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A study in Romans Murdo A MacLeod was
the director of Christian Witness to Israel from 1976 - 1991. He served
also as President of the Lausanne Consultation of Jewish Evangelism Mr
MacLeod and lectured on the subject of the Church and Israel in many
countries including Hong Kong where this address was delivered. He was a
Minister of the Free Church of Scotland and served as Moderator of the
General Assembly in 1984. In
his letter to the church in Rome the apostle Paul states with unique
clarity the content of the Gospel and concludes with an exhortation that
it is to be proclaimed to all nations for the obedience of faith
(16:25-27). The missionary task of the Church is not something that lies
at the periphery of its duty. It lies at the heart of its existence. Jesus
must be made known to all nations. The apostle is most emphatic. This
is at the command of the eternal God. The necessary corollary is that
the neglect of such a mandate manifests a peculiarly arrogant defiance of
God. Equally, any programme that God may have given must he heeded in the
proclamation of the Gospel. No theological abstractions can justify the
radical step of altering such an order in the absence of a clear mandate
from Him. The
need for a balance in our missionary strategy in accord with the biblical
data is of vital importance for the whole question of world mission. It is
a matter of supreme importance for the advance of the Kingdom of God in a
world that “lies under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). It is
true that “the battle is the Lord’s” (1 Samuel 17:47). It is equally true
that the campaign must be conducted as the Captain of the Lord’s host
directs. In this, as in other respects, it is difficult to exaggerate the
importance of the letter to the Romans in the corpus of Paul’s letters. It
is generally agreed to be the most crucial for the understanding of his
theology. It is equally important for a biblical missiology. It is in some
respects pivotal to the New
Testament. The
apostle is concerned that at the very heart of the Roman Empire, to which
all roads led and from whence went travellers to every corner of the
world, there should be a clear and precise understanding of the central
truths of the Gospel and its place within the unity of revealed truth.
This letter has well been described as the most important ever
written. Little
consideration, however, seems to he given to the balance within the
letter. Paul is writing to the church in the capital of the Roman Empire
dealing with the fundamental structure of the faith and the basic
principles that underlie the Gospel, yet he devotes a considerable part of
his letter to an extensive treatment of one particular subject. This
letter follows the pattern of several of his letters. A doctrinal basis is
followed by a practical application. The interesting thing here is that
the apostle devotes three long chapters (9-1 1), almost a quarter of the
doctrinal section, to the one subject of Israel, its election and
unbelief. Of course, the underlying reason for this is to vindicate the
faithfulness of God. But it is important to notice the particular context
in which this is done. Discussion
of the election and unbelief of Israel is not limited to these chapters
but pervades much of the earlier part of the letter also. In the keynote
passage at the beginning of the epistle, the subject is introduced (1:16);
in the second and third chapters it is central to the apostle’s argument
(2:17ff; 3:1ff); in chapter 4 the relationship of the Church and Israel is
ever present in the development of the apostle’s discussion of the place
of the law and the centrality of faith in the life of the progenitor of
Israel (4:13-15) and in the central chapters, (6-8) the law as given to
Moses underlies the glorious affirmations of the believers’ liberty and
victory in Christ (6:15-18). Attention must be paid to the emphases of
Scripture over against the subjective emphases that so frequently
determine much modern Christian thinking. It is only by observing such
emphases that that objectivity can be maintained. For example, the Old
Testament concentrates extensively on the historical settings of Israel’s
experiences of God. Whatever else may be said of our faith, it is rooted
in history. The New Testament begins with the incarnation of Jesus Christ
rooted in history, pinpointing the date and joining it to a particular
event in secular history (Luke 2:1-3; Matthew 1:1-7; 2:1). The Apostles’
Creed similarly confesses that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate”.
Questions of historical antecedents and the historical nature of our faith
may be rightly assessed as of fundamental importance because of the
emphasis that is laid on them by Scripture. It is a kind of spurious
spirituality that depreciates history and denies the validity of these
foundations and historical structures and claims instead to focus on the
truths enunciated. The Word of God will have none of such spirituality.
