreordained before the aeons unto our glory is set over against the wisdom of this aeon. The appeal to the divine mystery, however, in this context has a significance analogous to that in the passages discussed above. Here again it is not intended to place the divine arcanum decretum over against human wisdom, by which all human counsel and knowledge come to stand under an absolute and hidden restriction, but rather to demonstrate that the wisdom and power of God revealed in Christ's cross have exposed human wisdom that in its foolishness and vanity sought to ignore God (1 Cor. 1:23; 2:6ff.), and thus have deprived human boasting of all ground (1 Cor. 1:31).

This character of God's work of redemption and of the formation of his people antecedent to all human wisdom and power also governs the pronouncements of God's purpose, predestination, foreknowledge in Ephesians 1 and 3.⁵² To be sure, here — otherwise than in Romans 9 — this purpose is spoken of more in a positive than in an antithetical sense, but the whole of the opening of the epistle (Eph. 1:1-14) is especially intended to throw light on the universal character of salvation not restricted to Judaism.⁵³ And to set this universality of the grace of the redemption given in Christ in greater relief and to raise it above all doubt or uncertainty the apostle speaks here with a certain redundancy of concepts and phraseology of God's purpose, his foreordination, his counsel of redemption. This finds very explicit expression in the repeated mention of God's eudokia, a concept that embraces the element of God's kindness as well as his freedom. God's predestination is determined by this eudokia (Eph. 1:5), and it is in accordance with this same eudokia that the mystery of his will in Christ has come to revelation (v. 9), which is therefore to say that God's purpose was a free and saving purpose and was motivated by nothing other than by his own sovereign redemptive will. And that which finally settles everything is the christocentric character of this divine purpose formulated in all sorts of ways and with a rich variety of expression in the pronouncements we have already cited. It cannot be more clearly apparent than here — so we may conclude — that all these pro-concepts are intended as categories of redemption. What prompts Paul to hark back again and again to the divine purpose is not an abstract predestinarianism or reference back to God's decrees as the final cause in the chain of events, but the designation of sovereign, divine grace as the sole motive of his work of redemption in history.

This purpose is undoubtedly not confined to the manner in which this work of redemption is to be brought about, but has reference from the outset to those who will share in it. For Paul also speaks of the church as having been known and elect beforehand (Rom. 8:29; Eph. 1:4), of its having been predestined to sonship and the inheritance (Eph. 1:5, 11), of the preparation beforehand of the objects of mercy by God (Rom. 9:23), and of their good works in Christ (Eph. 2:10). One can raise the question as to whether after all the idea has not hereby been given of a predestined numerus clausus of the elect and whether with that — even though not said in so many words⁵⁴ — those who do not belong to this numerus clausus have not been excluded in virtue of this same purpose before the foundation of the world.

One can only say of these questions that they place Paul's pronouncements concerning the church as foreknown by God and elect in Christ under another point of view than that of Paul himself and thus abstract and extrapolate them from the context of the Pauline doctrine of salvation, an extrapolation that easily leads to conclusions Paul himself does not draw and which are entirely in conflict with the tenor of his preaching. When — as, for example, in the so-called catena aurea of Romans 8:29ff —Paul joins God's purpose, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification in one indissoluble bond, this is not an abstract pronouncement concerning the immutability of the number of those predestined to salvation, but a pastoral encouragement for the persecuted and embattled church (cf. v. 36), based on the fixed and unassailable character of the divine work of redemption. This fixed character does not rest on the fact that the church belongs to a certain "number," but that it belongs to Christ, from before the foundation of the world. Fixity does not lie in a hidden decretum, therefore, but in the corporate unity of the church with Christ, whom it has come to know in the gospel and has learned to embrace in faith. It is therefore a metabasis eis allo genos, a crossing over from the economy of redemption revealed and qualified in Christ to a causal predestinarianism abstracted from it, when one chooses to reduce the links of this golden chain fundamentally to one thing only, that only they will inherit glory who have been foreknown and predestined by God to that end. Likewise the expression "chosen in Christ" does not say that Christ is the means or the medium through whom or in whom an antecedent absolute decree would be effected⁵⁵ — for such a foreknowledge or election of the church abstracted from Christ there is no place within the framework of Paul's doctrine of salvation — but the intention is simply to make the church aware of its solidarity with Christ in all the wealth of the implications this relationship includes. On the one hand this solidarity with him means that the church was chosen in him even before the foundation of the world, predestined to be conformed to his image, that he might be the Firstborn among many brethren (Rom. 8:29). On the other hand, the nature and scope of this "chosen in Christ" are known and defined only by the realization of the divine purpose in history. The links of the catena aurea both actually and cognitively cannot be detached from one another; the predestinarian and the redemptive-historical "in Christ" define each another reciprocally. Those who have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world are also those who in the fullness of the time have died and been raised with him, who have been called through the gospel and have been incorporated into his body in the way of faith and baptism. This means, among other things, that one can speak of the number of those who have been foreknown by God and who have died and been raised with Christ (or: for whom Christ has died) only when he at the same time takes the event of preaching into consideration and respects this to the full according to its nature (that is to say, according to the nature of the divine call to faith and conversion). That is in no respect to say that, conversely, the center of gravity would have to be shifted from divine predestination to human freedom. For first of all with such a shift — and now from the human side — everything would be brought under another viewpoint than that from which Paul speaks. For him individual human freedom of will is not constitutive for the decision with which man is confronted by the preaching of the gospel.⁵⁶ Rather he repeatedly brings out that the contexts in which the preaching of the gospel takes place transcend the individual freedom of man. He says of the church that it is God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10). This also refers to what follows the preaching. He describes the calling of believers accordingly, as we have already seen,⁵⁷ as a divine creative act, a creatio ex nihilo (cf. Rom. 4:17 with Gal. 4:28), or, as he writes of the preaching of the gospel in 2 Corinthians 4:6: "the God who said: Let light shine out of darkness, has made it to shine in our hearts." And, conversely, he speaks of those who do not follow this call as disobedient and unbelieving, whose thoughts have been stricken with blindness by the way in which this world thinks, by the god of this age, "so that they do not perceive the shining of the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4). Nothing could be farther from the truth than that in the relationship of election and preaching Paul takes his point of departure in individual human freedom.

