the “remnant” and what it saysalpharetta-bible-study.com/.../2013/remnant-slides.pdf · judaism...

The “Remnant” And What It Says About “Second Temple Judaism”

IntroductionIn reference to NPP, Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. made the following observations: “...there remained in Paul’s day a faithful remnant (e.g., Rom. 11:5; cf. Luke 2:25ff., 36–38), individuals found, no doubt, among the various mainstreams, even within the religious establishment (Luke 23:50–51; cf. John 3: 1ff.; 7:50–51; 9:16; 19:39). But these, as the idea of the remnant suggests, were the exception. [N.T] Wright relentlessly insists…

Introductionthat Paul ‘did not (as it were) abandon Judaism for something else’ throughout his writing. But, while Paul certainly did not abandon the religion of the Old Testament, [even so,] for the sake of fidelity to it and to the God of Abraham, he most certainly did abandon the dominant streams in the Judaism of his day, which were relentlessly opposed first by Jesus and then by himself. Judaism and Christianity are two different religions….

IntroductionNot to recognize that fact will inevitably distort the interpretation of Paul as well as Jewish-Christian dialogue today [emphases mine—AT].” I believe this critique of NPP’sdescription of first-century-A.D. Judaism is not just “spot on,” but it embraces what I believe to be one of the most effective scriptural rebuttals of “covenantal nomism” that can be found—namely, the necessary inference to be drawn from the “remnant”

Introductiontheme found throughout Scripture. And just what is this remnant theme? Simply this: In reference to the Jews (and the theme is not limited to them), there is an easily discernable pattern consisting of (1) a saved minority (a faithful remnant, if you will) who knew they had failed to keep God’s law perfectly and were, as a result, humbly aware, as sinners, that they were totally dependent upon God for their salvation by grace through faith, and…

Introduction(2) an unsaved majority who didn’t, but nonetheless believed they were in a covenantal relationship with God and thus saved. Instead, they were, unless they repented and believed the gospel, under God’s wrathful judgment.

Until one sees this remnant theme—a pattern that runs throughout Judaism (but is, at the same time, broader than just national Israel)—one has missed an important…

Introductionbiblical truth and interpretive tool that is a powerful curative for Sanders’ “pattern of religion,” a pattern that made him think that Paul believed that the only thing wrong with the Judaism of his day was that it wasn’t Christianity. Although Sanders and those who have tweaked and popularized his thesis, like James D.G. Dunn and N.T Wright, claim the “pattern of religion” for first-century Judaism was grace-based and therefore not disposed…

Introductionin the least to any sort of “works-righteous-ness,” their view is the complete antithesis of the actual pattern of religion that Paul addresses in his letters.

Yes, there can be no doubt that many Jews of Paul’s day believed they were in a saved condition simply because they were Jews, God’s chosen people. But according to Sanders et al., the Judaism of Paul’s day consisted of two basic groups: the first a…

Introductionfaithful, saved majority, and the second, an unfaithful, unsaved minority. Yet, this is the complete opposite of what Paul believed and taught, which was that there was a saved, faithful minority (viz., the remnant) who were not just circumcised in flesh, but in their hearts as well (cf. Rom. 2:28-29; 9:27-28; Isa. 10:22-23), and a faithless, unsaved majoritywho were under God’s judgment (cf. Matt 23:37-38). It was those in this latter group,…

Introductionthose categorically not remnant, who, Paul informs us, had been broken off by their unbelief (cf. Rom. 11: 11-36). It was these same sort who were told on that first Pentecost after the Lord’s resurrection and ascension into heaven that they needed to “Be saved from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:40b), a generation of Jews, except for the faithful remnant, who were not in a right relationship with God. Thus, it is this…

Introductionremnant distinction, pattern, theme, or motif, and its impact on NPP that is essential to the overall theological critique of the doctrine.

