Re: Fullness of the Gentiles (Romans 11:25)
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2023 10:41 pm
Hosted by Steve Gregg
https://theos.org:443/forum/
darinhouston wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 9:46 pmI'm not sure I'd call it an understanding - just a consideration. Steve seems to have a fairly conventional (yet not dispensational) eschatological view of this passage. I haven't found anyone even hint at this sort of position.mikew wrote: ↑Tue Apr 04, 2023 10:22 pmdid you come to this understanding after hearing Steve or did you come by totally independently?
I'm constantly out on a limb but I always am glad to find where someone like Steve or a commentary confirms the same thing. When I figured out that Romans was written to a gentile-only audience back in 2007, I was curious who else found that. Just a handful did. That gave me confidence that I could be figuring stuff out decently.
darinhouston wrote: ↑Tue Apr 04, 2023 8:34 amReading through Romans, I am struggling with Romans 11:25.
Every commentary (including Steve) I can find sees this as eschatological in some way even if they disagree on the future meaning. ... He seems deeply concerned about the Jews as he saw them then and I don't see a thought towards anything like a concern for today's nation of Israel with thousands of years of mixed breeding and so forth of a nation that had walked away largely not only from their culture and traditions and ethnicity but also of God.
The term "pleroma" does not necessarily (or even primarily) mean "full number" but seems to me that it could refer to that time period where their "time" had fully come - in Jesus and in the gospel. And that the hardening in part referred to those Jewish leaders and others who the gospels spend a great deal of time describing their foolish and irrational misunderstandings of things leading up to the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus. Is it possible that he's saying that this was up to then and going forward, then, all are on equal footing and can come to God without hardening? In that way, all can be saved through Christ - not skipping over millions of Jews who have no excuse due to their hardening over thousands of years. ...
I hope Steve sees this and can provide a considered response - there may something that precludes this but it always makes me nervous when I see zero (and I mean zero) commentators or scholars even consider this being anything other than eschatological.
While Steve does see an immediate and ongoing application of the general teaching on who is Israel, I think he does not see the reference to the "fullness of the Gentiles" in 11:25 as being in that context but in a future only context.mikew wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 11:25 pmI listened again to Steve's concept. He treats all who come to know Christ as being part of Israel. As such, people added today are part of the All of Israel concept. I instead propose that the All of Israel is the fulfilled by the remnant bloodline mentioned in Rom 9:27-29 in order to fulfill the promises to the forefathers -- which would speak essentially from Jacob through to the last of the prophets (perhaps).
Thus, Steve is similar not to see an eschatological future fulfillment, as I also note. He differs by giving the phrase a continuing operation. But the inclusion of gentiles does not really fulfill Isa 10:20-22 (as quoted in Rom 9:27-29), where gentiles were not in view. Paul's proof of God's faithfulness to Israel is the essential purpose of Rom 9 - 11, and that argument leads to the fact of Rom 11:25-27 -- that all Israel was saved in accord with that faithfulness.
darinhouston wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 9:46 pmI'm not sure I'd call it an understanding - just a consideration. Steve seems to have a fairly conventional (yet not dispensational) eschatological view of this passage. I haven't found anyone even hint at this sort of position.mikew wrote: ↑Tue Apr 04, 2023 10:22 pmdid you come to this understanding after hearing Steve or did you come by totally independently?
I'm constantly out on a limb but I always am glad to find where someone like Steve or a commentary confirms the same thing. When I figured out that Romans was written to a gentile-only audience back in 2007, I was curious who else found that. Just a handful did. That gave me confidence that I could be figuring stuff out decently.
I got focused on the wrong part of the verse. Listening again... Steve presents the idea that this fullness of gentiles has not been reached in 2000 years.darinhouston wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 7:17 am
While Steve does see an immediate and ongoing application of the general teaching on who is Israel, I think he does not see the reference to the "fullness of the Gentiles" in 11:25 as being in that context but in a future only context.