What about Abraham? Abraham as Ingroup Exemplar and “Children of Abraham” as Superordinate Identity in Romans 4

Abstract

In Paul’s eschatologically informed reading of Scripture, the Torah was never intended by God to be itself sufficient to secure membership in Abraham’s family. Because membership here had always been secured on the most fundamental level by God’s ḥesed, a future move of divine initiative is what the Torah and the prophets had all along anticipated. The redemption and reconciliation wrought by Christ has happened then in order to fulfill the original promise to Abraham, as seen through the lens of a broader salvation–historical matrix, in which the restoration of Israel and consequent ingathering of the nations envisaged by the prophets is integral. Romans 4 centrally concerns this new social phenomenon—the coming together of Jews and gentiles into a single, unified, eschatological covenant community, in which previous social identities necessarily retain their fundamental significance. The crucial implication of Paul’s theologizing is that to be a child of Abraham neither eradicates the import of traditional ethnic markers of Judaism, nor, wholesale, the ethnic distinctiveness of the varied people groups of the non-Jewish world. However, both groups are also therein transformed and united as one renewed humanity in Christ. Moreover, as the first person to be brought into a covenant relationship with God on the basis of God’s ḥesed, which was then met by the appropriate response of faithfulness toward God, Abraham functions for Paul as an ingroup exemplar for the Christ community.

1. Introduction

There should be little doubt that critical insight is brought to the study of the New Testament by social-scientific methodologies, including resources from not only social history but also social theory. However, fewer interpreters have sought to fully integrate the findings from the social sciences with a theological interpretive method that seeks to discern the theological substructure informing the biblical authors’ claims.1 This need for integration is particularly relevant as interpreters explore the phenomenon of early Christ-movement identity. In this light, I wish to explore the issue of identity precisely from such an integrative approach. As a test case, I have chosen Romans 4. In this passage, Paul attempts to justify the reality of the multiethnic Christ community as representing the fulfillment of God’s eschatological program revealed in the Jewish Scriptures. That is, the inclusion of nations qua nations alongside Israel qua Israel in the family of Abraham has now happened in Christ and this is precisely what the Torah and the prophets anticipated (Rom 3:21–22). Thus, both the Jewish and gentile Christ allegiants in Rome, while maintaining the relative saliency of their respective ethnic affiliations, can also lay claim to membership in Abraham’s family and thus to Abraham as Father.2

2. Social Theory

As I have argued elsewhere, the interrelated contemporary social psychological theories, Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Self-Categorization Theory (SCT), are helpful in discerning the nature of much of Paul’s identity-shaping rhetoric in several of his letters, Romans included. SIT is a theory that seeks to predict intergroup behavior vis-à-vis social identity. SCT is a related theory concerning how individuals understand themselves and others in relation to groups to which they respectively belong (Turner 1987, pp. 42–67). “Social identity” refers to “that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his [sic] knowledge of his [sic] membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel 1978, p. 63).

An aspect of SIT/SCT that is pertinent to my understanding of Paul is the notion of a superordinate identity. A superordinate identity is a larger identity category that may encompass persons with other group affiliations.

Such larger social identifications serve to create a common in-group social identity, which may, in turn, reduce intergroup bias, and thus promote greater harmony and a basis for unified action among subordinate groups. Contemporary social-scientific research demonstrates that a common in-group social identity can be most successfully established if it simultaneously allows (in some fashion) for group members’ continued identification with and commitment to their respective subordinate group affiliations

(Stone and Crisp 2007, pp. 493–513; Zoccali 2017, p. 4; 2023, p. 2)

Another relevant aspect of SIT/SCT is the notion of ingroup exemplars that serve in a prototypical capacity. As Hogg et al. explains, “people cognitively represent social groups in terms of prototypes. A prototype is a subjective representation of the defining attributes (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, behaviors) of a social category” (Hogg et al. 1995, p. 26). Hogg further points out that “[w]ithin a salient group then, people who are perceived to occupy the most prototypical position are perceived to best embody the behaviors to which other, less prototypical members are conforming” (Hogg 2001, p. 139).

