doubt but the general, national apostasy of Israel is referred to, and
of the Jews is described by Paul as a "παραζηλοῦν," or, in the passive, "παραζηλοῦσθαι." In vs. 14 Paul applies the principle involved even to the scattering results of his own Apostolic missionary activity among the Jews. There the "parazeloon" includes the indirect aim: "if by any means I may provoke to jealousy my flesh (the Jews), and so save some of them." This subsidiary purpose the Apostle pursues alongside of and through the opportunities offered him in his evangelizing of the Gentiles, vss. 13, 14: "For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am (specifically) the Apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office (even so far as primarily it extends to the Gentiles), if by any means I may save some of them (the Jews)." Nevertheless such conversions remain for the present but sparodic examples, though at bottom expressive of a divine principle intended to work itself out on the largest of scales at the predetermined point in the future. And this is intimated in vs. 11: "Have they (the Jews) stumbled that they should fall? God forbid, but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them (the Jews) to jealousy." The "parazeloun" of 10:19 in a quotation from Deut. 32:21 is of a somewhat different nature, for its proximate effect is "παροργιζοῦν," "to provoke to anger." Paul, however, may have looked upon the anger aroused in the hearts of the Jews through the marvellous success of the Gentile mission as a sort of negative preparation for the "parazelousthai" in the nobler sense. It can only lead to confusion not to distinguish between the single conversions spoken of in such statements and this comprehensive eschatological recovering of the unbelieving Jews. The "pleroma" held in prospect for them stands in contrast to the "ἥττημα" and παράπτωμα of vs. 12. Both words, taken together with the question of vs. 11, leave no doubt but the general, national apostasy of Israel is referred to, and consequently the recovery from this must bear the same collective interpretation. Just as the "riches of the world," and the "riches of the Gentiles" take the pagan world in its organic, collective sense, so the other term in the antithesis requires the same understanding. It need scarcely be added, that "collective" is not identical with a "universalistically" conceived extension of the two effects to all
single men on either side. If it were, then the curious question could not have been so simply passed by as to what in Paul's view had become, or was to become, of the individuals who had died away or were to die away in the intervening time between the setting in of the hardening of Israel and the end. It is precisely characteristic of the passage that it abstains from the consideration, far more the solution, of such problems, and speaks in ethnic terms. Only with this in mind can we take the events as tending more or less directly to the eschatological consummation. The phrase "πώρωσις ἀπὸ μέρους," "hardening in part," vs. 25, bears strong witness to the necessity of the collective exegesis. On the other hand, a frank recognition of this state of facts ought not to be exploited, as it often is, in the interest of a total denial of the Pauline doctrine of sovereign election as an integral factor in the salvation of individuals. The evidence of Paul's firm belief in that and the supreme importance it bears for the whole construction of his soteriology and eschatology is superabundant. Even if Rom. 9–11 were entirely left out of account this would still hold absolutely true. The trouble arises from too much mechanical exegesis expended on these particular chapters without penetrating into the inner core of the doctrine and from overhasty disregard of the numerous statements where this core comes into view. Nor should it be overlooked that even in the very opening up of the problem as regards Israel in the present in Ch. 9 several times an individualistic turn is given to the idea of election. Apart from its national application the principial significance of the doctrine in soterics shines through everywhere in the argument. The Apostle was not led first from the ethnic employment of the idea to the introduction of it in individual cases. It is from certain theological standpoints convenient to assert this, but the opposite order of emergence as between the two is just as conceivable. Paul, we believe, came to the discussion of this problem, the unbelief of the greater part of Israel, as antecedently a predestinarian; he was not first made a predestinarian through his weighing of that problem. There is abundant evidence of his application of the principle of predestination or election before the writing of Romans. Cp. 1
Thess. 1:4; 1 Cor. 1. To say that Paul revolved or further worked out the problem in his mind does not imply that for this reason it ceased to be for him an object of divine revelation, lost divine sanction. On the contrary, in Ch. 9:2 he explicitly affirms that at least avowal of the one aspect of it there mentioned (the presence of great sorrow in his heart) was made "in Christ," that is, with the concurrent witness-bearing of the Holy Ghost in his consciousness.
