Chapter
two.
Paul
and the Prophets.
Isaiah
and the theology of Paul.
We have seen that the prophets predictions of a New
Exodus had a powerful influence on the NT writers. Both Jesus and John the
Baptist understood their own ministries
in the light of this expectation. The material listed in chapter one concerning
the predictions of a New Exodus show that the major contributor to this
expectation was the prophet Isaiah. In this chapter I will seek to show that
Paul was immersed in this OT stream of expectations and that it was a powerful
influence on how he interpreted the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The
influence of the prophecy of Isaiah on the thinking of the apostle Paul has
already been noted.[1] Indeed, it
can be shown that many of the major doctrines of Paul are found in embryonic
form in the book of Isaiah.
Paul not only quoted from Isaiah many more times than
all of the other prophets put together, but he actually used the prophet's
writings as the skeleton of his gospel. He took the quotations and arranged
them in such a way as to outline the history of salvation, from the fall of man
to the eventual establishment of the messianic kingdom. Around these quotations
he built his argument. The full import of this fact is only appreciated when
the quotations are listed in the order they are used and read in that same
sequence. What it shows is that if the letter is laid out as a continuous
papyrus, and the citations from Isaiah were raised out of the text and
suspended at their point of use, those texts, in that order, summarise the
whole of salvation history. Such a pattern could not be anything but
intentional.
The cited texts of Romans.
We follow the texts Paul cited from the book of Isaiah
in the order that he used them.
“As it is written ‘God's name is
blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’” Rom 2:24: Isa 52:5 (LXX).
“Their feet are swift to shed blood:
ruin and misery mark their paths and the way of peace they have not
known”. Rom 3:15-17: Isa 59:7-8.
“Isaiah cries out concerning
Israel: ‘Though the number of the Israelites should be like the sand by the
sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence
on earth with speed and finality’. It is just as Isaiah had said previously”.
Rom 9:27-28: Isa 10:22-23 (LXX).
“Just as Isaiah said previously, ‘Unless
the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, and
we would have been like Gomorrah’”. Rom 9:29; Isa 1:9 (LXX).
“As it is written,’ See, I lay in Zion a
stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall’.” Rom 9:33a;
Isa 8:14.
“and ‘the one who trusts in him will
never be put to shame’”. Rom 9:33; Isa 28:16 (LXX).