In all, these aspects of SIT/SCT are employed here heuristically to describe the social dynamics that Paul, as a seasoned missionary and bicultural mediator (Ehrensperger 2013, p. 101), would have likely come to recognize and appreciate, given that such dynamics seem to be well-grounded in the general human experience and perhaps even especially so in the collectivist culture of the ancient Mediterranean world (Nebreda 2011, pp. 109–10). Accordingly, I will argue that in order to achieve his rhetorical goal in this section of the letter, Paul utilizes the category of “children of Abraham” as a superordinate identity descriptor and further points to the figure of Abraham as an ingroup exemplar for the multiethnic Christ community in Rome.

3. Contemporary Scholarship on Romans 4

Scholars generally fall into two camps concerning what they hold as the central theme of Romans 4 in the context of the larger argument in the letter. Benjamin Schliesser succinctly refers to these camps as “faith” and “fatherhood”, with the former emphasizing the notion of “justification by faith” (cf. vv. 1–8, 19–25) and the latter emphasizing Abraham’s fatherhood of Jews and gentiles (cf. vv. 9–18) (Schliesser 2007, p. 222). Joshua W. Jipp’s study of the chapter suggests, however, that Paul’s argument is too complex to be narrowed down to a single theme, and that Paul’s appeal to Abraham serves a “multifaceted” purpose (Jipp 2009, p. 218). Nevertheless, Jackson Wu rightly points out that the fundamental question underlying the chapter is: “Who belongs to Abraham’s family?” (Wu 2019, p. 84). But, as Wu also notes, the matter of how persons are brought into a proper relationship with God is inextricable from the matter of who, i.e., what group(s), is(are) or can be in a proper relationship with God, and it is these interconnected notions that Paul is pursuing in this section of the letter.3

As a contextual grounding for the following analysis, it is helpful to offer a brief overview of the three main approaches to Paul’s claims regarding Abrahamic ancestry, as the respective conclusions that have been offered here bear significantly on the question of identity within the Christ movement.

The first approach is that Abraham serves as an exemplar of the principle of salvation by faith through grace and not good works. This approach is constituent of the traditional Protestant view of Paul, the so-called “Old Perspective”. According to this view, in Romans 4, Paul continues his assault on the notion of “works righteousness”, a chief characteristic of first-century Judaism, by establishing a precedent with the Jewish patriarch Abraham—he was declared righteous by God based on his faith alone. In making this rhetorical move, Paul replaces Torah submission with “faith” as the grounds for a proper relationship with God and, in doing so, he effectively renders first-century Jewish identity obsolete. As Ernst Käsemann remarks, “[T]he ground is cut away from under the feet of the Jewish tradition and the Jewish interpretation of the scriptures, and that the patriarch himself is removed from its context” (Käsemann 1971, pp. 79–80).

A second approach to the passage is that Paul’s extension of Abrahamic ancestry to gentiles serves as an attack on Jewish ethnocentrism—the idea that first-century Jews sought to confine “grace to one race” (Wright 1991, p. 24). This is the general approach taken in New Perspective scholarship.4 In contrast to the traditional Protestant approach, this view understands the emphasis in the passage to be on Abraham as the “father” of the faithful rather than on Abraham’s own faith. Nevertheless, Torah observance is here similarly replaced by “faith” as demarcating Abraham’s family. As such, ethnic distinctions between Jews and gentiles are rendered insignificant within the Christ community (Cranford 1995, p. 71).5

A third set of interpreters, critical of both Old and New Perspective readings, argue that Abrahamic ancestry serves for Paul as a fictive kinship for gentile Christ allegiants in particular. In as much as Paul’s rhetoric of faith points to the implications of the Christ event, namely that it is the basis of right standing with God, it is targeted only toward gentiles. Paul assumes that Jews should continue to relate to God as they always have. Caroline Johnson Hodge remarks accordingly, “Abraham’s faithfulness resulted in the guarantee that God’s promise would come to all his descendants, both Jews and gentiles. Christ’s faithfulness implements this promise for gentiles” (Johnson Hodge 2007, p. 91; italics mine).6

4. The Theological Coherence of Romans 4

In my view, all three of these approaches miss the central point that Paul advances in this section of the letter. Paul’s fundamental conviction is that the final eschatological redemption of Israel and all creation has been brought about through the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Paul’s eschatologically informed reading of Scripture, the Torah was never intended by God to be itself sufficient to secure membership in Abraham’s family, the community of righteous ones, the covenant people of God. Because membership here has always been secured on the most fundamental level by God’s ḥesed7—that is, God’s covenant love and abiding faithfulness8 manifest in God’s sovereign grace and mercy,9 a future move of divine initiative is what the Torah and the prophets had all along anticipated (Rom 3:21–31; 8:1–4; 9:30–10:13; 11:26–32).

