# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1859_S327
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Whether Rom. 11:25, 26, 27 [teaches] a solemn [conversion of the Jews] still to be expected, etc. 327

which a number of interpreters of recent decades have put into the mouths of the apostles, were ever collected in one place, rightful astonishment would seize their contemporaries." (See the preface to the 5th edition of 1844.)

III. A third principal reason why we must regard the interpretation of our passage that has now become current and common as erroneous lies in the passages of the Old Testament that the holy apostle cites in confirmation of the mystery he has disclosed. These are, namely, passages that quite plainly do not speak of a special general conversion of the Jews shortly before the Last Day, to the exclusion of their conversions in the time of the apostles and in the following centuries, but rather of salvation in general, which was to dawn upon the Jewish people, with the appearing of the Messiah, for all time until the Last Day — of the whole New Testament grace appointed for Israel. Had the holy apostle cited passages such as these — Hos. 3:4–5, Deut. 4:27–31 — then, while the interpretation of our opponents would by no means thereby be justified, it would at least have had some semblance of warrant. But the very citation the apostle chose takes from it even every semblance of warrant. One need only compare the passages cited. Isa. 59:20 says: "To them in Zion a Redeemer will come, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, says the LORD." This is so general a promise of the coming of the Messiah that it could not be more general. There is not a single letter here suggesting that a visitation in the time immediately before the Last Day is meant.*) To put into the mouth of the holy apostle the notion that with this prophecy he confirmed the mystery that the Jews, after having rejected the Messiah who had already appeared, would at last, in the very last time, experience an utterly extraordinary grace and be converted for the most part, is sheer arbitrariness and a grave dishonor done to the holy writer. Certain chiliasts have indeed claimed that "the Redeemer" here is not to be understood as Christ but as another person; but it is clear that this is only a poor makeshift, and that a "Goel" [redeemer/kinsman-redeemer] as described here can be none other than Christ himself. Hence Olshausen too writes: "That Paul thinks of none but Christ as the one accomplishing this redemption of Israel, and does not mean, as enthusiasts have believed, that at the end of days a special redeemer is still to come for Israel, needs no proof." The other passage cited by Paul, Jer. 31:31ff, reads: "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — not like the covenant that I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; a covenant which they did

*) Quite apart from the context, which just as much places it beyond all doubt that what is spoken of here is the beginning of the New Testament era with the appearing of Christ and with the preaching of the apostles.