Tim’s Blog

The Promises to Abraham: Israel & the Nations

December 23, 2024

A key reason why “conversations” between dispensationalists and hard supercessionists rarely get anywhere (beyond the fact that people are obviously predisposed to their own convictions) is that neither side does adequate justice to the texts, beginning with the Abrahamic promises themselves.

Yahweh’s promises to Abraham distinguish between those who will come from his own body, and those who will be blessed in (not simply by) him. Both these promises are “everlasting.”

On the one hand, this means that “Israel” is not “replaced” by “the Church,” much less by Gentiles. On the other, it means that the covenantal goal of the Abrahamic promises was organic unity between Israel and the nations in one people of God.

Paul maintains this delicate balance in Romans, a letter which each side tends to privilege certain aspects and eviscerate others.

In Romans 2:25–29, Paul says that the uncircumcised (i.e. Gentiles) who “keep the righteous deeds [dikaiomata] of the law” are regarded as circumcised (2:26). As he continues, it becomes clear that he is speaking of the work of the Spirit (2:29). He is thus saying that Christians are … well, Jews.

While this would have shocked his contemporaries, in fundamental respects, it is in fact not at all surprising that personal, physical circumcision is not inherent to being a Jew. After all, roughly half of Jews were not subject to circumcision to begin with, being female.

All Jews recognized this, although on that point, the position of women was considered to be inferior; in the Eighteen Benedictions, one thanked God that he is not a woman. This is because Torah is viewed as life, and for a woman, there is ostensibly less of Torah to observe.

In contrast to this, Paul says that in the Messiah, there is no male and female (Galatians 3:28). This, of course, does not mean that Paul obliterates the roles of male and female, as is clear in his deployment of “household codes” and his other instructions. But it does mean that the ground before the cross is completely leveled. The reason for this, Paul says, is that in baptism, one has “put on” (clothed himself with) the Messiah (Galatians 3:27), and therefore his inheritance belongs to all the baptized. (This is the whole point of Paul’s argument in the latter part of Galatians 3 and into the early verses of chapter 4.)

But if that is so, men and women, young and old, slave and free, Jew and Gentile, are all incorporated into the (circumcised) king of the Jews, Jesus, and therefore they are Jews.

Thus the apparently unprecedented move Paul makes in Romans 2:25–29 is organically related to his view of union with Christ, and necessarily flows from it.

While this all may sound great to the supercessionist, Paul’s discussion of Israel in Romans 9–11 shows that he still envisions things in terms of the original promises to Abraham, including the other side of the coin. Whereas the foregoing shows how God includes and blesses “all the families of the earth” in Abraham, Romans 9–11 reflects upon the correlating promises to those who come from Abraham’s own body; and both hard supercessionists and dispensationalists are wrong to set these in opposition one to another.

In Romans 9, Paul speaks of his grief for his kinsmen; and affirms that they are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption, glory, covenants, promises, and so on. Note well that this grief is rooted in their current position of rejection of the Messiah; it is these to whom, he says, all those covenantal blessings belong. That is, while they do not currently enjoy the benefits and blessings of what belongs to them in terms of promise, that does not negate the fact that they really are theirs. There is really no room in supercessionism for this fact, although some will claim it was a very temporary reality.

The problem with taking this situation as temporary, however, is that the very foundation of the existence of these things that belong are the everlasting promises to Abraham. Were those promises not everlasting, Paul’s appeal to what belongs to them in Romans 9:4–5 would have had no place, even then.

Moreover, in Romans 11, Paul very clearly distinguishes between the natural branches and the ingrafted branches. And he makes clear that even the severed branches remain natural branches. God has them demarcated as beloved for the sake of the fathers, even when they are enemies of believers for the sake of the gospel (Romans 11:28).

Paul says that the trespass of Israel was for the sake of “riches for the world” (11:12a). This means, in the first place, that the initial rejection of the Messiah was in fact the means of his sacrificial death which brings reconciliation to the world, but it seems to go much further than that, which implies an ongoing rejection for a more extended period.

But if the initial rejection means “riches for the world,” Paul says, even much more so will their “fullness” (pleroma, 11:12b). This “fullness” must be read as a quantitative and comparative term over against the “remnant” language Paul has been using throughout the context (leimma, 11:5), as well as the “some” whom he himself hopes to rescue (11:14). It is impossible to equate the remnant and the fullness, which is nonsensical on the terminological level, and runs headlong against the grain of Paul’s entire argument.

The initial rejection is the ground of reconciliation for the world, Paul says; the life from the dead, however, is predicated upon their “acceptance” (11:15), which appears to be another way of saying their “fullness,” as in 12b.

Romans 11 has two coordinating themes of fullness/all, having to do with “the world” (i.e. the nations, the Gentiles) and “Israel.” These correspond to the everlasting promises to Abraham regarding the fruit of his body and the families of the earth being incorporated into him. In both cases, Paul anticipates a fullness: the world will be reconciled (11:15a); the “fullness of the Gentiles will come in” (11:25b).

The “partial hardening” of Israel is the context for this ingathering of the Gentiles (again 11:25b); once the Gentile nations have been reconciled in fullness, “all Israel will be saved” (11:26a, again parallel to Israel’s fullness in 11:12). It is when both of these “fullnesses” are brought in that “life from the dead” occurs (11:15b).

That this is the correct reading of Romans 11 is evident from the far too-neglected verses that follow, in particular 11:28–32.

As already noted, the larger mass of Israel, over against the remnant, remain beloved for the sake of the fathers with regard to Israel’s election, even while they are enemies with regard to the gospel (11:28). It is specifically in this connection that Paul says the gfits and calling of God are irrevocable (11:29). Note that. He is not speaking of the irrevocability of the promises to Christian believers. He is specifically speaking of the irrevocability of the promises to the offspring of Abraham, and specifically those who presently do not believe and are in fact enemies of the gospel.

Paul says that “you” Gentiles were at one time disobedient, but have received mercy precisely through Israel’s disobedience (11:30), and even so their present disobedience is part of the unfathomable purpose through which God will extend them mercy precisely through the mercy he has shown to Gentiles (11:31). This consigns the judgment of disobedience upon “all” — and it extends mercy to “all.”

I believe the message of Romans as a whole reinforces several things.

1) Paul fervently believes that which Yahweh had insisted in the prophets: the promises to the offspring of Abraham are utterly irrevocable; they are as settled as the “fixed order” of the moon and stars (Jeremiah 31:35–36).

2) Paul works thoroughly within the distinction between the offspring of Abraham’s body and the inclusion of all the families of the earth in Abraham.

3) The promises in view regarding Israel are not something that occurred in the first century. Quite apart from the fact that there is zero evidence of a mass influx of Jews into the Church after Romans was written (the evidence suggests the opposite; the Church from that point was increasinly Gentile), the text itself insists that the “fullness of the Gentiles,” not the “fullness of Israel,” occurs first; and the fulfillment of the latter triggers the resurrection.

4) Conversely, the promises in view regarding Israel are not post-resurrection promises (i.e. it’s not simply that God will raise up previous generations of Israel to life after the Second Coming). To the contrary, it is Israel’s “fullness” which will trigger “life from the dead.”

5) The promises in view envision the salvation of the world. The promises to Israel and to the Gentile world are mutually reinforcing, and make clear that the last enemies which will be destroyed is death.