He tells the Gentile believers:
I want you to understand this mystery
brethren, so you won’t be conceited: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until
the full number of the Gentiles come in, and thus all Israel will be saved
(11:25-26b).
Paul understands that there is a
certain select group of Gentiles that God has chosen and is calling to
make up a new restored Israelite community (Galatians 6;16; Philippians 3:3).
His preaching in the major cities of the empire, both east and west, is the
means by which they gathered together and prepared for their role in God’s
plan. When his work is completed, he expects Israel as a whole to come to believe
in Jesus as Messiah and Lord.
Paul develops this understanding
of his Gentile mission through an interpretation of prophetic texts in the
Hebrew Bible, particularly sections of Isaiah. This is a major factor in understanding
the dynamics of Paul’s apostolic consciousness—he literally finds himself
and his apostolic mission in these texts of sacred Scripture: Isaiah 49:1-6
(in the Greek LXX) is perhaps the single most significant texts. I have put the
phrases and terms in italics which Paul may have understood to refer to his own
ministry:
Listen to me, O coastlands, and harken
you Gentiles;
After a long time it will happen, says the Lord.
From my mother’s womb he has called my name.
And he has made my mouth a sharp sword,
and he has hidden me, under the shadow of his hand;
He has made me a choice shaft, and he has hidden me in his quiver.
And he said to me, “You are my servant, O Israel, and in you I will
be glorified.”
Then I said, have labored in vain, therefore this is my judgment with
the Lord,
And now, thus says the Lord that
formed me from the womb to be his own servant,
to gather Jacob to him and Israel.
I shall be gathered and glorified before the Lord, and God shall be my
strength.
And he said to me, “It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, to
establish the tribes of Jacob, and to recover the dispersion of Israel.
Behold, I have given you for a covenant of a race, for a light of the
Gentiles, that you should be for salvation, to the ends of the earth.
Paul directly quotes this chapter
in 2 Corinthians 6:1. He alludes to it in Galatians 1:15 when speaking of his
call before his birth, and again in Philippians 2:16 when he contemplates the final
outcome of his work. In Romans 15:21, where he defends his special mission to
the Gentiles, he quotes from Isaiah 52:15, a closely related section of Isaiah.
More significant than these allusions or direct quotations is the way in which
Paul’s generation understand of his role corresponds to the thematic
through-world of such texts. He, like the Hebrew prophets, is called by God at
a crucial moment of history. The language, he uses to describe this call in
Galatians 1:15 seems to echo Jeremiah’s commission:
Before I formed you in the woman I
knew you,
and before you were born, I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5).
Paul writes of his own commission:
But when he who had set me
apart before my birth, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to
reveal his Son to me, so that I might preach him among the Gentiles (lit.
“nations”), I did not consult with flesh and blood . . . Galatians 1:15)
Jeremiah’s authority to “destroy”
and “build” (Jeremiah 1:10) might well lie behind Paul’s formulaic language in
2 Corinthians 10:8 and 13:10. Paul’s extreme statement that he wished he could
be cursed by God in order to save Israel (Romans 9:1-13) corresponds to Moses’s
prayer in Exodus 32:30-34 where he asks that he be destroyed rather than the
nation of Israel. Paul directly contrasts his ministry with that of Moses in 2
Corinthians 3. HE sees himself as doing a greater work. He seems to identify
his situation with that of Elijah: the lone and faithful servant of God, rejected
by all (Romans 11:2-6).
My point is that Paul portrays
his role in the plan of God in the same language as was used for the greatest
figures of Israel’s part. In the case of the Isaiah material, I think he
goes even further. He actually sees himself as fulfilling the role of the “Servant”
who brings Israel back to God through a ministry to the Gentile nations.
This is not to deny that he may also have seen Jesus as such a servant. He says
in Romans 15:8 that “Christ became a servant to the circumcised . . . in
order that the Gentiles might glorify God.” This is the key to Paul’s
thinking. Both Jesus’ and Peter’s preaching to Jews was a ministry of
hardening, which would in turn lead to his own ministry to the Gentiles,
which would then finally bring about the salvation of Israel (Romans 11:7).
Paul’s mission and role are therefore absolutely central to the sequence of
this plan of God. Paul recognizes the greatness of the task he has been given.
In Romans 11:13, after explaining the basic outline of the plan, he says, “Inasmuch
as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I exalt my ministry.” Later, in chapter
15, he says he has written “boldly” (v. 15) to them, explaining:
In Christ
Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. I will not dare
to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me, to win
obedience from the Gentiles . . . (15:17-18)
This is the same kind of language
in 2 Corinthians 10-13 . . . Paul’s “modesty” in Christ does not mean he lacks
any appreciation for the vital and essential prophetic importance of his role
in God’s plan. On the contrary, his assertion that his work is from and through
Christ makes it all the more significant. His calling was special and he
receives spiritual power from Christ himself to carry out the work. (James D.
Tabor, Paul’s Ascent to Paradise: The Apostolic Message and Mission of Paul
in the light of His Mystical Experiences [Charlotte, N.C.: GENESIS 2000,
2020], 75-78, italics in original)
Further Reading
Harold A. Guy, "Paul as a Prophet"
Responding to a laughable critic on Joseph Smith's boasting (re. 2 Cor 10-13 and Paul's "boasting")