Why does Paul take a different approach to the question of Jewish descent in Romans 2:28 and 4:16, and chapters 9–11?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1989.

You raise an interesting point about Paul's different approach to the question of Jewish descent in Romans 2:28 and Romans 4:16 on the one hand, and in chapters 9–11 on the other.

It may not be any answer to your problem, but I am reminded of the way Matthew treats this question of Jewish descent in his introduction. On one hand, in Matthew 1:1–17, the whole force of the evidence which Matthew supplies to show that Jesus is the Messiah bears on his physical descent from Abraham and David. Christianity, after all, is not a philosophy, which anybody with sufficient wit could invent. Our Lord's credentials depend on the fact that he is physically descended from Abraham and David; and no one can arrange to be born of particular parents. Israel, therefore, as a physical nation, maintained by the unbroken chain of physical descent, had a special role to play in bringing Messiah into the world.

On the other hand, in Matthew 3:1–12, Matthew records John the Baptist as reminding his contemporaries that, in another sense, physical descent from Abraham is completely valueless: 'Think not to say we have Abraham for our father; for God could raise up children to Abraham of these very stones'. It does not mean that physical descent is completely valueless; but for a true relationship with God something more than physical descent is required.

It seems to me that perhaps similar reasoning lies behind the apparent conflict between Paul's chapters 2 and 4 on the one hand, and 9, 10 and 11 on the other. Romans 9, 10 and 11 stress, particularly at their beginning, the importance of the role that Israel as a physical nation played by God's design in the history of the world. No other nation was favoured with God dwelling in their midst as Israel was; no other nation received such a revelation as Israel did at Sinai and through the prophets; no other nation was promised that, through physical descent from them, the Messiah would come into the world. So, as far as Israel's special role among the nations was concerned, physical descent was of very special importance.

On the other hand, of course, in chapters 2 and 4, Paul is arguing that something more than physical descent is necessary. In the first place, physical descent cannot be made a substitute for genuinely moral behaviour. The Gentile who behaves morally is in that respect superior to a Jew who behaves immorally. Nor will physical descent from Abraham save a Jew who lives immorally from the wrath of God. Likewise, when it comes to salvation, physical descent from Abraham does not convey spiritual salvation either to a Jew or anybody else. A Gentile who genuinely puts his faith in God in true repentance is saved, while a Jew who, proud of his superior religion and physical descent from Abraham, puts his faith in himself and refuses to repent is not saved.

That said, there always was an advantage in being a Jew—particularly, as Paul observes in Romans 3:1–2, in that the Jews had the oracles of God, that is, the Old Testament. Have many of us the same advantage over unreached people groups? We have the Bible in our hands, while they do not. That surely has been an advantage for us; but those who do not take advantage of that privilege will fare worse in the final judgment than people groups who had no Bible.

To sum up, then, I would think it important to make a distinction between the role and the privileges that go with that role on the one hand, and the matter of true morality and salvation on the other.

Affectionately yours in Christ,