Still another statement implying a gradual and fixed approach towards the goal of the Parousia is found in 1 Cor. 15:24, 25. Here it is declared that before the arrival of "the end" (τὸ τέλος), Christ must have previously put down all "rule" (ἀρχή) and "authority" (ἐξουσία) and "power" (δύναμις); that Christ's reign of conquest must last until He shall have put all enemies under his feet; further that "the last enemy" to be destroyed is "death." Plainly there is affirmed in these words a progressive subjugation of enemies leading up to the consummation. The fact that death is named "the last" points to the resurrection. All this, however, moves in the super-terrestrial sphere of the world of spirits, so that it can scarcely be counted among the prognostics of the approaching crisis; it consists of happenings unobservable by men. There is further involved the somewhat complicated question, as to where the beginning of the conquests named should chronologically be placed: does it belong from beginning to end of the "millennium," as postulated by some on the ground of this and other passages appearing as a fixed element in Paul's eschatology? Or does it form part of the present period, in which case it would date from Christ's resurrection and be conceived by the Apostle as going on at that very moment so as to cover the entire period between the resurrection and the final parousia of the Lord. So far as the plausibility or implausibility of such a "chiliastic" exegesis is concerned, we shall revert to that aspect of the question in its proper place, when the presence or non-presence of a millennarian strand of thought in Paul's teaching comes under review.
Still another problem, although of less direct bearing on the question in hand, concerns the exact nature of the enemies spoken of. Are the words used abstract designations for certain types of movements hostile to God and Christ, or do they refer to concrete demonic powers? As concerns the other terms ("rules," "authorities," "powers") the general demonological statements in other passages of the Epistles put beyond doubt, that concrete beings, or groups of such, are meant. It is somewhat more difficult to assume this for "death," although Jewish analogies for even that are not lacking. Certainly in Rom. 5:12–21 "death" is highly personalized, but so are "sin" and "life." In the Apocalypse especially death appears in vivid concreteness, and the juxtaposition of death with the other powers speaks in favor of an analogous interpretation in all four cases. The phrase "all enemies" (vs. 25) opens still farther, but scarcely more definite, prospects. At any rate this much is sure, that the Apostle assumes an incessant, uninterrupted pressing on of the soteric movement towards its absolute conclusion determined in the divine plan. The end stands in fixed relation towards what precedes it. Be the compass of time within which all things occur longer or shorter, the simple fact of the designation of "death" as the "last" enemy proves that a wellordered succession is contemplated.
To the foregoing may be added a couple of passages from the Pastoral Epistles. As is well known, these Epistles lay strong stress upon the invasion of the churches by godless, depraved elements, and draw, on the whole, a dismal picture of the condition of things, both morally and religiously, at their time of writing. In itself it would have been easy to bring these symptoms of decadence into connection with the near approach of the eschatological crisis. As a matter of fact we actually observe such a connection dwelt upon in John's First Epistle. In the Pastorals, on the other hand, such an inference is drawn only twice: 1 Tim. 4:1 and 2 Tim. 3:1. "In later times (ἐν ὑστέροις καιροῖς) some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons." This forecast is introduced by: "the Spirit says expressly" (ρητῶς "in so
many words"), a form of statement indicating that the low appraisal put upon the character of the times was by no means the opinion of single, pessimistically inclined, persons, but a piece of actual prophetic revelation once expressed with great emphasis. The other statement (3:1 of the Second Epistle reads: "But know this that in the last days (ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις) grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof." The enumeration resembles to some extent the catalogues of forms of sin found in the earlier Pauline Epistles. The vices and excesses of sin there rehearsed lack, however (with the exception of Col. 3:5–8), the explicit reference to the semi-eschatological character of the times, and this is precisely what is present here in the Pastorals. It would be a mistake to assume that Paul in these later Epistles represents that sort of thing as still lying entirely in the future. The enumeration is followed in 2 Tim. 3:5 by the injunction "From these turn away." It is a matter of present concern and eminent importance.