The redemption and reconciliation wrought by Christ has happened then in order to fulfil the original promise to Abraham, as seen through the lens of a broader salvation–historical matrix, in which the restoration of Israel and consequent ingathering of the nations envisaged by the prophets is integral. Romans 4 centrally concerns this new social phenomenon—the coming together of Jews and gentiles into a single, unified, eschatological covenant community, in which previous social identities necessarily retain their fundamental significance. Indeed, I will attempt to demonstrate that this is not only a pragmatic matter for Paul’s mission, namely maintaining group cohesion and stability for the multiethnic Christ communities he founded or addresses in his letters, but that it is deeply rooted in his theology vis-à-vis the fundamental significance of the Christ event that is, for Paul, the ultimate expression of God’s ḥesed.10

The crucial implication of Paul’s theologizing is that to be a child of Abraham neither eradicates the import of traditional ethnic markers of Judaism,11 nor, wholesale, the ethnic distinctiveness of the varied people groups of the non-Jewish world. However, both groups are also therein transformed and united as one renewed humanity in Christ. Moreover, as the first person to be brought into a covenant relationship with God on the basis of God’s ḥesed, which was then met by the appropriate response of faithfulness toward God, Abraham functions for Paul as an exemplar or prototype for the Christ community.

5. Immediate Context of Romans 4

In Romans 1:16–17, Paul establishes the central claim of his gospel: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God for salvation to everyone demonstrating faithfulness,12 to the Jew first and also the Greek”. He suggests here that the true basis for claiming honor among the Christ community is not in their ethnic affiliations but in their shared identity in Christ (cf. Rom 5:1–5). Though social values were not monolithic in the ancient Mediterranean world, “honor” and the avoidance of “shame” were undoubtedly among the central concerns across the spectrum of ancient Mediterranean people. Honor was typically conceived of as a limited good, in which one’s acquisition of honor was ipso facto at another’s expense. Thus, given the highly agonistic inclination of the general culture, the natural desire for honor among the members of the Roman Christ community would have to be cautiously negotiated by Paul. In a scenario in which their respective subgroup identities rose in salience over their “in Christ” identity, the pursuit of honor and consequential competition between subgroups over its acquisition could severely inhibit the sort of unity that he hopes to affirm among them.

As such, he explicitly includes in v. 17 the two primary subgroups, Jews and gentiles, as participants in the salvation wrought by God through Jesus Christ. In doing so, he is careful to preserve his auditors’ subgroup affiliations while emphasizing their superordinate identity as Christ allegiants. In contemporary social-scientific terms, Paul recategorizes these subgroup affiliates of Jews and gentiles, respectively, into the larger group of Christ allegiants/the faithful (i.e., “us”) in distinction from those outside the Christ community (i.e., “them”) who will not participate in God’s salvation, do not possess this claim to honor, and who instead will be shamed in the final judgment (cf. Rom 10:9–13).

Directly following Paul’s assertion in 1:16–17, he indicts in 1:18–3:20 both the gentile and Jewish world as evidencing the reality of sin within their respective groups. While Paul maintains that the Jewish people are advantaged due to their historical election and possession of the Scripture (3:1–2), he nevertheless concludes that neither group stands in a privileged position in the final judgment, at which time all people will be held accountable for sin. In 3:19–20, he points to the Torah’s role in explicating and condemning sin (cf. Rom 7:7–24). Whereas God’s historic people, Israel, demarcated by the “works of the Torah” (v. 20),13 possessed a provisional status of righteousness in the former age (cf. Phil 3:6b), now that the new age has dawned and God has provided the once-and-for-all means through which the power of sin has been broken, a righteous status for God’s people is no longer available outside of what God has done in Christ (cf. Rom 10:3–4; Gal 2:15–16; 3:10–11; Phil 3:9).14

Romans 1:18–3:20 serves, therefore, as the critical premise for Paul’s gospel of Jesus Christ explicated in 3:21–26. Here, Paul explains that the Christ event represents the eschatological manifestation of God’s righteousness—or, inextricably, God’s ḥesed—that will make people righteous,15 as prophesied in Isaiah 45:22–25 LXX:

