The Gentiles did not have “the Law.” They could not build a tabernacle in their own lands and claim those lands were Promised. They did not have a priesthood.
But they could still learn God’s holy will for their lives. They could learn about the true God from Israel and they could learn how to trust and obey Him. Hiram King of Tyre, the Queen of Sheba, all of Ninevah had to appropriate the Mosaic Covenant in this fashion.
Thus Paul writes, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law by nature, do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.”
Gentiles would have to ask what God would want an Isrealite to do apart from the covenant of circumcision, and Land and Priesthood and Santuary. In this very different situation, What Would Israel Do?
Good post. I believe this is closely related to how we should read Romans 7. I find it likely that the “I” of Romans 7 is exactly this: a Gentile believer asking W.W.I.D. and not being able to do it.
Is this the thesis of the book you mentioned? I have to tell you I don’t see it. The “I” is Israel–someone like Daniel watching sin overcome the nation and the resulting judgment. No chance of the promises coming to pass because Israel is never faithful.
Well, the question of the “I” as Gentile God-fearer is not the primary thesis of the book, but rather a reading that may result from the primary thesis. Das does touch on Romans 7 and 11 specifically in the closing chapters of the book to demonstrate the exegetical implications of an all-Gentile audience of Romans.
He is very thorough and always even-handed in his treatment of other views on these passages as well, always portraying them in their best light before explaining why he disagrees and presenting his reading. Like I said, I’m pretty convinced of his reading of Romans 7, but not so much his reading of Romans 11 . . . though ironically, it seems you might be the reverse.
I think there are a couple keys to understanding Romans 7 as being from the POV of a Gentile God-fearer, who has come under the law and finds he cannot keep it.
First, the language of “apart from the law.” I don’t know if you read my post “Perishing Apart From the Law,” but in it I looked at Romans 5 and a few other places to show that when Paul speaks of people “apart from the law,” he is generally speaking of pagan Gentiles as opposed to Jews, who he calls those “under the law,” and he uses the period “from Adam to Moses” as paradigmatic of the Gentiles.
http://chriskou.com/2010/01/21/perishing-apart-from-the-law/
In Romans 7:9, he speaks of “I” as once being “apart from the law,” and then coming under it. This would at least seem to suggest that “I” is a Gentile.
Another strong reason to view the “I” as Gentile is the fact that Paul uses such language at all. Why would Paul suddenly adopt the first person to speak of a third party? Is it a show of solidarity? Or is there some other reason?
The thing is, a sudden adopting of the first person to dramatically portray the state of a third party is a standard Greek rhetorical device. It’s unavoidable that Paul is employing a standard Greek manner of speaking, whoever one identifies the third person of whom he’s speaking.
But it isn’t just speech-in-character. Das and Stowers have both noted the marked similarity between Paul’s dramatic speech in 7:14-24 and certain tragic helpless speeches of the Greek theatre. The “I” of Romans 7 has suddenly adopted the language of the doomed protagonist in a Gentile tragedy.
http://chriskou.com/2008/03/19/prosopopoiia-speech-in-character-in-romans-7/
The similarities are so striking that a Roman audience who likely saw such plays staged every day could never have missed it. As I said in the Facebook discussion on this post, the pop-culture reference would have been as stark to a Roman reader as it would be to us if someone said the phrase “There is no spoon.”
In any case, I hope you’ll give the thesis a chance.