In speaking of God’s wise plan in history (Rom. 9–11), Paul presupposes the biblical narrative that, on his view, climaxes in Christ. Following are some elements of the larger story that Paul presumably noticed, although he does not highlight all of them.
The biblical narrative that Paul shares with his first audience heavily underlines themes such as human depravity (Rom. 3:23), God seeking to restore humanity to himself (cf. 5:10), and God seeking to bring back righteousness (cf. 1:17). The narrative begins by lavishly depicting God’s kindness: God created the world good and humanity in his image (Gen. 1); he provided for humanity (Gen. 2). Humanity, however, chose falsehood and sought equality with God (Gen. 3:1–6), marring also God’s blessing on all creation (or at least in its relation to humans; 3:17). Further sins and judgments followed, clearly pervasive throughout humanity (Gen. 4–9).
Yet God kept reaching out to humanity to seek restoration, most obviously through Noah, whose mission was to bring restoration (Gen. 5:29). Sin, however, also came into the renewed world with its human residents (9:21–22). The call of Abraham was another step toward restoration, intended to be a blessing for all peoples (12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4, 28:14), because Abraham would teach his descendants the Lord’s way of righteousness and justice (18:19).
God redeemed Abraham’s promised line Israel to be a holy nation (Exod. 19:5–6; 20:2), because of his love and promise and not Israel’s merit (Deut. 7:7–11; 9:4–5; 10:15), and gave them more-specific laws. Most distinctive about Israel’s law was that it came from the true God (Deut. 4:6–7), the creator and judge of all the earth, so that all of its just demands were grounded in him. But Israel continually disobeyed and failed; God even offered to make Moses like Noah, starting over with his seed (Exod. 32:10). The book of Judges shows the repeated cycle of human depravity in Israel and the periodic need for human deliverers; but whereas Judges laments the moral anarchy that followed from Israel’s lack of godly rulers (Judg. 17:6; 21:25; cf. 18:1; 19:1), Israel’s subsequent history further shows its failure under kings as well. Although Paul focuses more on specific texts than on delineating this larger narrative, his thesis of human depravity (Rom. 3:23) would have been difficult to dispute from Scripture.
The prophets announced and psalms celebrated that there ultimately would be a time of restoration when God would reign, fully deliver his people, and establish justice, righteousness, and salvation. Not all passages in the prophets involve the time of restoration, but of those that do address the restoration, many include restoration of the house of David, across a wide spectrum of the prophets (Isa. 11:1, 10; 55:3; Jer. 23:5; 33:15–26; Ezek. 34:23–24; 37:24–25; Hosea 3:5; Amos 9:11; Zech. 12:8, 10).1 For Paul, this is the narrative that climaxes in Jesus: the agent of God’s promised reign and deliverance, the ultimate deliverer. By restoring the possibility of permanent righteousness, establishing God’s promised reign, Jesus’s ministry would ultimately bring about the restoration of creation.
1. Of these, a few—perhaps 10 percent—could even be understood as suggesting the Davidic king’s deity in some way, despite the dangers of syncretism reflecting divine kings in some surrounding cultures; see Isa. 9:6–7 (for “mighty God,” cf. 10:21); Jer. 23:5–6 (but cf. 33:16); cf. Zech. 12:8. Scholars debate the sense of these passages today, but they would naturally be suggestive to early Christians.