Our faith is rooted in history. The conclusions the apostle arrives at in
chapters 9-11 of Romans are the climax of the historical perspective that
has governed the teaching of the Word of God from its very outset - that
the salvation of Israel and the salvation of the world are intimately
related and will ultimately reach their consummation
together. The
proportion of space devoted to any particular subject in Scripture is an
indication of its relative importance. Many examples could be cited.
Suffice it to mention that most commentators recognise the importance
given to the Lord’s death in relation to other parts of the gospels, by the proportion of space given
to it. When
we look at Paul’s letter to the Romans, in which he encapsulates the
Gospel, it is right that we pay close attention to the relative emphasis
accorded to each of the particular subjects that he takes up. No student
of Romans would overlook the first few chapters in which Paul dwells at
length on the depravity of man and the universality of guilt. Nor would
the chapters dealing extensively with the doctrine of justification by
faith receive any less careful treatment. Each subject will be dealt with
in a way that reflects its relative importance in the fabric of Paul’s
overall theology. No credible student of Romans could act otherwise.
However, comparatively little attention is paid in the thinking of the
Church to the central theme of Paul’s gospel which underlies the whole of
the letter to the Romans. Paul devotes more attention to the theme of
Israel’s election and disobedience than to any other in the course of this
letter. If we are to be true to his emphasis and to the biblical balance
we ought not to neglect this doctrine which loomed so large in the
apostolic perspective. We
claim to be the children of the Reformation. We claim to bring everything
to the test of the word of God. “Sola scriptura” was the great central
thrust of the Reformation. “To the law and to the testimony. If they speak
not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them”
(Isaiah 8:20). We must correct our present imbalance and fashion our
theology according to the biblical balance of truth. “Ecclesia reformata,
semper reformanda”. The Reformation was not God’s last word. We thank God
for the Reformers. We thank God for the children of the Reformers, the
Puritans. We often pay lip service to the words of John Robinson, the
Puritan leader of the Pilgrim Fathers, who reminded us that God has “much
light yet to break forth from His Word”. But are we not reluctant to seek
the new light God may wish to bring from His Word because we fear that it
may force us to rethink many long cherished
assumptions. It
is imperative that we bring the subject of the mission to the Jews to the
test of Scripture. It is an important aspect of any truly biblical
missiology. We may argue that evangelical missiologists are aware of that
obligation and apply biblical principles to the manifold questions that
arise in the cultural, racial, psychological and geographical problems of
Gospel work. That is not the point I am making. I insist that the Pauline
perspective of missions in Romans is given little consideration,
particularly in the relative place of Jewish missions in the overall
missiological task This letter is not usually thought of as an important
missionary document, but that is essentially what
it is. It important to focus close attention on this perspective
on Jewish missions in the totality of the Church’s mission for at least
two reasons. The
first
is a very practical one. The Church has been in the world for nearly two
thousand years. We have been, in some way or other, seeking to fulfil the
mandate that was given to us by Jesus Christ, to make disciples of all
nations. At this point, almost two thousand years after the Resurrection
and Ascension of our Lord, the world is growing less and less Christian.