Yet the relation between the purpose of God, his election, and the preaching of the gospel remains of paramount importance in order to eliminate every notion of an automatic or deterministic election. Likewise nowhere in Paul's thought does the hidden decree of a numerus clausus function as the background or explanation of the separation that comes about by the preaching of the gospel, as though through this decree the same gospel were for those who are saved a fragrance of life unto life and for those who are lost an odor of death unto death (2 Cor. 2:16). Rather, we must ascertain that over against such a deterministic conception he maintains the liberty of God's grace and the religious and ethical character of the encounter of man with his Creator in the gospel (Rom. 9:19ff.). Just as little is divine calling only to be defined as the authoritative word that separates between light and darkness. God also places himself, as it were, in a relationship of dependence with respect to those whom he calls. He struggles with Israel to lead it to faith and conversion (Rom. 10:21); Paul terms himself an ambassador of God as though God through his mouth were issuing the invitation: Let yourselves be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20); his whole effort is bent toward persuading men and moving them to faith (2 Cor. 5:11); and this he regards as the glory of his ministry that if possible he might provoke Israel to jealousy and save some of them (Rom. 11:14). Similarly, he declares elsewhere that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all men; he speaks of God's love toward man and of his redemptive will with respect to all men (Tit. 2:11; 3:4; 1 Tim. 2:4; 4:10). On the other hand he maintains fully the human responsibility of both believers and unbelievers with regard to the gospel; he qualifies faith as obedience and unbelief as contradiction and disobedience. And even when he speaks of unbelief as a blinding and qualifies it as a consequence of God's righteousness and hardening (cf. Rom. 11:8ff.), he does not do so in an abstract and timeless manner, but he points out precisely what the function of such a hardening is in the whole of redemptive history, and he makes it understood that this therefore "need" not bear a definitive character, but rather, as with the rejection and hardening of unbelieving Israel, presupposes a situation that is still "open."⁵⁸ Likewise when he comforts the church with the declaration that the Lord is faithful to establish and guard it (2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Cor. 1:9), that our unfaithfulness does not nullify his faithfulness (2 Tim. 2:13; 1 Cor. 10:13; cf. Rom. 3:2), and when he repeatedly points the church for this to its inclusion in Christ even before the foundation of the world (Rom. 8:29ff.; Eph. 1:4), this assurance nowhere acts as a logical deduction from the immutability of God's decree, but as faith in the trustworthiness of God's promises and in the unshakableness of his eudokia in Christ (cf., e.g., Tit. 1:2). Hence this comfort is attended with the admonition in faith to continue in the mercy of God, lest he execute the judgment of Israel on those who are now believers and break them off from the olive tree as unprofitable and dead branches (Rom. 11:18ff.); indeed, Paul is able to say of himself as well that he is always mindful lest he, having preached to others, should himself be rejected (1 Cor. 9:27). Of course, the certainty and comfort that lie in God's faithfulness and in election in Christ are not again placed in doubt or made contingent on human faithfulness and perseverance, but this certainty is placed and kept within the context where it alone applies and with which the church alone has to do, namely, that of the revelation of the gospel as a power of God for everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16), and thus of the electing character of God's grace, not resting on human power or wisdom, that he who boasts should boast in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:16ff.).

