Remnant and reunion

Some additional thoughts about the role of the “remnant” in Israel’s history, which supercede earlier posts on the subject.

1) The word “remnant” in the OT normally refers to the whole of Israel that survives a judgment, rather than to some sub-division of Israel that remains faithful during a period of apostasy. (See the discussion of remnant under LEIMMA in volume 4 of TDNT for an extensive defense of this point). The remnant is the Israel miraculously preserved through judgment, a resurrected Israel. Thus, Elijah and Elisha are not technically forming a “remnant,” but leading a renewal movement.

2) Though the faithful within Israel during the Omride dynasty do not constitute a “remnant” in the technical sense, there is continuity between the prophets and sons of prophets and the eventual “remnant” that survives the judgment of exile. In the North, Elijah and Elisha establish a network of faithful Israelites who maintain true worship, and are liturgically reunited with the people of Judah during the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah. Those Passover events are gatherings of the “remnant” of Israel and Judah that survives the Assyrian invasion, and these anticipate the eventual restoration of the “one Israel” after the exile.

In the South, those who listen to prophets like Jeremiah survive the Babylonian invasion, while those who resist Nebuchadnezzar are destroyed. Plus, those who listen to the prophets presereve their Jewish identity – culturally and liturgically – during the period of exile, while those who turn from the prophets are assimilated among the Gentiles and abandon their identity as Israel. Thus, the prophets prepare the remnant community ahead of time.

3) This has some implications for Paul’s eschatology in Rom 9-11. The “all Israel” that is saved IS the remnant, that is, those Jews who are preserved physically through the judgment of Jerusalem in AD 70 and/or are preserved spiritually by clinging to Jesus.

4) Ecclesiologically, this means that the renewal movements within the mainline churches should not see themselves as a “true church” within a “false church,” or as a “remnant.” Rather, they are aiming at the renewal of the whole church. That renewal may not, and probably will not, happen. But these renewal movements preserve faith within the mainline churches, so that when the Lord purges His church there will be “survivors” who will join with those preserved in other denominations to form a reunited “remnant.” Perhaps the grass-roots ecumenism evident in so many places around the country is a sign that this is already happening. God has preserved faith within the Methodist, mainline Presbytery, Episcopalian, Catholic, and other churches, and as we emerge from the Babylonian exile of modernity these faithful are forming a remnant.