The number of believers is indeed greater than ever but the relative
number of believers in the world’s population is decreasing every day. The
population explosion is happening where Christ is not known. We must
acknowledge that we have failed and are failing in this task of bringing
the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations. Each time I travel to the East
I become depressed. In those great cities of India, Thailand and Malaysia
as I go out into the streets, sometimes travelling all day, I never meet
one who gives the slightest indication of entertaining faith in Jesus
Christ. My experience is common to Christian travellers in most of the
world. No one claims omniscience but the total impact is of gross and
total darkness. We have failed, and that failure is due partly, although
not totally to the second reason for our need to balance our missiology
according to the proportion of the biblical
emphasis. The second reason for such a study is simply that the Church has not taken seriously God’s programme of evangelisation. The salvation of Israel has been isolated from the salvation of the world yet this inter-relationship is extensively elaborated in many parts of Scripture. The Old Testament has much to say on it. A catena of passages could be drawn up (e.g. Psalm 67). Indeed the relationship is there already in the blessing pronounced on Abraham (Genesis 12:1-2). Some
object that this is tantamount to ignoring the change which has taken
place with the coming of the dispensation of the Spirit. In response, it
is interesting to note that Paul was not writing before the Resurrection
of Jesus Christ, nor before Pentecost, but after these epoch-dividing
events. His letters do not relate alone to the church in Rome and for the
situation that existed in the first century. It is as relevant now as it
was then. If the apostle had made these emphases exclusively for the
emerging Church which was at that time arising from the ashes of a
destroyed theocracy, we would expect this to be clear from the letter
itself. But what Paul was laying down in this central New Testament
document is never indicated as having a local relevance only. On the
contrary, it is of permanent and universal validity. The glorious doxology
with which the apostle concludes his exposition of Israel’s place in the
purpose of God arises specifically from his contemplation of God’s wisdom
and grace in the intertwining of the salvation of Israel and that of the
world (11:33-36). At
the beginning of his letter Paul used the expression “to the Jew first and
also to the Greek” (1:16). This does not only have reference to the order
in which the Gospel was to be proclaimed in the apostle’s time; in the
second chapter of his letter Paul refers to the day of judgement and
indicates that this priority exists even at the day of judgement. Without
clear authority from God we have no right to revise the apostle’s inspired
prescription for the evangelisation of the
world. “God
did not reject His people, whom he foreknew” (11:2). “I am an
Israelite myself” (11:1), not “was an Israelite”. Bishop Handley
C.G. Moule, surprisingly in view of his appreciation of Paul’s argument,
says of Paul and Israel, “which he had once led,
and now had left”. When did Paul leave Israel? “I am an
Israelite”. There is neither Jew not gentile, but this does not mean to
say that genetic or national distinctions have ceased, any more than that
the sexual distinctions have been erased because there is now neither male
nor female in Christ. God has not cast away His
people. Paul’s attitude to Israel was perfectly in keeping with the Old Testament teaching in which he had been brought up. He had been taught from his youth that Israel had its place in God’s purpose of grace to the end of time. Jeremiah 31 and 33 are examples of this. In the former, the subject is the New Covenant. In the latter, it is the Righteous Branch of David, the Lord Jesus Christ. Note the parallelism that is used in both cases in the asseveration that God makes of the certainty of His purposes. Israel will remain “as long as the sun and moon” (31:36). Such also, he says, is the basis of our assurance concerning the reign of David’s greater Son, our Lord Jesus Christ (33:25,26). We must beware of seeking to be wiser than what is written and, by sophisticated argument, seek to escape the perspicuity of the Word of God. That is not an option for those whose faith is grounded upon the revelation of God and His purposes. It
is of the utmost urgency that the Church of Christ brings its mission
programme, tactics and strategy to the test of the Word of
God. The
Church’s mission to the gentiles and to Israel are not relatively
important or unimportant. The teeming millions of the world are our urgent
calling. How are they to be reached? Never, so long as we continue to
neglect what God has
commanded. John Stott says, “This final self-sacrifice was his [Jesus’] ‘last hour’, for which he had come into the world. And the four evangelists, who bear witness to him in the Gospels, show that they understand this by the disproportionate amount of space which they give to the story of his last few days on earth, his death and resurrection.” (The Cross of Christ. IVP Leicester, 1986. p.32). Return C.E.B. Cranfield, in his magisterial commentary on Romans, says, “He [Paul] had now been preaching the gospel of Christ for about twenty years and may well have been conscious of having reached a certain maturity of experience, reflection and understanding, which made the time ripe for him to attempt, with God’s help, such an orderly presentation of the gospel... affording guidance for the Church’s missionary endeavours.” (Romans, A Shorter Commentary. T & T Clark, Edinburgh 1985) emphasis mine. Return H.C.G. Moule, Romans. The Expositors Bible. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1902; p. 245. Return |