Seemingly these different "lines" cannot be reconciled with each other: on the one hand, God's creative word of omnipotence by which alone the light can shine in the heart, on the other, human responsibility for faith and conversion; on the one hand, blindness and spiritual impotence, on the other, struggling under commission from God to bring back to him those who have turned away; also on the one hand, the certainty of God's faithfulness and the irrevocableness of his election and calling, on the other, the warning against the danger of being broken off from the olive tree on account of pride and being rejected as a participant in salvation. There is indeed not only a lack of clarity here but an inner contradiction, if one conceives of the divine purpose and the number of the elect in a deterministic sense as an immutably established decree of the counsel of God; or if, on the other hand, one supposes that without the individual's power of decision human responsibility toward the gospel becomes a fiction.⁵⁹ Of the first it must be said that it is in conflict with the manner in which Paul, and the entire biblical revelation, speaks of God's acting in history. And so far as the second is concerned, there is nothing more contradictory of the Pauline doctrine of salvation than if man were to become God's workmanship and new creation in virtue of a decision of his own will. "If a person had this possibility, he would not be a creature but would stand on his own."⁶⁰ We are faced with the unmistakable fact that Paul does not found the responsibility of man with respect to his being saved or lost in the fact that man may be said to be free to decide concerning it, but that through the preaching of the gospel God calls and fits him for this responsibility; and that, where freedom has been lost and has become spiritual impotence and blindness, the responsibility of man as the creature of God is nevertheless not taken away or abrogated. God maintains his right as Creator even where man has been sold and blinded under the power of sin. What remains is not a contradiction resulting from false premises, therefore, but the sovereign manner in which God calls man to faith and conversion and in Christ forms the church for himself. For while, in order to maintain the free character of his grace, not related to human merits or autonomy, he passes by, blinds, and punishes man in his delusion, at the same time his allembracing love goes forth from the gospel which justifies the ungodly. And while the power of his calling is so great that it calls forth light out of darkness and living from the dead, his calling is an invitation, a stretching forth his hands all the day long to a disobedient and gainsaying people. Of this electing activity and of the purpose of God revealed in it Paul speaks, one may perhaps say, in a dialectical manner, in that he ever and again approaches the freedom of God's grace with respect to sinful man from two sides. What prompts him in doing so, however, is not the desire to find the transcending viewpoint from which he might be able to grasp the divine and the human, as it were, in a single glance, in order thus to arrive at a theodicy that would give a justification of God's doings and an explanation of the being of man. What moves him is something entirely different, namely, according to the measure of the revelation of the mystery in history to reach an increasingly more basic explication of the absolute sovereignty of God's grace. For this reason he relates the preaching of justification by faith alone with God's election and purpose. Also in this election and purpose the church of the New Covenant is to find the ground of its existence as well as its unity with Israel once chosen out of all the nations. Finally, this nature of election enables Paul to connect the meaning of Israel's hardening and the nevertheless irrevocable character of God's calling and gifts of grace with the formation of the New Testament church. This leads us to the last of the three viewpoints mentioned at the beginning of the present chapter.⁶¹

SECTION 58. THE FUTURE OF ISRAEL

After all that has been said in the preceding sections on the Christian church as the continuation of the people of God, on the New Covenant and the nature of divine election, it can appear as though no "problem" remains with respect to historical Israel: only insofar as it believes in Christ may it lay claim to the name of Abraham's children and to the promises given to Abraham and his seed. And insofar as it rejects Christ and trusts in the possession of the law, circumcision, and its own righteousness, it can no longer assert its right to the name and privilege of Israel in the redemptive-historical sense. The church, then, as the people of the New Covenant has taken the place of Israel, and national Israel is nothing other than the empty shell from which the pearl has been removed and which has lost its function in the history of redemption.⁶²

The remarkable thing is that while Paul's pronouncements on faith and belonging to Christ as the only criterion of what in an enduring sense may count as the seed of Abraham seem to warrant this conclusion in every respect, he himself time and again feels the need to guard against the thought of such an exclusion of empirical and national Israel as the people of God and to deny it as not consistent with the historical election of Israel. Already at the beginning of Romans 3, after his telling indictment against Jewish confidence in the law and circumcision and after the radical declaration: "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly," the question follows that is to preclude misunderstanding: "What advantage then has the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision?" And the answer is: "Much in every way!" (Rom. 3:1). As such a privilege he then mentions in the first instance: "this, that to them the words of God were entrusted," by which in this context those words of God are especially intended with which God pledged himself to them and whereby therefore God's faithfulness is at issue (Rom. 3:3). In the continuing argument of 3:3ff. he does indeed impress on his readers that these promises have their reverse side in God's threatenings and that they too remain in force, so that Israel is not to deceive itself in the possession of the words of God. But at the beginning of Romans 9, when in unremitting antithesis with the Jewish synagogical teaching he has shown that righteousness and life are not by the law, but only by faith and by the Spirit, and that therefore no salvation is possible apart from this righteousness revealed by God in Christ, he returns once more — and now in a much more concentrated and detailed manner — to this acknowledgment of Israel's privileges. For on the expression of his great sorrow at Israel's unbelief and his statement, reminiscent of Moses, that he could wish himself to be anathema from Christ for the sake of his brethren according to the flesh, he gives the following enumeration of their privileges: "who are Israelites, whose is the sonship [of God], and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the worship, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ, as concerning the flesh, who is God over all to be blessed for ever" (Rom. 9:4, 5). And then indeed, in order to avert every suggestion that God's Word is not trustworthy, he comes to his differentiated speaking (already discussed at length above) of the seed of Abraham and the distinction between Israel and Israel. Similarly, in chapter 10 he places beyond any question the fact that Israel did not lack knowledge of the gospel, but that it is just the mistaking of God's grace and of its own privilege that has put it outside the salvation given in Christ. But in Romans 11:1 the provocative question recurs whether God, contrary to the express witness of prophecy, has after all cast off Israel as his people. Consequently it is especially this chapter in which Paul endeavors to find the synthesis between Israel's rejection as the people of God on the one hand and its election on the other; an antithesis whose tension-filled unity is nowhere expressed more clearly than in Romans 11:28, 29, where he says of unbelieving Israel that as regards the gospel they are (God's) enemies⁶³ for the gentiles' sake, but as regards election, God's beloved for the fathers' sake. For — and this by way of explanation of the latter words — "the gifts of grace and the calling of God are irrevocable."

