Sunday, April 9, 2023

N. T. Wright on Romans 11:5-6

  

Who then is this “remnant” in Paul’s day, and how do they come to have escaped the fate of the rest of the nation, so graphically portrayed in 9:6-10:21? Can it be that, despite 2:17-3:20; 7:7-25; and 9:6-10:21 there are some ethnic Jews who have succeeded in obeying Torah, attaining “their own righteousness” (10:3), and establishing a status of covenant membership based on their belonging to Abraham’s physical family and maintaining its distinctive outward markers? NO. These two verses make it clear that this “remnant” (λειμμα leimma; the only use of this word in the NT) is not a small minority for whom the way of national status actually worked, a tiny group who found that Israel’s privileges could after all (in terms of Phil 3:4-7) be counted as “gain” rather than “Loss.” No: the present “remnant” is “chosen by grace.” Paul has already spoken of God’s εκλογη (eklogē, “selection,” “choice,” 9:11), and will return to it in summing up the chapter and section (11:28). In the present passage he can use the word both for the act of choosing, as here, and the ones so chosen, as in 11:7. This remnant, he emphasizes, is “not according to works,” otherwise the whole principle of grace would be violated. This cannot, then, be a small number for whom “works” are after all effective.

 

Paul’s doctrine of the remnant in this passage is thus significantly different from that of some of his contemporaries. The best example of an opposite view comes from Qumran: the sect regarded itself as the small minority who had remained true when all others had fallen away, the diminishing number who were still holding lighted candles as the night got darker and darker. Paul, characteristically, sees it the other way around: those who believed in Jesus, those who are called by God’s grace, are the small but increasing number who are awake, and lighting their lamps, before the coming dawn (this is how his metaphor works in 13:11-14 and 1 Thess 5:5-10). And part of the point about this image is that if there are already some who are waking up, the other side of the dark night, then there can be more. If Paul and the other Jewish Christians are a new kind of “remnant,” called by God’s grace in the gospel of Jesus, there is no reason why others should not join them. This is the argument of 11:11-16 and beyond. (N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, 12 vols. [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002], 10:676)