Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
This thread is a bit of a spin-off from this one
http://www.puritanboard.com/f46/anyone-want-take-crack-answering-john-macarthur-here-50723/
I'll put a link there to this also.
I have now looked at Palmer Robertson's careful treatment of Romans 11, and he hasn't persuaded me that - as well as speaking about an ongoing small part of the Jews believing until the end of time - that Paul isn't also speaking about a future reingrafting of the Jews as a nation.
I'll explain why later, on this thread..........
For a start,
I would largely agree with him that Romans 11 has present concerns and that some of it is about the fact that there is an ongoing (small) proportion of Jews that believe. This in itself would encourage Jewish evangelism by the Roman church.
vv. 1-11 I can largely agree with Robertson, though because of verse 12, I believe v.11 may have a future reference.
v.12 There is a weakness in Robertson's interpretation here:-
Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
Robertson believes that the fulness of the Jews is the full number of the Jews who will be saved incrementally to the end of time. But - although Jewish believers have contributed to the life of the church and the work of the Gospel - there is no sense in which this addition of Jewish believers has anything like exceeded or been commensurate with the riches that have been bestowed on the world by the fact that the Jews rejected Christ.
Also, Robertson believes that when the fulness of the Jews - and Gentiles - come in, Christ will return and the world will end. Yet there is no explicit mention of the Parousia in this chapter, and when the Parousia happens, there will be such a great change to the order of things, that the blessings of a Jewish "fulness" in that context would be moot. It would not be the Jewish fulness that would be the riches of the Gentile (and Jewish) believers, but the return of Christ which Paul doesn't mention.
More later...............
http://www.puritanboard.com/f46/anyone-want-take-crack-answering-john-macarthur-here-50723/
I'll put a link there to this also.
I have now looked at Palmer Robertson's careful treatment of Romans 11, and he hasn't persuaded me that - as well as speaking about an ongoing small part of the Jews believing until the end of time - that Paul isn't also speaking about a future reingrafting of the Jews as a nation.
I'll explain why later, on this thread..........
For a start,
I would largely agree with him that Romans 11 has present concerns and that some of it is about the fact that there is an ongoing (small) proportion of Jews that believe. This in itself would encourage Jewish evangelism by the Roman church.
vv. 1-11 I can largely agree with Robertson, though because of verse 12, I believe v.11 may have a future reference.
v.12 There is a weakness in Robertson's interpretation here:-
Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
Robertson believes that the fulness of the Jews is the full number of the Jews who will be saved incrementally to the end of time. But - although Jewish believers have contributed to the life of the church and the work of the Gospel - there is no sense in which this addition of Jewish believers has anything like exceeded or been commensurate with the riches that have been bestowed on the world by the fact that the Jews rejected Christ.
Also, Robertson believes that when the fulness of the Jews - and Gentiles - come in, Christ will return and the world will end. Yet there is no explicit mention of the Parousia in this chapter, and when the Parousia happens, there will be such a great change to the order of things, that the blessings of a Jewish "fulness" in that context would be moot. It would not be the Jewish fulness that would be the riches of the Gentile (and Jewish) believers, but the return of Christ which Paul doesn't mention.
More later...............
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