One cannot confine himself here to a certain stabilizing of both aspects, for example, by attributing to Paul a double conception of election: on the one hand a broader, historical, national election; on the other — or rather, within that — an election in the narrower, personal, soteric sense of the word. Although the differentiated application of the concept of election, now of believing Israelites, then again of the whole of Israel (cf. Rom. 11:28 and Rom. 11:5), may give occasion for this double conception, it is plain that in Romans 11 the apostle does not content himself with such a static "solution," but that he wishes to regard Israel, at present still unbelieving not only historically but also actually, from the viewpoint of the one electing, saving activity of God with his people. How he combines both points of view and how the problem of the meaning of Romans 11 is to be resolved, also with reference to the national renascence of the State of Israel long much under discussion,⁶⁴ will have to appear from careful and unbiased exegesis.⁶⁵

Here again the argument begins with a forceful denial that God has cast off Israel as his people, contrary to the express witness of prophecy. The opposite is first of all inferred from the fact that in spite of all unbelief and apostasy there is still, as in the days of Elijah, a remainder, a remnant (leimma), which God has kept to himself and of which Paul himself also constitutes the proof. And that remnant is said to be "according to the election of grace," whereby once again the unique and abiding character of Israel's election as the people of God is maintained, but with which at the same time the antithesis is confirmed against those in Israel whose expectation is not of grace, but of their works. Therefore within Israel the distinction also applies between "the elect" (hē eklogē) who have obtained it on the one hand, and "the rest" who have been hardened on the other. There is thus no discrepancy between Romans 9 and Romans 11.⁶⁶ Already in Romans 9 Paul placed God's faithfulness beyond question, and here, in Romans 11, he maintains the line of separation within Israel to the full (v. 7). In so doing prophecy is cited at length to throw light on the rightfulness of the judgment of hardening (vv. 8ff.).

Yet this, too, cannot be the final word. Likewise with respect to this hardening Paul continues to take into account the special intent God has with Israel. They have now indeed stumbled and fallen (vv. 11, 22), but not because the real and final object of the divine judgment on them may be said to lie in this fall. To that end Paul points to the blessed result that (just as Pharaoh's hardening once had; 9:22, 23) their fall and rejection have had for others, namely, the gentiles. It is this blessing, which was implied for the gentiles in Israel's unbelief, that is pointed out in Romans 11:11-33 again and again (11:12, 15, 27, 30), and in which it is indicated that God's redemptive will also embraces Israel, which at present is still unbelieving. Moreover, he makes use of an a minori ad mains chain of reasoning: if their fall is the riches of the world, and their reduction⁶⁷ the riches of the gentiles, how much more, then, their full number (plērōma)? And further: if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be (for the world) but life from the dead (vv. 12, 15)?

"Full number" and "acceptance" have clear eschatological significance.⁶⁸ Both concepts here define each other reciprocally. It is a question of such an acceptance that, just as from the gentiles (v. 25), so also from Israel, the "full number" will be saved. "Full number" stands over against Israel's present "reduction." In an antithetical sense it also corresponds with "remnant" (plērōma over against leimma) in verse 5. There is indeed in "remnant" the idea that Israel has not been entirely abandoned by God, but at the same time that by far the greater part of Israel is now excluded. The "remainder" represents the thought of God's saving grace as well as that of his punishing judgment.⁶⁹ On the other hand "fulness" speaks of what is not kept back, of the full share of Israel in the coming redemption, no longer being held back but accepted. Paul's thoughts reach out in that direction when he realizes what the present reduction of Israel already means for the gentiles. How much greater must that blessing be when Israel itself is permitted to share abundantly in the salvation of the Lord. For — this is the underlying idea involved — salvation comes to the world from Israel. In Abraham's seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Therefore life from the dead, the great eschatological redemption and renewal, is also to be the fulfillment of the promise of redemption given to Israel.

The entire argument of Romans 11:15-32 is intended to throw light not only on the possibility, but also on the certainty of this "acceptance" and "fulness" of Israel. In so doing the apostle points to the interdependence of the gathering in of the gentiles and that of Israel. First the stream of grace has gone from (unbelieving) Israel to the gentiles; now it must turn back from the believing gentiles to unbelieving Israel. Jealousy of the gentiles must come to fill Israel (v. 11), and the preaching of the gospel to and by the gentiles must save Israel (v. 14) and move them not to persevere in their unbelief (v. 22), and by the mercy shown to the gentiles it will make them, too, in their turn, obtain mercy with God (v. 31). It is this expectation which possesses the apostle with respect to the majority of Israel still unbelieving, and which he communicates to his readers as a "mystery." One is not to think here of a special revelation he received, an esoteric secret, but of the insight he has into the realization of God's counsel now becoming visible with regard to the gathering in of the gentiles on the one hand, and Israel on the other. As God causes the salvation that has rebounded from the wall of Israel's unbelief to stream out to the gentiles, so it must be his hidden intention therewith that the gentiles become a cause of deliverance for Israel. That he would thereby have in mind a conversion of Israel at one point in the eschatological end time does not appear from Romans 11. There is no question of another conversion than that which results from the preaching of the gospel in history (cf. 10:14ff.; 11:11, 14, 22) and from the activity presently coming to them from the believing gentile world (11:31). Even the pronouncement in verses 25 and 26 constantly quoted to this effect does not speak of such a final conversion. It says that the hardening has come on a part of Israel until the full number of gentiles shall have come in (to salvation, to the kingdom), and that thus all Israel shall be saved, as it is written. It does not say that Israel then or thus will come to conversion,⁷⁰ but that thus the salvation of all Israel (in the above-described sense of "full number") shall become a fact, when the full number (plērōma) of the gentiles has also been brought in.⁷¹ Israel as a nation will not again exhibit the image of the people of God before the gentiles, too, have brought their full portion into it. Till such time, that is to say, until this great hour of the consummation, Israel will in part exhibit the image of hardening, the evidence of the judgment of God. Only under the concurrent mark of God's judgment on the unbelief of a part of Israel will Israel come to its fullness and just then be redeemed from that judgment. The mystery (v. 25) is thus situated in the manner in which this fullness of Israel is to be saved: in the strange interdependence of the salvation of Israel and that of the gentiles. Israel, which was chosen from among the gentiles, must, contrary to every human expectation, first give way to the gentiles. But as Israel because of its disobedience has become a cause of salvation for the gentiles, so now the gentiles must provoke Israel to jealousy. There is thus an interaction. God grants no mercy to Israel without the gentiles, but neither does he do so to the gentiles without Israel. As he first shut up all under disobedience, so will he have mercy on all. The whole argument of Romans 11:11-32 leads to the indication of this mutual relationship of dependence, of this undulatory movement of salvation (cf. vv. 30-32), and on this, too, the doxology of the depth of the riches, wisdom, and knowledge of God and of the inscrutableness of his ways is founded (vv. 33-36).