Turn to me, and you will be saved, those from the ends of the earth! I am God, and there is no other. By myself I swear, most certainly, righteousness will proceed from my mouth; my word will not be diverted: that to me every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess to God, saying, righteousness and glory will come to him, and all who exclude themselves will be put to shame. By the Lord they will be made righteous, and in God all the offspring of the children of Israel will be glorified.16

This righteousness is necessarily then “apart from the Torah” but “testified to by the Torah and prophets”. It is the ultimate expression of God’s sovereign grace and mercy through which is found liberation from and atonement for sin for all people groups without discrimination, Jewish and gentile alike (cf. Rom 2:11; 10:12). In the eschatological age, righteous status is secured then only by the “faithfulness realized in Jesus Christ, to all demonstrating faithfulness”.17

From here, in 3:27–31, Paul draws vital implications for these subgroups within the Christ community. In v. 27, Paul explicitly asserts that public claims of honor (καύχησις) for either subgroup over against the other are disallowed by the gospel.18 Such honor claims would represent the antithesis of Paul’s vision of a unified eschatological people.

The supportive reasoning that he employs in v. 29 is predicated upon the Shema. It is precisely because there is only one God for both Jews and gentiles—for all humanity—that entrance into God’s people is determined solely by the Christ event. But the question of how gentiles can be made righteous—brought into a covenant relationship with God—without full Torah submission and taking on traditional Jewish identity19 still requires further explanation. Paul demonstrates that his gospel is fully consistent with the teaching of the Torah, and to do this, he appeals to the figure of Abraham.

6. The Argument of Romans 4

Romans 4 continues the diatribe style that began in 2:17, in which Paul utilizes a fictitious Jewish interlocutor to raise potential objections to his argument (Stowers 1994, pp. 232–34). In Rom 4:1, the interlocutor asks, Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν εὑρηκέναι Ἀβραὰμ τὸν προπάτορα ἡμῶν κατὰ σάρκα;20 There has been much debate surrounding the proper translation of this verse. However, what seems to me to be the most obvious rendering has, outside of my work and to my knowledge, been nowhere else proposed. I suggest the verse should read: “What then will we say we have found21 Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, to be?”22 The expression to find (εὑρίσκω) someone to be a certain way is a fairly common one in the Pauline corpus (1 Cor 4:2; 15:15; 2 Cor 5:3; 9:4; 11:12; 12:20; Gal 2:17; Phil 2:8; 3:9). This would also reflect the typical portrayal of Abraham in the Jewish literature:

You found his heart faithful before you, and you made a covenant with him to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Girgashites. You have kept your promise because you are righteous.

(Neh 9:8)

He kept the laws of the Most High, and he entered into a covenant with him. He established a covenant in his flesh, and when he was tested, he was found faithful.

(Sir 44:20)

And in everything wherein He had tried him, he was found faithful, and his soul was not impatient, and he was not slow to act; for he was faithful and a lover of the Lord.

(Jub 17:18)

Wasn’t Abraham found faithful when he was tested, and it was considered righteousness?

(1 Macc 2:52)

The answer to this question seems clear enough. From the Torah, we find that Abraham was reckoned righteous by God. Abraham is unsurprisingly referred to here by Paul’s Jewish interlocutor as “our forefather according to the flesh”.23 Late Second Temple period Jewish thought clearly understood Abraham to be the ancestor of the Jewish people in terms of a myth of common biological descent (cf. Rom 9:5). Integral to this perception, his fidelity and righteousness were viewed as inextricable from his submission to the rite of circumcision, and by extension, to the entirety of God’s instruction to Israel.24 However, v. 2a hints that the simple equation of fidelity and righteousness with full Torah submission is misleading and would indeed result in the sort of Jewish honor claim that Paul says is prohibited by his gospel.25 The question of vv. 1–2a could be therefore reiterated: “What then will we say that we have found Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, to be if not accepted by God precisely because of his submission to the ordinances of Torah, thus confirming that covenant membership is dependent upon this, and thereby giving him (and by extension all Jews) a claim of honor over against the non-Jewish world?”