My experience has been much the same as professor Gaffin’s, in that I have encountered almost a total absence of any references to a faithful remnant being factored into the NPP view. I think the reason for this may well be that one’s acceptance of NPP and its various accoutrements simply assumes a “pattern of…

Introductionreligion” which blinds them to the faithful-remnant motif, and its implication for their view, that is so clearly depicted in both the Old and New Testaments. This means that NPP views the scriptural references to Jesus’ and Paul’s condemnation of the self-righteous Jews of their day as evidence of the exception rather than the rule, and consequently repre-sentative of only a small contingent of first-century Jews. In other words, to NPPers,…

Introductionand this has been evidenced in my interaction with these brethren, their remnant of the Jewish nation, at least until we get to Acts 2, is an unfaithful minority. This is a serious mistake, and will cause anyone who embraces it, and I’m speaking specifically of Sanders’ covenantal nomism, to fail in their interpretation of Scripture, and to do so miserably.

There Are, And Always Have Been, Two Israels

One of the first questions that came to my mind when I was introduced to NPP was, “What about the remnant?” In other words, if the “pattern” for the majority of first-century Jews was a pure grace-based religion, as Sanders and other NPPers claim, of whom did the “remnant” Paul mentioned refer (cf. 9:27; 11:5)? That is, if the only thing Paul found wrong with national Israel’s “pattern of religion” was that it wasn’t Christianity, as…


Sanders asserts, and some of my brethren who are not NPPers think, then who was Paul talking about with his term “remnant”? When attempting to answer this question, what Paul says in Romans 11:1-10, cannot—indeed, must not—be ignored: “(1) I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. (2) God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do…


you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, (3) ‘LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life?’ (4) But what does the divine response say to him? ‘I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ (5) Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace…


[my emphasis—AT]. (6) And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. (7) What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded [emphasis mine—AT]. (8) Just as it is written: ‘God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear,…


to this very day.’ (9) And David says: ‘Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them. (10) Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, and bow down their back always.’”

Notice how Paul reaches back to a period in time hundreds of years before the beginning of what is now called second-temple Judaism (viz., that period between the destruction of…


the first and second temples), and uses the story of Elijah and the seven thousand who had not bowed to Baal (cf. 1 Kings 19) to talk about “a remnant according to the election of grace” (v. 5) that was in existence in his day (i.e., “at this present time”). As noted by the red-letter emphases in the above pericope, another designation Paul uses for the remnant is “the elect” (v. 7), which, without getting into all the bad theology that exists about…


what this term means, is just another way of referring to those who are in covenant relationship with God and thus saved. But then, in the very same verse, Paul goes on to mention “the rest,” who are, he says, “hardened.” If “the rest” he’s talking about refers to the rest of national Israel (i.e., those who were not remnant), and it clearly does, then NPP’s “pattern of religion” for first-century Judaism isn’t anywhere close to…


being true.Thus, it is simply beyond me how anyone,

particularly a brother in Christ, can read what Paul wrote and not understand that he was referring to two very different groups, two very different “patterns of religion,” two very different Israels. This is predicated on Paul’s earlier statement that “they are not all Israel who are of Israel” (9:6). Thus, when taking into consideration Paul’s reference to “the…


rest” (11:7), it is evident that “the elect,” “the remnant according to the election of grace,”was descriptive of a much smaller group (a remnant) within the nation of Israel, a group, a subset, consisting of those who were not only circumcised in flesh, but far more importantly, in their hearts as well (2:28-29). These, no doubt, would have consisted of those who had either remained in covenant relationship with God under the Mosaical dispensation, or…


had been restored to such a relationship under the preaching of John the Baptist, and then Jesus and His disciples before the cross, who then in combination with those Jews who had initially rejected Christ, but who then, this side of the cross, believed in Him, repenting of their sins, confessing Him as Lord, and being baptized in His name for the remission of their sins.

What, then, does this say about “the…


rest”? Using Paul’s olive-tree analogy found in chapter 11, “the rest” obviously refers to the majority of Paul’s Jewish contemporaries who had rejected Christ and, as a result, been “broken off” and “cast away.” But, of course, if “the rest” of the Jews who had been “broken off” and “cast away” due to their unbelief (cf. Rom. 11:20) would repent and exercise faith in Christ, they would be grafted back into spiritual Israel, the “remnant according to…


the election of grace,” and would, therefore, be saved (cf. Rom. 11:23).