There is therefore no contradiction between the definition of the essence of the New Testament church as the people of God and holding to Israel as the object of God's irrevocable gift of grace and calling. By making faith the criterion of the children of Abraham (Gal. 3:26ff.) and giving believing gentiles a place among his posterity (Rom. 4:16), the election of historical Israel is not nullified or rendered inoperative in order to make room for the formation of the new people of God, the Christian church. Rather, Paul wishes to show that it is precisely in historical Israel that God has chosen the Christian church and called it to himself (Gal. 3:16); on the one hand this is to say that all who belong to Christ by faith also belong to this church, but on the other hand that the historical bond between God and Israel continues to be maintained in its real significance. That significance has always consisted in the fact that Israel's election is an election of grace and that for Israel, too, therefore, there is no other way than that of faith. Consequently the irrevocable character of God's gifts of grace and calling, which remain valid for Israel, consists in that he will restore Israel to this true sonship by the proclamation of the gospel and by provoking it to jealousy. But in that way he will not only preserve to himself a remnant according to the election of grace, but he will also lead the pleroma of Israel, Israel as people, all Israel, to salvation with the fullness of the gentiles.

On the one hand Israel is thus bound to the church of the gentiles; the stream of grace must return from them to Israel, after it has first passed Israel by because of its unbelief and come to the gentiles. But on the other hand, the church made up of the gentiles is bound to Israel. For the life from the dead, the great future, is not to dawn without the pleroma of Israel; all nations will be blessed with Abraham's seed. The holy root of Israel continues to support all, the holy leaven permeates all, and the gentiles are grafted into the olive tree of Israel (Rom. 11:24). There is re-creation, but there is also continuity,⁷² because Israel has always been the product of God's life-creating grace; there is a New Covenant, but not without connection to, rather with the maintaining of what constituted the essential mystery of the Old Covenant. Thus, on the one hand Paul is able to see the church of the gentiles as endowed with all the privileges and blessings of Israel, and to see it occupy the place of unbelieving Israel, and yet on the other to uphold to the full the continuation of God's original redemptive intentions with Israel as the historical people of God. And all this because of the gracious character of God's election and because of Christ, who is the seed of Abraham as well as the second Adam: the one in whom the whole church, Jews and gentiles together, has become one body and one new man. This last observation leads us now to the second great Pauline conception of the church, that is, the church as the body of Christ.

1. See also my The Coming of the Kingdom, pp. 344ff.

2. In the LXX ekklēsia is in this sense regularly the translation of qāhāl. Among the rabbis qāhāl is used only infrequently as a designation of collective Israel or of great parts of it (cf. Strack-Billerbeck, I, pp. 733, 734). In the Greek Jewish writings, too (Sirach, Psalms of Solomon, Philo), ekklēsia serves as the denotation of Israel as the people of God; cf., e.g., Bultmann, Theology, I, pp. 38f.; K.L. Schmidt, TDNT, III, pp. 527ff.

3. Cf. L. Rost, Die Vorstufen von Kirche und Synagoge im Alten Testament, 1938, p. 154.

4. See also the clear and complete explanation of A.Wikenhauser, Die Kirche als der Mystische Leib Christi nach dem Apostel Paulus, 2nd ed., 1940, pp.4-33.

5. Starting from this usage it is then assumed that the address in 1 Cor. 1:2 ( te ekklēsia tou Theou tē ousē en Korinthō; cf. 2 Cor. 1:1) likewise does not speak of the local church at Corinth, but of the church of God insofar as it is found in Corinth (cf. the address in Ignatius' epistles to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Philadelphians, in 1 Clement, and in Polycarp to the Philadelphians); thus, e.g., Schmidt, TDNT, III, loc. cit.; Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 94, et al.

6.L. Cerfaux, The Church in the Theology of St. Paul, ET 1959, pp. 109ft.