Paul then objects to the interlocutor’s line of reasoning in v. 2b: “Not as far as God is concerned!” He cites Gen 15:6 in v. 3, which portrays God’s reckoning of Abraham as righteous in response to Abraham’s offering of faithfulness to God. The assumption commonly made from v. 4, that Paul’s metaphor of a paid laborer who earns a wage is intended to portray a false, merit-based approach to righteousness, significantly distorts Paul’s main point, which is to associate “reckoning” (λογίζομαι) strictly with an act of God’s freedom (cf. v. 8).26

God is not compelled to make humans righteous but chooses to do so as a matter of sheer grace and mercy (cf. Rom 5:20–21; 11:5–6, 30–32). There is here no attack on full Torah submission and thus Jewish identity as traditionally defined (cf. Rom 2:25; 3:1–2; 14:1–23; 1 Cor 7:18). Nor is Paul contrasting general obedience to God with mere “belief” (ostensibly understood as an internal disposition in relation to God), which is inherently nonsensical and utterly foreign to Paul’s thought.27 Rather, for Paul, Abraham’s πίστις was clearly manifest in his actions. Stanley K. Stowers offers the following remarks:

God’s approach required Abraham’s trust in the divine promises in a way that ensured Abraham’s faithfulness to the hopes embodied in the promises. Specifically, in spite of his being too old to procreate, Abraham was circumcised, and Abraham and Sarah had sexual intercourse because of God’s promise. This was Abraham’s faithfulness: Not lawkeeping but acting as circumstances required in light of God’s promise … Abraham’s initial trust upon hearing God’s promises should not be separated from his continuing faithfulness, which allowed him and Sarah to conceive and bear Isaac. The faith has no independent status in isolation from the faithful acts.

(Stowers 1994, p. 228)

Thus, in v. 4, Paul is simply affirming God’s sovereign grace and mercy as being the basis for covenant relationship with God. Abraham’s righteous status, while conferred by God upon Abraham offering faithfulness to him (cf. Rom 10:10–13), is not then fundamentally predicated upon this allegiance. Rather, the “reward” (v. 4; cf. Gen 15:1) of God’s covenant relationship with Abraham (Wright 2013, p. 215) and the entailed promise of God are ultimately secured by God’s ḥesed rather than by the content or quality of Abraham’s (or any person’s) faithfulness (v. 5).

Similarly, the priority and indispensability of God’s ḥesed in relation to his covenant people is a crucial premise for Paul’s entire argument in Romans 9–11. The reluctance of many Jews to embrace Paul’s gospel does not mean the word of God has failed (9:6), because in the first place God’s people have always ultimately been demarcated by God’s ḥesed rather than by mere ethnic affiliation. As pointed out above (n. 24), in the Jewish tradition from which Paul draws here, the patriarchs were already obeying the Torah prior to it being revealed through Moses; the patriarchs are thus “Jews” par excellence. Yet, Paul demonstrates the primacy of God’s ḥesed in vv. 6–13 by tracing the special election of the Jewish patriarchs that was a matter of God’s sovereign grace and mercy rather than human activity (vv. 7–12). And it is because God’s ḥesed has ultimately been manifested in the Christ event that Paul can say in Rom 11:5–6: “So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace” (cf. n. 13 and 18 above).

Indeed, as the Scriptural grounds for his argument that Israel’s covenant has reached its intended τέλος in Christ (10:4), Paul cites several texts, including Exod 33:19 (9:15); Hos 1:10; 2:23 (9:25–26); Isa 1:9; 10:22 (9:27–29); and 65:1–2 (10:20–21), which all likewise point to the priority and indispensability of God’s ḥesed in relation to Israel. The Scriptural story of Abraham’s descendants “according to the flesh” testifies to the notion that God ultimately remains faithful to his people, securing their relationship with God’s self even in the absence of keeping the works of the Torah, as Paul suggests in Rom 3:3–4. This is clearly illustrated in Exodus 32–34.28 In the aftermath of the golden calf incident, at which time Israel violates the first commandment, God ultimately decides to renew the covenant (cf. Exod 32:11–14; 34), with forgiveness for sin then asserted as an explicit attribute of God in relation to his covenant people (cf. esp. Exod. 20:4–7 with 34:6–10). Similarly, the prophetic promises of covenant renewal that follow in the wake of Israel’s failure to abide by the works of the Torah, which lead them into exile, are predicated upon God’s abiding grace and mercy towards God’s people. Importantly, the substance of this renewal is understood foremost in terms of cleansing from sin and enabling obedience by a special act of God (see further here below).