But according to NPP, such an interpre-tation of first-century Judaism is historically inaccurate, and is, it charges, but a reflection of a later Augustinian-, and even much later, Lutheran-Calvinist-Wesleyan lens—a totallydistorted lens, it is claimed—that has been used wrongly, and almost universally, to misinterpret Paul and first-century Judaism.


Key to this wrong interpretation, we are told, was the anachronistic, superimposed idea that much of first-century Judaism had degene-rated into a self-righteous, legalistic religion that believed one could be saved by keeping the law—a view, they claim, that totally misunderstands and maligns first-century Judaism and, to boot, misreads not just Paul, but Jesus as well.

There is no doubt the religious quartet…


mentioned above got some important concepts wrong, and because none of us here doubt that, there is no reason for us to get into those issues here. At the same time, it is just as important for us to understand that they didn’t get everything wrong either. One of these was their recognition, and this from reading the Scriptures—Scriptures which they considered to be the primary source for what first-century Judaism actually looked like—that the…


“pattern of religion” for first-century A.D. Judaism was actually something much different than the supposed pure, undefiled, grace-based religion on which NPPers have come to insist.

But if the “all Israel” who will be saved that Paul refers to in Romans 11:26 does not include “a remnant” and exclude “the rest” of ethnic, national Israel, then perhaps (and I say this facetiously, of course) we owe our…


apologies to that small contingent of Premillennial brethren in the Louisville, KY area who are waiting on that yet future millennial kingdom when, they believe, all ethnic Jews (viz., “all Israel”) will accept Jesus as their Messiah and be saved, which is a view consistent with the Tannaitic express-ion found in Sanhedrin 10:1 that says, “All Israelites have a share in the world to come,”a future they understood to be messianic. It…


also agrees with Sanders’ description of Israel’s “hope of the future,” which he describes as: (1) Israel’s re-gathering; (2) the subjugation or salvation of the Gentiles; (3) the emergence of a new or exalted Temple; and (4) the inauguration of an age of righteousness and purity. However, if Paul used a faithful-remnant pattern, theme, or motif that was in play as early as the tenth-century B.C., and continued during the…


Babylonian captivity, as well as the post-exilic (or second-temple) period, right down to the time of Paul’s letter to the Romans (c. A.D. 55-58), then Sanders’ covenantal nomism cannot be right, and this no matter how many modern scholars think otherwise.

This does not mean, however, that I think Sanders is totally wrong about the “pattern of religion” he believed operational throughout second-temple Judaism, particularly from…


200 B.C. to A.D. 200, which is Sanders’ window of concentration. In fact, I believe that many of the first-century Jews (“the rest,”according to Paul) did wrongly subscribe to something somewhat similar to Sanders’ covenantal nomism. Nevertheless, one doesn’t need to drink Sanders’ hermeneutical kool-aid (viz., the historical-critical methodology he employs) to “discover” this. All he needs to do is to read Paul’s superbly argued…


refutation of it in Romans 9-11.Following up on Sanders’ view of Judaism

and the Jews continuing covenantal relation-ship with God, he had something quite revealing to say about this back in 1978: “I do not know what Paul would have thought if he had lived for 2,000 years, or if he had foreseen the length of time between his own ministry and the eschaton. I think I know what he thought in the particular circumstances in…


which he wrote. He thought that the only way to be saved was through Christ Jesus. If it were to be proposed that Christians today should think the same thing, and accordingly that the Jews who have not converted should be considered cut off from God, and if such a proposal came before a body in which I had a vote, I would vote against it” (“Paul’s Attitude toward the Jewish People.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 33 (1978): 175-87. P. 185).


In his 1983 book Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, he followed up on this by saying: “I still would. I am now inclined to think that perhaps Paul would too” (Kindle edition, loc. 3115-3120). In other words, not only does Sanders believe ethnic, national Israel has not been cutoff by their unbelief, but he thinks they are still destined to be restored, and Paul simply got it all wrong.