7. Ibid., p. 113.

8. Thus, e.g., Cerfaux, ibid., p. 112.

9. Cf., e.g., A. Wikenhauser, Die Kirche, p. 7.

10. So rightly Wikenhauser, ibid., p. 7.

11. Cf. ibid., pp. 22ff., and the survey given there of the use of "saints" in Paul, the other writings of the New Testament, the apostolic fathers, the Old Testament, and Judaism.

12. Cf. W. G. Kümmel, Kirchenbegriff und Geschichtsbewusstsein in der Urgemeinde und bei Jesus, 1943, pp. 16, 17, and the literature discussed there.

13. Kümmel, loc. cit.

14. Cf. Wikenhauser, Die Kirche, pp. 27, 28.

15. Cf., e.g., K. G. Kuhn, "Die in Palästina gefundenen hebr. Texte und das N.T.," in ZTK, 1950, p. 199.

16. Kata pistin eklektōn Theou; kata is somewhat difficult to translate here; one may take it finally or relationally; cf. C. Bouma, De brieven van den apostel Paulus aan Timotheüs en Titas, 1942, pp. 374ff.

17. Dibelius-Conzelmann, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, p. 131, n. 1.

18. Cf. Schrenk, TDNT, IV, pp. 183ff., s. v. eklektos. The Qumran sect also applied this name to itself (cf., e.g., 1QS 11; 1QH 14, 15; 15, 23).

19. For the proof passages see, e.g., Quell, TDNT, I, pp. 31ff., s. v. agapaō.

20. Cf., e.g., Strack-Billerbeck, III, p. 24.

21. The translation of miqrā'- qōdesh = holy assembly (convocation), in the LXX rendered as concretum pro abstracto.

22. Cf. Procksch, TDNT, I, p. 107, s. v. hagios; Cerfaux, The Church in Paul, pp. 118ff.; K. L. Schmidt, TDNT, III, p. 494, s. v. klētos.

23. Cf. Cerfaux, ibid., p. 119, n. 30,

24. Whether Paul also made an etymological connection between klētos, klēsis, and ekklēsia is not to be said with certainty; cf. Schmidt, TDNT, III, pp. 530f., s. v. ekklēsia, and Cerfaux, The Church in Paul, pp. 184f.

25. For the relationship and delimitation between klētoi and eklektoi, cf. E. von Dobschütz, "Prādestination," in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1934, pp. 9ff.

26. For the following see also W. C. van Unnik, "La conception paulinienne de la nouvelle alliance," in Littérature et théologie pauliniennes ( Recherches bibliques, V), 1960, pp. 109-126 (repr. in Sparsa Collecta, 1973, pp. 174ff.); and, from the Jewish side, H. J. Schoeps, Paul, pp. 213ff.

27. Van Unnik, ibid., pp. 98ff., 118.

28. See below, Section 66.

29. Cf. above, pp. 218ff.

30. Paul does in general continue to reserve the names "Israel," "Jews," "Hebrews" for the national Jewish people (for the shaded significance of these designations cf. the relevant articles in TDNT, and K. L. Schmidt, Die Judenfrage im Lichte der Kapittel 9- 11 des Römerbriefs, 2nd ed., pp. 7ff.). Yet in this, too, a certain movement is perceptible. Even the distinction Paul makes within national Judaism between who is and who is not a "Jew," between "Israel" and "those who are of Israel" (Rom. 2:28ff.; 9:6), tends to a usage that denotes the believing gentiles as well and therefore the Christian church as such as "Israel." In 1 Cor. 10:18 Paul is on the verge of such a way of speaking when he refers to "Israel after the flesh." For the words "after the flesh" do not here intend to introduce a distinction within national Israel, but speak of national Israel in distinction from another Israel, which is not explicitly mentioned, but by which evidently the church is meant as "spiritual Israel." At the same time, however, he does not yet come to such a use of Israel here. In our view this is certainly the case in Gal. 6:16: "And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." To be sure, others are of the opinion that here it is only the part of Israel believing in Christ that is intended. For this old point of contention see, e.g., the discussion between G. Schrenk and N. A. Dahl in Judaica, 1949, 1950. In our opinion, however, the arguments pro are decisive (cf. my "Israel in het Nieuwe Testament," Exegetica, II, 2, 1955, pp. 33ff., 71). To what extent Paul was accustomed to make use of such an expression is uncertain, however. In the epistles preserved to us Gal. 6:16 is the only example.

31. Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, III, pp. 139ff., p. 185, p. 81 sub 3.

32. Otherwise Jeremias, TDNT, VI, pp. 542f. He is of the opinion that hoi polloi in Rom. 5:15c and in 5:19 has "the greatest conceivable breadth," that is to say, must have reference "without distinction to all mankind." He appeals for this to Rom. 5:18 where there is mention of "all men" to the same effect, on the one hand in connection with Adam, on the other with Christ. And he concludes: "Christ's obedience affects mankind in the same way as does Adam's disobedience." But this is true only if one understands thereby the new humanity, in distinction from the old (in Adam); for in the whole of Paul's preaching it is unthinkable to refer justification to all men without distinction; cf. also Bultmann, who explains hoi polloi in Rom. 5:19b as "the members of the humanity founded by Christ" (Theology, I, p. 277). Likewise the pantes in 1 Cor. 15:22 cannot be understood otherwise than in a distinguishing, qualified sense, on the one hand as those who belong to Adam, on the other as those who belong to Christ, "all members of the range of persons belonging to them" (Kümmel, in Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 193 — against Lietzmann in the text, p. 80).

