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What kind of mindset would even raise the question Paul poses in Romans 3:3? On what basis would it follow that the APISTIA (unfaithfulness) of Israel would nullify the PISTIS THEOU, the faithfulness of God? This would follow only if God's faithfulness to His promises, and His faithfulness to His intention to bring light and life to the nations, depended on Israel. That is, this objection only makes sense if someone is operating on a massive kind of Pelagianism - not the feeble individualistic Pelagianism that says one can attain holiness by one's natural endowments, but the global, cosmic, hyper-Pelagianism that says that God cannot save except through Israel's faithfulness. That is to say, Paul seems to be addressing a belief that God is bound and hemmed in by His own commitment to Israel, that God is emasculated by His devotion to His bride.
Did any Jews actually believe this? Probably not in this form. Paul's argument seems a kind of reductio: He is offering an argument that Jews should accept. He expects his Jewish readers to see the Scriptural logic of his argument. Romans 2 has made it clear that Israel has massively failed to keep covenant with her Lord. She has been an unfaithful bride. But Emy fellow Jews, Paul says Ethis of course does not mean that God cannot fulfill His purposes. An absurdity: That human resistance could nullify the promises of God, as if human faithlessness could keep God from being faithful.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, December 20, 2003 at 09:51 PM
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