Andrew,

Thanks for your reply. I agree, of course, that divine righteousness is revealed always in concrete cases, and not in the abstract (what after all is?). But my point is that this revelation is universal, extended from Israel (and Jerusalem in particular) to the ends of the earth (cf. Isaiah 2; Acts 1:8). The universality of this revelation and its signficance is the logic behind Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles.

But I would disagree that that righteousess is soley concerned with Israel’s vindication and the Gentiles’ condemnation. As Moses and the Prophets announced beforehand, God would bless the nations through Abraham, through Israel, and specifically through Christ in his answering the promises to Israel, and establishing God’s universal reign among the nations as David’s Greater Son. Note Psalm 72 contemplates not merely the reign of David’s Son within the borders of Israel, but over all nations (cf. Ps.2). Hence the universal judgments Psalms noted above, in which God’s righteousness is established in all the earth, and for all the nations. The nations are not merely punished for their opposition to Israel, but even the far-flung nations, and the “distant islands” shall come to God in the latter days, and be blessed. The Gentiles will join themselves to the Lord in the last days, and become united with His people Israel. The righteousness of God contemplated in the covenant with Abraham is not to be reduced to the covenant with Israel at Sinai, but includes the eschatological blessing of not only Abraham’s descendents “in the flesh,” but all the peoples with him, the Gentiles who are Abraham’s children by the Spirit, and that through David’s line. Genesis 1-3 begins with cosmic creation and its corruption, and Genesis 11ff. takes up the question of how the curse of Genesis 3 is to be reversed. Namely, as Paul argued, through the blessing of Abraham. In other words, Yahweh’s coveant relationship with Israel does not begin with the assembly at the foot of the mountain in Exodus 19, but with the patriarch in the strange land of Ur in Genesis 12, within the overarching narrative of creation’s account, and “the table of nations.”