“Jesus for Jews”

Romans 11

January 20, 2008

Dr. Jerry Nelson

 

Additonal notes:

Page 14, James Boice, Romans 1368

Page 15, The Last Things, Chaper 2-What About Israel, G.E. Ladd

Page 16, The Approaching of Christ, Alexander Reese

Page 18, Sermon- All Israel Will Be Saved, John Piper

Page 20, Pastor Duncan sermon on Romans 11:23-27

Page 20, Sermon-Israel, Palestine and the Middle East, John Piper

 

 

In this chapter Paul gives us a glimpse into the future.

What a future it is! 

 

But when we remember that God made his promises to Abraham 4000 years ago and Christianity has been around for 2000 years;

When we look around and see 2/3s of the world following other religions and philosophies of life;

When we see secularism and non-Christian spiritualities pushing Christianity to the side in our own country;

We can easily become very pessimistic and discouraged about the future.

We can begin to doubt all the Christian talk about Christ as victor over sin and death. 

It surely doesn’t look like God is saving the world!

 

Even more specifically, we Christians know that our Christianity is tied inextricably to the Jews.

Jesus was a Jew, the early disciples were all Jews, the church was born in the synagogues of the Jews and Christianity itself is rooted in the teachings of the Jewish Scriptures – the Old Testament.

More than two-thirds of the Bible is written in a Jewish context.

 

2000 years earlier than when Paul lived, when God called Abraham, God said Abraham and his descendants would be blessed forever.

But even as early as Paul’s day, the question arose, “What about the Jews?”

It looked like the Jews were a lost cause!

Did God’s promises to the Jews fail?

It was natural for the Christians in Paul’s day and even us today, to ask, “How about it, did God’s promises to the Jews not mean much, and what about his promises in the NT, that Jesus would be the savior of the world, do they not mean much either?”

 

In Romans 9-11 Paul responds to that kind of thinking. 

He does so by pointing out in Romans 9 and 10 that God did not fail the Jews – those whom God chose to save he did save. 

 

Now here in Romans 11 Paul is going to reiterate that truth BUT he is also going to describe a future that ought to blow away any pessimism we may have about God’s success in the world.

It ought to make us realize that while we are tempted to get impatient and discouraged with the timing of God’s actions, we can truly trust him to do the great things for this world, that he has promised.

 

That is why I said earlier that here in Romans 11 God gives us a glimpse of the future and what a future it is!

But he does this by answering the specific question of the future of the Jews.

If God can be shown to be faithful to his 4000-year-old promises to the Jews, I should know that I can trust him to be faithful to us.

 

So what about the Jews?

100 years ago a British journalist penned the doggerel:

“How odd of God

to choose the Jews.”

 

I don’t know its original intent, but that statement is not necessarily anti-Semitic.

From a world-perspective, it is rather strange that the Jews would hold such a central place in history. 

 

As a humorous aside, Leo Rosten, a Yiddishist of our own era, wrote a response to the so-called “oddness” that God should choose the Jews.

Remember that the word “goyim” in Yiddish means non-Jews.

So Rosten wrote his own doggerel:

How odd of God to choose the Jews?

Not odd of God. Goyim annoy’im.

Source of doggerels above:  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14176

 

Rosten aside, it is odd, in a way, that God should choose the Jews.

When you think of one billion Chinese, and billion Indians, and millions of Arabs, Germanic and Hispanic peoples of the world, why did God choose such a relatively small people group to be the focus of his plan for the world?

 

God himself answers that question in Deuteronomy 7:7-8 “The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.  8 But it was because the LORD loved you…”

For reasons, not in the Jews, but for reasons in God alone, God chose to set his special affection on them.

 

Interesting that even to this day, the Jewish people somehow still stand at the center of world attention.


The people of Israel are constantly in the news.

On Wednesday of this past week, I heard a State Department official speaking of how the Israel/Arab conflict is at the heart of the issues in the Middle East, including Iraq and even Afghanistan and Iran.

 

About 100 years ago, Frederick the Great of Prussia was having a discussion with his chaplain and saying how skeptical he was of Christianity.

“If the Bible is true, it ought to be capable of very easy proof. What is the proof of the inspiration of the Bible?

The chaplain said that he could in fact, in one word, give the proof that the King desired.

The king was amazed and said what magic word can bear such weight of proof?

The chaplain said, “Israel!” 

Boice, Romans, 1375

 

What other people have for 4000 years been so despised and persecuted and yet don’t disappear?

 

So, what is God doing?

 

Paul begins by asking the question about the Jews that is understandably on the minds of his readers:

Romans 11:1-2 “I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means…2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew.”

Remember “foreknew, means those whom he set his love on.

 

To show that he is correct in saying that God has not rejected the Jews and thus is a promise-keeping God, Paul begins by citing two kinds of evidence:

 

First of all, Paul says he is a Jew, a descendant of the very family that some suggest God has rejected.

And clearly God has not rejected him and thus, he is example #1 that God has not rejected all Jews. 

 

But Paul moves quickly to another point and one that helps us understand that God has been acting in spite of appearances.

 

Paul reminds us that 1000 years earlier Elijah was pessimistic for the same reasons as we might be. 