33. See also van Unnik, "La conception paulinienne," in Littérature et théologie pauliniennes, 1960, pp. 122ff.

34. We take kata sarka here therefore as in apposition to propatera, not as the predicate to eurēkenai.

35. See further my The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia, 1953, pp. 132ff.

36. Heis, masculine.

37. For a further justification of the following see my Rom., and the summary view given there of "God's omnipotence according to Romans 9" (pp. 227-231); also "Israel," 1955 (Exegetica, together with G. C. Aalders), pp. 43-70.

38. Ta tekna tes epangelias, genitive of origin; cf. above, p. 217.

39. That this is the point in question and not "election and reprobation" as the denotation of the eternal personal destiny of both is clearly apparent from the words of the divine statement: " the elder shall serve the younger." In v. 13, too, Jacob and Esau are spoken of as two peoples, in harmony with Mal. 1:2ff. See further my Rom., pp. 213, 214.

40. This is correctly emphasized in the dissertation of H. Venema, Uitverkiezen en Uitverkiezing in het N. T., 1965, passim.

41. Cf. above, Section 55.

42. The words eis auto touto exēgeira se are to be taken in this way. They do not speak of Pharaoh's appearance as king or of his human origin, but of his recovery from the preceding plagues (Exod. 9:16; see furthermore my Rom., in loc.).

43. Above, Section 7.

44. The words eis auton are difficult, but indicate again the nature of the predestination.

45. Cf. kathōs in Eph. 1:4.

46. H. Venema, who in his Uitverkiezen en Uitverkiezing in het Nieuwe Testament, wishes to understand election exclusively as an action of God in time and history and therefore entirely rejects the idea of an eternal election, takes Eph. 1:4, too, as that which God does through Christ in human history (p. 56). To that end he translates en Christō with "by Christ," explains exelexato as man's being brought "under the saving working of Christ" in history (pp. 52, 53), while pro katabolēs kosmou would then "indicate that 'chosen in Christ' transcends earthly measure. It is indeed an historical occurrence, but it is not historically limited. It also transcends history." But it is plain that herewith not only is another category introduced (pro is not spatial, "above," but temporal, "before"), but the whole pronouncement becomes entirely unclear, which it is not in an unforced interpretation of pro. In addition katabolē tou kosmou is a matter that coincides or at least is connected with the beginning of history and not a designation of a supra-historical dimension that would then have to accompany the continuing, historical election of the church by Christ. There can here be no question of an election other than that which takes place before history. And therefore the translation of en Christō with "by Christ" cannot be maintained. Further along Venema does try to retain the category of origin in some measure. "Christ was the eternal Son of God and shared as such in the eternal love of God. Thus we now as believers who... are chosen in time, have to do in our election with what is eternal with God," etc. (pp. 60, 61). But one cannot proceed in this way to spread over eternity and history that which in Paul has been fixed at one point (aorist!) pro katabolēs kosmou. The same objection must be urged against the attempt of Venema to divest the concepts proorizoein and prothesis ton aiōnōn (pp. 65, 72ff.) of their pre-temporal significance. With every (justified) defense against a deterministic conception (cf., e.g., in Venema, p. 62), the evidence of the pre-temporal elements in the Pauline doctrine of election and predestination may not be denied.

47. Cf., e.g., Schrenk, TDNT, I, pp. 633ff., s. v. boulē, boulēma, and III, pp. 47, 54ff„ s. v. thelō, thelēma.

48. Thus G. C. Berkouwer, Divine Election, ET 1960, p. 151.

49. Cf. K. L. Schmidt, TDNT, V, p. 456, n. 4, s. v. proorizō.

50. The words pro chronōn aiōniōn, in view also of Tit. 1:2, will have to be taken, not as the equivalent of pro katabolēs kosmou, but as "before inconceivably long periods of time"; cf. C. Bouma, De brieven van den apostel Paulus aan Timotheus en Titus, p. 377.

51. Cf. above, p. 236, n. 63.

52. Cf. Schrenk, TDNT, III, pp. 56f„ s.v. thelēma.

53. See also J . H. Roberts, Die Opbou van die Kerk volgens die Ephese-brief, 1963, pp. 51ff.

54. For Rom. 9:13, which is frequently taken in this sense, see above, p. 344, n. 39.

55. On this conception see further G. C. Berkouwer, Divine Election, pp. 137ff.

56. So rightly C. Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit, p. 80, against Bultmann.

57. Above, pp. 235ff.

58. The emphatic pronouncement of H. Venema, Uitverkiezen, p. 171, that "they who have been rejected by God in the sense that the Scripture speaks of it, are never again chosen by him," cannot be maintained in the light of Rom. 11:15.

59. See the view of Bultmann cited above, p. 236. Cf. also his essay "Grace and Freedom," in Essays Philosophical and Theological, p. 168.

