Where does this idea come from? I suggest you are not accounting for the details of Scriptures. Yes, there is some truth in what you say, but the Bible teaches that the Jews are not the same as the rest of us in at least one important sense - God chose them to be the people through whom creation would be set back on track. And, strange though it may seem, Paul is arguing that God hardened them to accomplish this. Have you read my post number 82?
Let me go through the issues with your post 82:
In Romans, Paul is deeply concerned with arguing that God has indeed been faithful to this promise - that God has indeed used Israel to bless the nations (Romans 9 and 11 are especially focused on this);
Paul makes a statement and does not question God being faithful to His promises, which is not the question being addressed in Ro. 9-11. In fully keep with the teaching method Paul has been virtually exclusively using, Paul gives before the question and after the question (Is God unjust?) logical support for a positive answer to that question like the support Paul gives in Ro. 9: 4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.
Paul in Romans 9-11 is showing how God is fair and just even though it would appear to
the Gentiles: God is treating the Jews unfairly graciously compared the them.
However, as per Romans 3, Paul recognizes that the way Israel will bless the nations cannot be through "showing them how wonderful the Law of Moses is". In Romans 3, he is pretty clear – the Law of Moses cannot be a blessing to the world in this way.
“Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?
Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.”
The Law is a blessing, but not a blessing to save people through works, since that was never its intent since no one could keep it. Jews from the beginning needed to trust (faith) God’s mercy forgiveness.
The Law could and should bring those under the Law to trusting in God’s mercy, because it is not something you can follow 100%.
The Law tells everyone and us even today, a ton of wonderful stuff about God, God’s Love, God’s holiness, God’s concerns, sin, forgiveness, atonement, fellowship, relationship, God’s power, and God’s discipline so we can know we are truly His children. So how can you say: “…the Law of Moses cannot be a blessing to the world in this way”?
To put a finer point on this, Paul sees that the Jew, like the Gentile, is in Adam. So while the Law of Moses is good, it is operating on a Jew who is as fallen as the Gentile.
Do not blame Adam and the fact the Jews cannot keep the Law has nothing to do with Adam. Where do you find the
blaming of Adam for the people sinning in scripture? Adam did bring about death, but death is not bad in and of itself since that is the way the saved get to go home.
How then can God use the Jew to bless the world and be faithful to his promise?
Answer: God uses Law of Moses to make Israel draw the sin of the world onto itself. As per a line of reasoning you get in Romans 5, 7, ,9, and 11, Paul argues, cryptically perhaps, that God is using the Law of Moses as a kind of "sponge" to soak of the sins of the world into the nation of Israel..
You’re making no sense at all. Without the Law the nation of Israel would have become like all the other nations around them and would have fallen away like all the other nations before them. The Northern Jewish kingdom did not last because they left the law: “Love your neighbor as yourself”.
The law includes: “loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and energy and Loving your neighbor as yourself”, which is not part of rules found outside of the God’s Law.
No, the elect (good) Jews prepared the way for the Messiah.
- Why would God do this? Answer: to collect sin together into "one place" (national Israel) so that this sin can then be focussed down into one person - Jesus. And then, sin is condemned on the cross (Romans 8:3).
“Focused Down” sounds like God need some mechanical means to deal with an intangible like sin. Where does the Bible suggest all the sins of the gentiles where collected in the Jews and why that would be needed?
What happened with the cross takes tons of explaining which is another topic.
- By using Israel as this "sponge for sin", God has indeed been faithful to the Abrahamic promise. Law of Moses has, strangely, been used in this "dark" manner - making Israel more sinful, not less - for the ultimate benefit of us all..
Wow, God needs a sponge to clean with? How was Israel “more sinful” than the nations around them?
The Law of Moses includes “Love your neighbor as yourself”, so how is that “dark”?
- Since the purpose of Law of Moses was to "lure sin into Israel" and then into Jesus, the condemnation of sin on the cross brings the task of Law of Moses to a close
That is not scriptural, the law as I have shown with scripture:
Ro. 11: 11 Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to
fall beyond recovery? Not at all!...
The recovery is what God is looking for, since it requires accepting God’s charity.
Ro. 11: 31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. 32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience, so
that he may have mercy on them all.
The Law makes the disobedience all the more, but that is “in order”.
Ro. 3: 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather,
through the law we become conscious of our sin.
Being made conscious of our sins is good not bad.
Ro. 3: 21 …the
righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
Again the law helped the Jews “know” God’s righteousness.
Ro. 8: 3 For what the law was powerless to do because
it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,
It is not the Law that is the problem, but the flesh (physical humanity).
Gal. 3 :19 Why, then, was the law given at all? It was
added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.
The Law was not given to make the people transgress, but because the people transgress.
Gal. 3: 24 So the
law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.
Is a guardian ever bad?
Gal. 5: 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
This was true from the beginning, but the Jews were overlooking it.
1 Tim. 1: 8 We know that the
law is good if one uses it properly.
So how could it be bad in any way since any bad would eliminate the good?
Heb. 10:1
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves.
Is the Law a bad shadow?
10. Since its task has been completed, the Law of Moses is then retired with honour.
Romans 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore
love is the fulfilling of the law.
Well, this is certainly not what Paul argues in Romans 7 (at least) where he argues that the Law brought death.
You are not looking at all of Romans 7: 13
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
Coming to the realization that you are a big time sinner and not worthy of anything, is a killer to your pride and self-esteem. You are incapable of giving yourself life, but if you turn to God you can live.
I never said the Law was to blame for anything although I concede it is easy for you and others to assume this. I have recently explained that while the Law is indeed "good", when it acts on fallen human beings (Jews, of course, since only Jews were under the Law), it produces this dark outcome where sin is increased.
Again, Paul's words, not mine.
We both through around the term: “sin is increased”, but what does that mean?
One unforgiven sin can cause you to go to hell, so does it matter how much you sin beyond your first unforgiven sin?
A non-Jewish gentile prior to Christ for at least a while was burden by decisions they had made that hurt others in the past (they had a conscience for at least a while). The Jew, on the other hand, had the Law which spelled out how significant and severe sins are and placed them against God Himself, so in that respect the same sin was increased.
You seem to be saying: “the quantity of sins was much greater for the Jews than the gentiles”, which I do not see.