This brings us, then, to Mark A. Elliott’s monu-mental book of 762 pages in which he deals with the same sources that Sanders dealt with and came to a far different conclusion. On the back cover it says: “This study challenges the conventional view of scholars that Late Second Temple Judaism was theologically nationalistic, offering in its place a…

theory which argues that the intertestamental writings do not anticipate the salvation of all Jews but only of a faithful remnant within Israel. Working carefully with the major books of the pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Mark Adam Elliott shows that the authors of such works anticipated an imminent—and scathing—judgment…

of Israel that would exclude many, or even most, Israelites from the saved community.” In another endorsement, it was said: “This is one of the most significant pieces of work that I have seen in recent years….It amounts to a refutation of the enormously powerful view that the more or less uniform theology of Judaism at that time was…

‘covenantal nomism,’ a view that has had enormous significance for the fresh understanding of Paul that is now common. Elliott’s voice needs to be heard in this debate. His thesis displays vast erudition and knowledge and is carefully and clearly argued. Quite simply an outstanding work.” —I. Howard Marshall, University of Aberdeen.

The “Conventional” Or “Standard” View Of Judaism

Although the idea of “normative” Judaism is now passé, as it is clear there was great variety within late second-temple Judaism, nevertheless, there remains what can be called a “conventional” or “standard” view of Judaism which was reflected in the ideas of Sanders back in the 1970s, in that he asserted there could be found an “essence” that was common to all Judaism of the period. And…


although Sanders caught flak for his position, Elliott claims to have examined the same sources as Sanders to discover, in spite of all the diversity in late second-temple Judaism, an “essence” as well, albeit an entirely different one than Sanders “discovered.” In fact, although most scholars react negatively to “normative” Judaism, citing all the different sects and groups in existence at the time,…


they nevertheless, according to Elliott, fall into the trap of accepting Sanders description of the general “pattern of religion” of late second-temple Judaism as being covenantal nomism. This view, according to Elliott, accepts the idea that the Judaism of the period was united on three basic “pillars”: (1) its view of God; (2) the preeminent place of law; (3) the irrevocable national election of Israel.


It is the third pillar, the irrevocable national election of Israel, that Elliott calls to the bench in his book. “In this view,” he says, “Israel is the people of God, different from all peoples, and as such the focus of God’s redemptive work; the individual is secure in the knowledge that redemption is assured for the individual member of the nation.” After citing several sources that demonstrate this point, he


says: “These few examples (representative of a limitless number of similar expressions) are enough to demonstrate that there is acknowledged in virtually all systematic studies of Judaism a clearly circumscribed canon of belief that, in spite of any diversity in Judaism, could be viewed as the ‘bare essentials’ of Judaism. This canon of belief quite regularly includes the idea of God, the…


centrality of law, and—especially important for our purposes—the irrevocable election of the nation of Israel.” He went on to say: “The influence of this conventional view, in turn, on studies of the New Testament is propor-tionately strong since, as only could be expected, the view finds its way into all com-parative studies of Judaism and Christianity that depend on these Jewish theologies.”


Elliott continued: “James Dunn…is thoroughly aware of the dangers of the above mentioned ‘normative’ approaches…. But as a New Testament scholar who merely consults experts in the associated, but quite separate, field of Jewish studies (as he should), he naturally admits established prejudices into his view of Judaism. In his important contri-bution to the question of Jewish-Christian…


relations at the turn of the eras, he speaks of ‘a common and unifying core for Second Tem-ple Judaism, a fourfold foundation on which all these more diverse forms of Judaism built, a common heritage which they all interpreted their own ways’—including monotheism, election, covenant/law, and land/Temple. ‘These then can be fairly described as four pillars [emphasis added] on which the…


Judaism(s) of Jesus’ time was/(were) built, the axiomatic convictions round which the more diverse interpretations and practices of different groups within Judaism revolved[emphasis in original].’ As for the election of Israel specifically: ‘If anything this is even more deeply rooted (than monotheism) already in the pre-exilic period…. As with the other pillars of Second Temple Judaism…


these convictions were re-established in the post-exilic period…. The same emphases come through consistently in the Jewish writings which stretch down to our period….’Citing a single passage each from Jubileesand Psalms of Solomon, Dunn concludes: ‘It is probably unnecessary to document the point in more detail, since the thought of Israel of God’s inheritance can be traced through…


many strands of Jewish literature. So too in the Dead Sea Scrolls and rabbinic traditions the conviction that Israel is God’s elect, chosen, God’s vineyard is absolutely axiomatic.’” Elliott concluded: “…these statements nevertheless provide particularly clear evidence of just how well established are the conventional views—notably the national-istic understanding of election theology in…


Judaism—in even recent and relatively well-informed comparative studies of Judaism and Christianity.”