60. C. Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit, p. 80.

61. Above, p. 334.

62. The sharpest verdict to that effect in the epistles of Paul that have been preserved to us is certainly that of I Thess. 2:14ff., where he says of the Jews in Judea that they killed even the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted him (Paul) to the utmost; that they do not please God and are the enemies of all men, because they try to prevent him from speaking to the gentiles that they may be saved, in order thus — so he goes on — at all times to fill up the measure of their sin. Therefore the wrath has come on them to the end ( eis telos). Although this pronouncement has wrongly been associated with anti-semitic statements in antiquity (cf. Dibelius, Th., pp. 11ff.; E. Käsemann, "Paul and Israel," New Testament Questions of Today, p. 183), the sharpness of it is unmistakable. It is reminiscent of passages such as Matt. 23:32, et al, where there is also talk of a closing off, a maturation of the process of sin in Israel and of an inevitable judgment coming on it. This "full" judgment ( eis telos is here to be taken in a modal sense) Paul now sees as having come on those whose crime he has described in the foregoing. Although no conclusions may be drawn from this for the Jewish people as a whole (see further below, the text), it comes out very clearly in this passage that Paul will have nothing to do with any special excuse for the Jews because they are the people of God.

63. Echthroi, in a passive sense, just as agapētoi.

64. For a clear inventory of the theological views on the State of Israel see, e.g., H. Berkhof, "De Staat Israel en de theologie," In de Waagschaal, June 4, 1955. Furthermore G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, pp. 354ff.

65. For the exegetical literature, in addition to the already cited writing of K. L. Schmidt, Die Judenfrage, etc., cf. G. Schrenk, Die Weissagung über Israel im N. T., 1951; H. M. Matter, De toekomst van Israel, 1953; countless articles in Judaïca (i.a., on Gal. 6:16; see above); my "Israel in het Nieuwe Testament in het bijzonder volgens Rom. 9:11," Exegetica, II, 2, 1955; C. Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit.

66. So rightly G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, p. 342; C. Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit, p. 38.

67. For this translation of hēttēma see my Rom., p. 254. (Tr. note: the Dutch here is achterstelling, the German nachstellen: their being put back, reduced. Hence, I have translated "reduction." This is not, however, to be understood quantitatively, of being diminished in number, but qualitatively, of their being disadvantaged, reduced in the sense of being brought down, lowered, lessened, subordinated.)

68. Cf. Michel, Rom., p. 241; plērōma autön is "apokalyptische Vollzahl."

69. Cf. C. Müller as well ( Gottes Gerechtigkeit, p. 46). He points to the fact that later Judaism (Apocalyptic, Damascus Document, Qumran texts) also ascribed great significance to the idea of the "remnant," but for the great majority entertained little or no hope.

70. This continues to be my great objection to the view of Berkhof, et al., that they simply substitute "be converted" for the words "be saved" (cf. Berkhof, Christ the Meaning of History, ET 1966, pp. 145f.; C. Muller, ibid., pp. 43ff.) and thus at a decisive point in the argument introduce an apocalyptic miracle of conversion, of which the text speaks with not so much as a single word. "And so all Israel shall be saved" in the whole of Paul's reasoning acts as a prospect for the present preaching of the gospel to Israel (11:13-15), not as a kind of palliative in view of Israel's present hardening. The entire wrestling of the apostle for Israel's conversion, his pain, his effort to be permitted to save a few of his hardened brethren, his declaration that he is himself willing to be cut off from Christ, loses its tension when the real decision loses its present, historical character and is shifted to "posthistory." "One can also make it unnecessarily difficult for oneself," Berkhof writes, and he explains that "the moment will come that even [sic!] the shrewdest exegete will feel some of Paul's joy, because... all Israel will be saved" (p. 146). One will want to be grateful for this encouragement, but with that may not lose sight of the fundamental division that according to the apostle also takes place in Israel. Paul s joy does not consist in the fact that for Israel, because of its historical election, there would be "broader perspectives" than for the gentiles (p. 144), but that despite the punishment of hardening that has come on part of Israel, its pleroma will be saved.

71. It seems to me that Berkouwer, in The Return of Christ, takes altogether too little account of the future element in Paul's pronouncements. "He does not . .. attempt a narrative account of future events. He is simply concerned with the Israel of his day" (p. 347). Paul speaks here — so Berkouwer — in a high pitch of expectation of the immediate coming of the Lord and is occupied with the maximal possibilities which, out of the evidence of the salvation on the gentiles, he sees now, in his own time, for Israel (pp. 347ff.). The "all Israel shall be saved" may not be understood as a foretelling of a future event or as an isolated mystery, but as the expression of "a praying, serving, active orientation toward Israel's return to the way that is now open to it" (p. 348). Only thus, that is, as a timely expectation of what is now possible and with which one is occupied, does Paul's pronouncement have abiding relevance, and not if we are obliged to see in it a prophecy of an event in the end time (pp. 349, 358). Nevertheless, with however much justice Berkouwer places the emphasis on the "now" of 11:30, this does not alter the fact that "all Israel will (only) be saved when the pleroma of the gentiles shall have come in." That speaks of the final event: plērōma here has a future-eschatological sense, just as in v. 12, and pas Israel is synonymous with it ( = to plērōma auton; v. 12). This has nothing to do with the idea of a narrative, "reportorial" account (a notion which, in this context, seems to me to create false dilemmas); it does have to do with the as yet unfulfilled redemptive counsel of God. The manner in which Paul sees this fulfillment as being realized is the mystery, which does indeed open up before him "now." But neither in Paul's day nor in our own can one detach this from the still to be expected plërōma as a not yet fulfilled eschatological, or if one will, apocalyptic reality, whereby the question of whether more or less "near at hand" plays no special part.

72. Against the actualistic interpretation of election in C. Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit, pp. 78ff.

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