Christ as Paul\u27s bifocal optic for reading the Hebrew scriptures : mystery and fulfillment in the letter to the Romans

Not long ago Richard Hays argued that the pastoral character of the Apostle Paul\u27s letters obviates overt attention to christological prophecy. (l) He rejects the idea that Paul\u27s interpretation of the Old Testament is principally shaped by christology because his hermeneutical procedures do not ordinarily produce christological interpretations of particular Old Testament texts. (2) Instead, because Paul\u27s letters presuppose, rather than aim at proving, that Jesus is the Messiah, Hays contends that Paul operates with an ecclesiocentric hermeneutic. (3) Without argument, one must agree that Paul\u27s letters are pastoral(4) and ecclesiastically concerned. However, is it possible that Hays mistakes the objective of Paul\u27s letter writing for the premise upon which such letters are written? Hays appears to confuse Paul\u27s letter writing goal for the basis upon which he reads the scripture? Does not Paul find the O\u27T prefiguring the church as the people of God (5) only because Christ functions as the lens that converges divine promises and prefigurements concerning segregated peoples--Jew and Gentile--so that together they now form one new body? Precisely because Paul\u27s interpretive presupposition is messianic, the optic imagery of Christ as his reading lens continues to provide the best way forward in understanding the use of scripture in his letters.(6) \u27\u27\u27As an interpreter of biblical material, Paul looked at the sacred text through the lens of Christ, a lens ground by both experience and tradition. (7) This widely accepted assessment that Christ is Paul\u27s lens which brings into focus the Hebrew scriptures provides the premise for this study. The objective of this paper is to examine Paul\u27s use of two strands of scripture in his letter to the Romans and how Christ brings them into focus. At either end of his scripture-laden letter Paul points his readers back to the Hebrew scriptures as the confirmation of his gospel. He salutes the Roman Christians by asserting that the gospel was promised beforehand through [the] prophets in the holy scriptures (Rom 1 :2), and he concludes his letter with the doxological benediction-- Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching concerning Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been concealed for eternal ages, but now is disclosed and is made known through the prophetic scriptures according to the decree of the eternal God with a view to the obedience of faith unto all the nations (16:25-26). (8) These two statements suggest that Christ functions, for Paul, as a bifocal lens that brings into focus two rather distinct rays of prophetic light--straightforward promise and concealed mystery. Between these lies Paul\u27s affirmation at the close of his extended argument-- For whatever was previously written was written for our instruction, that through the scripture\u27s steadfastness and encouragement we might have hope (Rom 15:4). (9) Such a conviction as expressed here points to the church\u27s need to investigate carefully the premise or hermeneutical axioms . (10) upon which Paul reads the Hebrew scriptures so as to appropriate them for Christians with the claim that they were written also for us . . . to those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead (Rom 4:24)