The critical point of vv. 5–8 is, therefore, that God brings into existence or re-establishes a relationship with those who are ungodly on the fundamental grounds of his own ḥesed, in keeping with God’s freedom to do as God chooses, as confirmed by the Torah: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (Rom 9:15, citing Exod 33:19).29 In light of the universality of human sinfulness that Paul thoroughly explicates in chapters 1–3 (cf. esp. Rom 3:23; see also 5:12, 20–21; 11:32a; Gal 3:22; 1 Cor 15:56), all expressions of human fidelity to God, including the works of the Torah, are at their core an appeal or response to the revelation of God’s prior grace and mercy that culminate, for Paul, in what God has done in Christ (cf. Rom 2:4; 3:3–4, 25–26; 6:15–22; 8:28–30; 9:11–16; 11:22, 30–32; 12:1–2; Col 1:15–23). Again, it is God’s ḥesed and not primarily one’s submission to the Torah that is and has always been the basis of covenant identity, as Psalm 32, which Paul cites in vv. 7–8, explicitly affirms: “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered …. The woes of the wicked are many, but God’s ḥesed surrounds the one who trusts in him” (Ps 32:1, 11).

Paul’s rhetorical question in v. 9, “Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcision, or also on the uncircumcised?”, implies that what he asserts in vv. 1–8, while perhaps a challenge to traditional Second Temple Jewish views about righteous status, does not contradict them. In v. 10, he explicitly points out that God’s reckoning of Abraham as righteous was prior to his submission to the ordinance of circumcision. The role of circumcision, claims Paul in v. 11a, was a seal of this righteous status, that is, of the newly formed covenant relationship between Abraham and God.30

It is not until we arrive at v. 11b that the conclusion drawn necessarily requires a reading of the Abraham narrative that is informed by Paul’s particular eschatological convictions. In effect, he argues that because Abraham’s covenant membership was established prior to his submission to the Torah ordinance that comes to define Jewish identity, God’s plan all along was that non-Jews would likewise be brought into the covenant. For Paul, this plan has (only) now been fulfilled in God’s act in Christ. He continues in v. 12 by affirming Abrahamic ancestry over Jews generally, and then to Jewish Christ allegiants specifically.31 However, what Paul goes on to suggest in the remainder of the passage (and the letter as a whole) points to the necessity of “in Christ” identity for one to remain in the family of Abraham.32

Verses 13–16 are especially dense, with several overlapping notions presupposed in what is explicitly asserted. Yet, this is where Paul reveals the underlying logic by which he makes the claims found in vv. 9–12. First, the twin promises of the Abrahamic covenant, offspring and homeland, are here both conflated and universalized into the inheritance of the entire world (cf. Rom 4:17; 1 Cor 3:21–23).33

Paul clearly understands this promise, which he connects to the (re-)new(-ed) heavens and earth of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa 65:17–25),34 to have been inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ.35 He thus alludes in Rom 8:18–25 to a “new exodus” presently taking place for all creation (Keesmaat 1994, pp. 29–56; 1999, pp. 15–133), in which the “children of God”—or, synonymously, the “children of Abraham” (cf. Gal 3:26, 29)—will be revealed for who they are. It should be observed that, as found in Isaiah 40–66 and likewise understood by the author of Jubilees (1:23–29; 4:26; 19:21–25; 22), inextricably linked for Paul are the fulfilment of the original promise(s) to Abraham, the renewal of all creation, and the renewal of Israel’s covenant.

This leads to a second notion presupposed here. The inheritance of the world comes not through a righteous status expressed in full Torah submission, as per the previous dispensation, but through πίστις (cf. Rom 9:30–10:4; 11:5–6), which, once again, points to the intersection of divine and human faithfulness found in the gospel and ultimately serves as a synecdoche for “in Christ” identity (cf. Rom 1:16–17; Gal 3:21–29). This idea is elaborated upon in vv. 14–15. For Paul, the Torah was never intended to be the final means through which righteousness could be secured for God’s people. Rather, the Torah itself points to a fresh act of divine initiative, whereby God would reconcile the wayward members of the covenant to God’s self (cf. Deut 30:1–6). Paul’s entire theological program rests on the conviction that such prophecies of covenant renewal, in which God via the agency of the Spirit would write the Torah on the hearts of God’s people,36 is presently taking place in Christ.37