Pre-Christian NonnationalisticJewish “Remnant” Theology

The body of Elliott’s book deals with establishing from the Pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scrolls what might be described as a “systematic theology” of pre-Christian Judaism. What he found in these sources were some groups who believed in what can best be described as “remnant” theology—i.e., the view not that all national Israel is saved, but that God’s purposes for the nation are being…


carried out by a relatively small number, viz., a remnant. Although he believes this has significant implications for understanding the background of the New Testament, he found it remarkable that even where it is admitted that various groups possessed this kind of “remnant theology,” the implications are rarely explored, or largely ignored, in favor of the “standard” or “conventional” nationalistic


view. Elliott concluded his informative book by

saying: “Our startling conclusion is that conventional views of Judaism pose insurmountable difficulties for the comparative study of Judaism and the New Testament. In order to reduce these difficulties somewhat, comparative studies in the past have required that the period between Jesus…


and the New Testament was a time of significant ‘de-Judaizing’ or ‘Christianization’ of doctrines previously held in a much different form in Judaism. But if the New Testament faith is so radically different from this nationalistic Judaism (a fact we do not contest), this could imply, not that the early church (or in part Jesus himself) in important points reformulated Judaism,…


but alternatively, that conventional nationalistic understandings of Judaism do not after all provide an adequate or complete basis for comparison. It may be, in that case, that another kind of Judaism altogether must be called upon if fruitful comparative analysis is to proceed into the future.” After the quoting of a source, he continued: “While the tendency to blame the gulf between Jesus…


and Judaism on Christian reformulation has dominated scholarship, perhaps the source of the problem lies with the choice of the type of Judaism employed for this comparison. In light of the analysis of the movement of dissent and remnant groups in this book, there can now be found suitable explanations from Judaism for many basic attitudes found in the New Testament—including that Israel,…


God’s chosen people, is in danger of judgment and in this regard has been placed on a par with Gentiles; that the historical covenants are not unqualifiedly valid for all who consider themselves participants in them; that the normal rites of maintaining the covenant have become ineffective; that an individual soteriology apart from previous divine acts of deliverance on behalf of Israel has now…


become necessary. A reevaluation of these kinds of attitudes, previously seen to be inexplicable from the standpoint of the Jewish world, is demanded by the recent critique of ‘normative Judaism’ and especially by the findings of this book” (pp. 662-63).

Thus, we conclude that not only is there ample internal scriptural evidence for a remnant motif that runs through the Scriptures,


but there is also external evidence for such a motif running through second-temple Judaism as well.

ConclusionSuffice it to say, the remnant theme found throughout the Scriptures simply flies in the face of an NPP doctrine that argues that most of the Jews who made up second-temple Judaism, especially those who lived in the first-century A.D., were actually in a right, and therefore saved, covenantal relationship with God, and Romans 9:19-33 is a powerful demonstration of it: “(19) You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For…

Conclusionwho has resisted His will?’ (20) But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ (21) Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? (22) What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared…

Conclusionfor destruction, (23) and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, (24) even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (25) As He says also in Hosea: ‘I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved.’ 26 ‘And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,”…

Conclusionthere they shall be called sons of the living God.’ (27) Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. (28) For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.’ (29) And as Isaiah said before: ‘Unless the LORD of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we…

Conclusionwould have been made like Gomorrah.’ (30) What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; (31) but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. (32) Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. (33) As it is written:…

Conclusion‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’”

the “remnant” and what it saysalpharetta-bible-study.com/.../2013/remnant-slides.pdf · judaism...

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