New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce addresses the problem of Israel’s unbelief, drawing on Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 and Paul’s reasoning in Romans 9-11. I quote extensively to observe the context and follow Paul’s flow of thought in Romans.
“Here we may turn to consider one quite distinctive exposition of the problem of Israel’s unbelief – the speech of Stephen in Acts vii.
This speech is commonly called ‘Stephen’s apology’; but we should observe what kind of apology it is. Although it was delivered before a court of law, by a man on trial for his life, it is not a forensic defence. Anything less likely to win a verdict of ‘not guilty’ from the judges can scarcely be imagined. It is rather an apology in the sense that it is a reasoned defence of the position which he had maintained in the Hellenistic synagogue which he attended in Jerusalem, and it may be regarded as a sample of Christian Hellenistic apologetic against Jewish objections to the gospel.
…Stephen…was gifted with an exceptionally keen insight into the implications of the gospel for the status of Judaism in the purpose of God. If the gospel was true, then there was no more place for Judaism. The old order and the new were incompatible. The apostles might continue to live as observant and respected Jews, attending the temple services in Jerusalem; but Stephen saw that the gospel meant the setting aside of the temple order as a way of approach to God.
…Here, then, we have an early sample of Hellenistic Christian apologetic against the Jew. In the next generation echoes of it are heard in the Epistle to the Hebrews…Indeed, echoes of it are heard even in the strictest Hebrew Christian circles after the fall of the temple in AD 70. For the fact that God permitted the temple to be destroyed led a number of Hebrew Christians, who had up to that time retained a veneration for it, to the conclusion that God could never have intended the sacrificial ritual to be instituted in the first place. But Stephen, speaking thirty years before the Jewish war broke out, was not influenced in his thinking by the events of that war, but by the logic of the fact of Christ.”[1]
Bruce continues,
“Stephen’s defence contains no note of hope for the nation which had rejected God’s word through the prophets in earlier days and had now crowned their rebellion against Him by rejecting His Son. But the situation could not be left there, for if it were, a grave problem in theodicy would arise.
Among Stephen’s opponents was ‘a young man named Saul’ who was as convinced as Stephen was that the old order and the new were incompatible. But whereas Stephen’s conclusion was that, since the new had come, the old must go, Saul’s conclusion was that, since the old must not be imperiled, the new must go. Not long after Stephen’s trial and death, however, Saul of Tarsus underwent the revolutionary change which turned him from the most active persecutor of the new order into its most energetic champion…He recognized as fully as Stephen did the tragic implications of Israel’s failure to welcome the One in whom the promises of God were fulfilled. But the tragedy lay principally in this, that the people of Israel might have been expected to be foremost in giving Him a welcome, since it was among them pre-eminently that God had prepared the way for the coming of the Saviour. ‘They are Israelites,’ he writes, ‘and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ’ (Rom, ix. 4 f.). The patriarchs had received the promises, which were to be fulfilled to their descendants; the patriarchs’ descendants repudiated the fulfillment of the promises when it came.
But did this mean that God’s purpose had been frustrated? Did it mean that He had rejected His own people? Far from it! First of all, it was evident from the Old Testament narrative that God had always followed the plan of selecting some for the furtherance of His purposes, and passing over others. Again, it was equally evident from the Old Testament narrative that Israel had shown itself ‘a disobedient and contrary people’ long before the coming of Christ (Is. lxv. 2, quoted in Rom. x. 21); in their refusal of Christ they were not adopting a totally unprecedented attitude to the revelation of God. But throughout Israel’s history there had always been a believing and obedient remnant, and so it was now. Paul provided evidence enough in his own person that God had still reserved for Himself ‘a remnant, chosen by grace’ (Rom. xi. 5). The existence of such a remnant, now as previously, guaranteed the realization of God’s purpose; through the present remnant Israel’s divinely appointed mission to spread the knowledge of God among the Gentiles was being accomplished, as the gospel was proclaimed to all nations.
But what of the majority of Israelites, who had not accepted the Messiah? Could one simply label them ‘vessels of wrath made for destruction’ and leave the matter there? Some might be content to do just that, but not so Paul. It was true that their present rejection of the gospel was not only in keeping with their forefather’s conduct, but was in fact the fulfilment of specific Old Testament predictions. Their unbelief had been explained centuries before by Isaiah, when he said; ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear, down to this very day’ (Is. xxix. 10, quoted in Rom. xi. 8). Paul understood their plight very well, for he himself had at one time been overpowered by this ‘spirit of stupor’ until his eyes were opened and his ears unstopped on the Damascus road. But this sad state of affairs was not to last for ever. The hardening of heart which had befallen Israel had even now affected only part of the people, albeit the more numerous part; and with regard to the part affected by it, it was only temporary. God in His wisdom had so ordered matters that this partial and temporary hardening of Israel was the occasion for the swift and wide-scale spreading of the gospel blessings among the Gentile nations. The sequel to this blessing of the Gentiles would be the promotion of God’s ultimate purpose for all Israel. For God had said through Moses; ‘I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry’ (Dt. Xxxii. 21, quoted in Rom. x. 19). And the full significance of these words would appear when unbelieving Israel, seeing the outpouring of God’s blessing on the Gentiles, would be moved to jealousy. ‘These blessings are ours by right,’ they would say; ‘why should these Gentiles enjoy them while we are shut out from them?’ Thus shaken out of their spirit of stupor, they would see and hear aright, and claim Christ and the gospel for themselves. Addressing Gentile believers, Paul sums the situation up thus: ‘Just as you were once disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may receive mercy. For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all’ (Rom. xi, 30-32). Thus Paul, rising to the height of his great argument, solves the problem in theodicy raised by Israel’s unbelief in a manner which does justice to every principle of the gospel: sola gratia, sola fide, soli Deo gloria.”[2]
Return to Chapter 16 – The Doctrine of Election According to Scripture
Footnotes
[1] F. F. Bruce, The Apostolic Defence of the Gospel: Christian Apologetic in the New Testament (London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1959), 18 – 19, 21 – 22.
[2] Ibid. 22 – 24.
The Truth of the Gospel 