Some have suggested yet another motive. According to this view, in Romans 11 Paul was hinting that one day a large number of presently unbelieving Jews would turn to the Messiah and that this event would precipitate the final day, the coming parousia of Jesus himself, the resurrection of the dead, the rescue of the old creation from its slavery to decay, the joining into one, in the Messiah, of heaven and earth themselves. “What will their acceptance mean,” he had written, “but life from the dead?”4 Paul did indeed hope for all these things. Did he link them to the collection? Almost certainly
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