As affirmed in Romans 7, the Torah and its commandments, while “holy and just and good” (v. 12), could never compel obedience. Therefore, the Torah, in the absence of Christ, can only ultimately function as a means of explication and conviction of sin (cf. Rom 3:20; 5:20; 7:7, 12–13; Gal 3:19; 1 Cor 15:56). It thus becomes the vehicle for God’s eschatological “wrath” (4:15), which has now been inaugurated and will culminate in the final judgment.38

The third layer of understanding in these verses concerns what would take place consequent to Israel’s restoration. In my view, Paul is unquestionably influenced by the eschatological pilgrimage motif found throughout the prophetic texts and likewise expressed in much of the relevant extrabiblical Jewish literature.39 The very conclusion to the main theological discourse of the letter in 15:8–12 suggests that the ingathering of nations to join a restored Israel in worship of their God, anticipated in Isaiah and elsewhere, is itself predicated upon God’s ḥesed and is, in turn, fundamental to Paul’s gospel: “For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised for the truthfulness of God in order to confirm the promises to the fathers, and as a result the gentiles may glorify God for (God’s) ἐλέους” (15:8–9; cf. Rom 9:14–26; Gal 3:22; 2 Cor 4:1; 5:17–21). Uniquely for Paul, the ingathered nations are brought into Israel’s covenant on equal terms.40

He draws then a natural correlation between the eschatological pilgrimage tradition and the Abrahamic promise. As such, the participants in this eschatological phenomenon are precisely the members of the multiethnic family promised to Abraham, with such righteous gentiles already anticipated in the person of the righteous and yet uncircumcised Abraham (cf. vv. 9–11).

Further support for this reading is found in vv. 24–25. As is widely recognized, Paul echoes here the Suffering Servant Song of Isaiah Isa 52:13–53:12,41 a passage that, along with the other servant songs, resonates with the eschatological pilgrimage tradition (Ware 2011, pp. 79–86). The servant’s vicarious suffering and death provide for expiation of sin and the restoration of Israel as God’s righteous ones. However, throughout the servant songs of Isaiah, the servant is also portrayed as having a unique role to fulfill on behalf of the other nations (cf. Isa 49:6), and is, moreover, explicitly identified as Israel (cf. Isa 44:1; 45:4; 49:3; 42:18–43:1).42 It is almost certainly the case that Paul conceives of Jesus Christ in precisely these terms. Namely, both the agent responsible for Israel’s own redemption (cf. Rom 9:5; 11:26–27; 1 Cor 11:23–25) and also the very embodiment of Israel, who self-sacrificially fulfills Israel’s vocation to bring blessing to the other nations, as per the original promise to Abraham in Gen 12:3 (cf. Gal 3:8)43 as well as anticipation of the nations’ conversion to the God of Israel as prophesied throughout Isaiah (cf. esp. Isa 2:1–4). Both groups—the redeemed in Christ from Israel and the other nations—thus represent for Paul the one renewed humanity of God who will inherit the renewed creation.44

Verse 16 reaffirms that the inheritance of this promise is received on the basis of God’s grace through πίστις (cf. Rom 3:24). Once more, πίστις is not an abstract disposition that is the antithesis of one’s efforts. It represents, rather, the same faithfulness to God that Abraham demonstrates and that historical Israel was also called to exhibit (cf. Exod 19:5–6). All such fidelity requires action (to the extent possible) in light of divine promise (cf. Rom 4:19–21). This meant full Torah submission in the era beginning with “Moses” (cf. Rom 5:13–14), but with the coming of Israel’s Christ and the dawn of the eschatological age, this πίστις requires first and foremost allegiance to him, in confession of his death and resurrection (Rom 10:11–13). This is typified by Abraham, who “hoped beyond hope” (v. 18; cf. Rom 5:5; 8:24) and did not “weaken in fidelity” (v. 19) or “waver into distrust” (v. 20) in the God who “gives life to the dead”, “calling things into existence that do not exist” (vv. 17b, 20).

In accordance then with God’s plan set in motion by Abraham’s faithful actions, all people groups can now be set right, fulfilling the promise and indeed the Torah itself (Rom. 8:1–4; 10:4; Gal 3:23–26). As the final expression of God’s ḥesed—God’s sovereign grace and mercy in answer to, and giving victory over, the problem of sin (1 Cor 15:57)— no room is left for honor claims of one subgroup over another (Rom 3:27–29; see also esp. 11:17–24) among those who have (only) in this way been made righteous (Rom 3:30; 8:29–30).

