May 12, 2008

Israe's salvation in Romans 9-11

My blog far to infrequently takes up texts of the Bible directly, so a great post by Michael Bird over at Euangelion gives a good occasion. In this post, Bird looks at the "mystery" with regard to Israel's salvation in Romans 11, contending that Paul's vision that all Israel will be saved is placed within a robust remnant theology that he has developed in chs 9-11, and that is a prominent feature of the OT/Hebrew Bible. His reflections are worthy of some consideration, as this is certainly an interesting text, coming as it does at the climax of one of Paul's great theological expositions. Especially as it is sometimes taken to mean something like "all Isarelites will be saved," and is even taken so far as to occasionally be interpreted to imply that this will be outside of salvation in Christ, something that seems to fly in the face of Paul's whole argument in Romans.

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