Paul and Jesus

Paul states unequivocally that God has not rejected the Jewish people. He insists that the promises made to them are irrevocable (Romans 11:1, 29). But then he adds, based on the Elijah story, that the great majority of Jews, whom he calls “Israel according to the flesh,” have been broken off like unfruitful branches of an olive tree because of their “unbelief,” just as in the days of Elijah, leaving only a tiny “remnant” that God has “chosen by grace.”

The catch here is the word “unbelief.” Paul does not mean that those “broken off” had rejected God and disregarded the Torah, as had those idolatrous Israelites in the days of Elijah. Their “transgression,” as Paul calls it, was that they did not believe in Christ! God had purposely hardened their hearts in order that their failure could open the way for the salvation to come to the Gentiles (Romans 11:7–12). Paul compares these Gentiles to “wild olive branches” who had no connection to the tree of Israel but could be grafted in through their faith in Christ (Romans 11:17). This new covenant nation of Israel is constituted wholly of those who are united with Christ through his Spirit, having nothing to do with physical pedigree.

Once again, Paul’s view is utterly alien to contemporary Jewish interpretations of Israel’s future. The only reference to a “new covenant” in the entire Hebrew Bible is from the prophet Jeremiah. The term is perhaps more properly translated as a “re-newed” covenant, as it certainly does not imply any repudiation of the Torah of Moses or of the Jewish people, but quite the opposite. What Jeremiah envisions is a renewal of the Torah of Moses with the reconstituted nation of Israel when all twelve tribes return to the Land of Israel in the messianic age (Jeremiah 31:31–37). This is the idea we see reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as in the teachings of Jesus preserved in the Q source, where he appoints the twelve apostles to sit on thrones, one over each of the tribes of a regathered people of Israel.⁸ There is a place for Gentiles in this prophetic view of the age of the Messiah, not as replacements for the Jewish people, but as God-fearers who stand in partnership with Israel. The vision is that God’s house will be a “house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:6–7).

We have no sure way of knowing what Paul experienced in his sojourn in Arabia, but the connections with Moses and Elijah seem too direct to ignore. There is a sense in which Paul, fortified with the extraordinary revelations he says he received from Christ, thinks of himself as fulfilling the roles of a new Moses and a new Elijah. Like a Moses figure, he became the mediator of a new covenant, drawing together a new nation of Israel defined by faith in Christ and under the Torah of Christ. Like an Elijah figure, Paul believed that his proclamation of his gospel would draw together the remnant group that God was choosing in the Last Days.

Paul’s Moses- and Elijah-like experiences in Arabia were foundational as he began his work as an apostle, but he came to believe, based on his continued experiences and his further revelations, that he had been chosen from birth for something far greater. Much like a “second Christ,” he had been appointed by God to fill the key role that would usher in the return of Christ. Unless and until Paul fulfilled his special role as an apostle, those Israelites who had rejected Christ would remain in unbelief, and the end of the age would not arrive.

A SECOND “CHRIST”

Paul calls himself “an apostle of the Gentiles” and this unique role was one that he believed gave him a special and essential place in the plan of God (Romans 11:13). It was the reason he was born and it was for this mission that he had been chosen by God:

But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood. (Galatians 1:15–16)

Paul says that he was “called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God” in order to “bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the Gentiles” (Romans 1:1–5). He defines his gospel as the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now being made known to the Gentiles to bring about the obedience of faith (Romans 16:25–26). When Paul finally did have his official public audience before James, Peter, and the Jerusalem apostles fourteen years after he had already begun his work as an apostle, he was keen to get their agreement that he alone would be entrusted with the mission to the Gentiles (Galatians 2:7–8). This was no mere practical division of labor, at least in Paul’s mind. He was convinced that his role was foretold in the Hebrew Prophets, and like the role of Christ, was essential to God’s plan of salvation for humankind.