In Rom 4:16, Paul points to the Jewish subgroup within the Roman Christ community as τῶ ἐκ τοῦ νόμου (“those [born] from the Torah”). In doing so, he makes clear the continuing saliency of traditional Jewish identity in Christ. That is, full Torah submission continues to function for Jewish Christ allegiants as both an appropriate expression of ethnic identity (as is the case, for Paul, with all Jews prior to the final judgment) and faithfulness toward God, in as much as this submission is in view of one’s allegiance to Christ (cf. Rom 2:25; 3:1–2; 14:6–9; 1 Cor 7:18).

In vv. 17–18, the rightful presence of the gentile subgroup is affirmed on the explicit basis of Gen 17:5. As Paul is at pains to demonstrate in his letter to the Galatians, the righteous status obtained by gentiles in Christ excludes any attempts at Jewish proselytism. Given that Israel’s restoration has been inaugurated and thus that the nations qua nations are being gathered into the people of God, to seek covenant identity vis-à-vis Jewish proselyte status is to implicitly deny that anything has changed—that the new age has dawned and that God has now acted to once-and-for-all fulfill the promise (cf. Gal 2:21)—and would be, then, ipso facto re-subjecting oneself to slavery to sin and death (cf. Gal 4:8–31).45

Thus, the community of righteous ones necessarily consists of both Jews qua Jews and gentiles qua gentiles who share Abraham as father and exemplar of ingroup identity (cf. Rom 1:16; 3:30; 9:24; 11:11–32; 15:8–12; 1 Cor 1:23–24; 7:17–20). This superordinate group is referred to as τῶ ἐκ πίστεως Ἀβραάμ (“those [born] from the faithfulness of Abraham”), that is, those who find their identity in Abraham’s πίστις by being “in Christ” (cf. Gal 3:16, 27–29). Paul draws a direct correspondence here between Abraham’s faithful response to God’s promise (vv. 19–20) and God’s faithful fulfillment of this promise found finally in the multiethnic Christ community (v. 21), who, like Abraham (v. 22), possess the status of righteousness (v. 24; Gal 3:7; see similarly Johnson Hodge 2007, pp. 79–91).

7. Conclusions

As especially indicated in Romans 11 and 14, Paul is aware of existing tensions between the two primary subgroups within the Roman Christ community, which, as indicated in Romans 16, consist of a loose association of ἐκκλησίαι in the city. The groups in question, while very likely containing some persons who maintain a degree of association with both, consist predominately of (1) Jews and most probably those gentiles who possess some level of attachment to the synagogue; and (2) non-Jews, an ethnic conglomerate of persons generally bound by Hellenistic culture who do not (or no longer) possess any such connection with the greater Jewish community outside of their affiliation with the Christ movement.

Though Paul still views the Roman Christ community as a mature and grounded one—enough so to serve as a prospective missionary headquarters for this new phase of his apostolic mission (Rom 15:14)—a disjuncture such as this, if left unchecked, would almost certainly destabilize the community in time, and therefore ultimately fail to provide him with what is needed for his westward evangelization efforts. But Paul’s concern is surely more than a utilitarian one. The spiritual wellbeing of Christ allegiants in Rome is clearly understood by him as falling under his apostolic responsibility (Rom 1:8–15), and nothing short of a fully unified community is consistent with the holy calling of God’s people (Rom 1:7).

It is in this light that he seeks in Romans 4 (and in the letter as a whole) to increase the saliency of the community members’ common superordinate identity in Abraham and in Christ, unifying them around the gospel as God’s multiethnic covenant people—a renewed humanity—and thus co-heirs of the world with the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 8:17, 28–30). As Paul asserts in Rom 5:1–2, because of God’s act in Christ to bring to completion the plan of redemption that began with the call of and promise to Abraham, Jewish qua Jewish and gentile qua gentile members of the community “have peace with God”, “access to [God’s] grace”, and, indeed, reason to “claim honor in [the] hope of sharing the glory of God”. It is certainly Paul’s hope that in light of what God has done for them, they will live at peace with and extend grace to one another (cf. Rom 12:3–21), demonstrating that they too are faithful like their father and exemplar Abraham.