Israel: A Note From Wright

In my last blog I posed the question: Why did God give Israel the Torah as a Covenant Charter (Deut. 27-30). Today I'm not going to attempt to answer this question because I'm still formulating a response in my head, but I'll drop a hint as to where I may be going with this:

The most common answer I've been given to this question has been as follows: In rebelling against God and Moses in the desert the Israelites were declaring that they did not want a relationship with God based on faith. In essence (and to paraphrase a friend) the Israelites were telling God, "Just tell us what to do and we'll do it" - thus God gave them Torah. Some have suggested that it is at this point the Law was given so that it might 'keep' Israel from becoming as evil as her neighbors.

However, the answer given above suggests something which I am not convinced is the case, namely, that Torah was never meant to be a part of the Covenant Plan - This would be the natural conclusion to idea that God only decided to give Torah after Israel rebelled.

I want to note here that I am only brainstorming, I have not rejected the view above I have simply 'shelved it' in order to explore another idea.

Teaser: So where am I going with this question and what answer do I purpose? I'll tell you this, the Law does only one thing to the sons of Adam: accumulates, accentuates, amplifies and makes known sin - resulting in Death, Exile, and Curse! The Law did not 'keep' Israel from becoming as bad as their neighbors, on the contrary, because Israel had the Law they actually became worse then the pagan nations (cf. Habakkuk)! Furthermore I believe that the giving of Torah was neither a 'plan B covenant' nor a 'last minute decision' but rather it is an intricate part of the Covenant of Redemption (i.e. Abrahamic, Mosaic (Torah), Davidic, New). I also believe that the Covenant of Law did not supplant the Covenant of Promise as though because Israel rejected the Covenant of Promise God gave them Torah; rather I believe the Covenant of Law supplemented the Covenant of Promise. Then if we consider the fact that the sins of the World (not just Israel who had the Law) came upon the Cross (Curse, Exile and Death came upon the Elect One), and put all these factors together we may formulate the hypothesis that...

I'll leave the rest for another time.

For now I want to change gears a bit and quote N.T. Wright with regards to True Israel only because he succently articulates my position nicely on this point:

"And in this context of 'all Israel' [i.e. Romans 11:25-26] cannot possibly mean 'all Jews'. It is impermissible to argue that 'Israel' cannot change it's referent within the space of two verses, so that 'Israel' in v.25 must mean the same as 'Israel' in v.26: Paul actually began the whole section (9:6) with just such a programmatic distinction of two 'Israels', and throughout the letter (e.g. 2:25-9) as well as elsewhere (e.g. Philippians 3:2-11) he has systematically transferred the privileges and attributes of 'Israel' to the Messiah and his people. It is therefore greatly preferable to take 'all Israel' in v.26 as a typically Pauline polemical redefinition, as in Galatians 6:16 (though that is of course also controversial), and in line also with Philippians 3:2 ff.,where the church is described as 'the circumcision'. What Paul is saying is this: God's method of saving 'all Israel' is to harden ethnic Israel (cp. 9:14 ff.), i.e., not to judge her at once, so as to create a period of time during which the gentile mission could be undertaken, during the course of which it remains God's will that the present 'remnant' of believing Jews might be enlarged by the process of 'jealousy', and consequent faith, described above. This whole process is God's way of saving his whole people: that is the meaning of and so all Israel will be saved."

- Climax of the Covenant, (c) 1993, p. 250

Just a thought.

Derek