It appeared that evil had won and that God’s people were so few in number as to be insignificant and powerless.

So Elijah cried out in 1 Kings 19:10 quoted here in Romans 11:3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”?

 

Romans 11:4-5 “And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”  5 So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.”

Elijah had to be told that all is not as it appears. 

God is at work, moving salvation history along just as he planned.

Likewise, while it appeared in Paul’s day that all Jews were unresponsive to the Gospel; that was not true. 

God was even then saving those whom he had chosen.

And while it was not a flood, there were in fact many Jews who were trusting Jesus. 

 

Being first and foremost an evangelist, Paul then, in verse 6, reiterates what he had been saying throughout chapters 9 and 10.

God’s choice of the Jews, he would save, was not based on their works but on God’s gracious will.

 

But more to his major point, here in verse 7 Paul again says there are two Israels:

Remember earlier he had said in chapter 9:6 “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”

There are descendants of Israel/Jacob who are part of the “elect” and there are descendants of Israel/Jacob who are “hardened.”

 

We like the idea of God choosing to show mercy but we don’t like the idea of God “hardening” people.

And yet Paul quotes some very hard sayings from Deuteronomy and Isaiah (Dt 29:4; Isa 29:10) to show, just as he did in Romans 9, that God was somehow involved in the hardening of those who don’t trust him.

 

Back in chapter 9 Paul said in essence, but don’t accuse God.

And remember that any suggestion that God is unjust in hardening some must be offset by knowing that if you ask any unbeliever if he wants God to soften his heart and open his eyes to the truth of the Gospel.  He will tell you “no!” 

For you who think God unjust for hardening, do you think it better conversely that God would force himself on those who don’t want him?

 

I don’t pretend to settle the issue of God’s hardening people here but simply to note that Paul and the other NT writers seem to hold God’s action of hardening and a person’s responsibility for unbelief in balance without fully resolving, what to us appear to be contradictions.

But that is not Paul’s major point here in Romans 11.

Here, he is trying to help us understand what God is up to with the Jews.

 

And so in verses 11-22 Paul gives an explanation and a warning.

 

The explanation is that God is actually using the Jews’ unbelief to accomplish his larger gracious purposes.

Look at the last part of verse 11, “because of (the Jews’) transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles…”

That seems to be a common theme in the Bible – God, in his grace, uses even what is evil for good.

 

Christianity didn’t remain a parochial religion of the Jews, but when the Jews largely rejected it, the Gospel was spread to the Gentiles.

God had told Abraham that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed.

So even when Israel refused to be that means of grace to the world in a positive way, God used their rejection to carry out his purposes to bless the whole world.

 

But God was not only going to use the unbelief of the Jews to bless the rest of the world, God was going to eventually turn it around and use the belief of the Gentiles to persuade the Jews to trust Jesus.

Romans 11:11b “because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. “

He says something similar in verse 14 “in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. 

He said the same thing back in 10:19 “I will make you (unbelieving Jews) envious by those (believing Gentiles) who are not a nation…”

 

Kent Hughes tells the story of Dr. Charles Feinberg ( who was obviously Jewish) was for many years a professor at Talbot Seminary, a part of BIOLA University.

When he was a young man, Feinberg lived for a while in an Orthodox Jewish home.

The family with whom he lived had hired what they called a “Sabbath Gentile” who would serve the family on the Sabbath when they were not supposed to work. 

 

The “Gentile” woman was a Christian and she had taken the job specifically to bear witness of Jesus’ love.

Feinberg was so attracted by her life that he asked questions.

She took him to a friend who led him to Christ.

 

Feinberg was made “jealous” of what she possessed. (Hughes, Romans, 197)

 

I honestly don’t know how God is going to do that on a large scale in the future, but understanding it on the scale of one-to-one, we are shown what it means when Jesus says in Matthew 5:16, “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

 

Again, I don’t know how God is going to use Israel’s jealousy of the Gentiles’ belief to bring more Jews to Jesus, but here I see that he is going to do so and, to Paul’s major point, it will not be just a few Jews.

 

Paul says in essence, in verse 12, if Israel’s sin of unbelief has brought the riches of the Gospel to the Gentiles, imagine what will be the outcome for the world when many Jews are saved.

And in verse 15 he repeats his expectation that if the Jews rejection of Jesus brought salvation for the rest of the world then imagine what their acceptance of Jesus will mean.

 

Paul clearly posits a future that is far different than what we see now.

 

Now, as I said earlier, Paul’s explanation of what God is doing now with the Jews also comes with a warning.

Paul’s whole metaphor of an olive tree’s root and branches, in verses 16-22, is meant to warn Gentiles.

 

It is very tempting to Gentile Christians to write off the Jews as a lost cause.

Even worse, as we have seen through the ages, is the idea that the Jews are somehow the enemies of God.

 

Anti-Semitism was not reserved to the Russians or the Nazis.

It is alive and well, even today, and even among Christians.

One Jewish writer captured it well when, picking up on the earlier doggerel I mentioned, wrote,

How odd of God

To choose the Jews.

But not so odd

As those who choose

The Jewish God

And hate the Jews.

Cecil Browne

Christians must not think the church is theirs, in some way exclusive of Jews.

 

To use Paul’s metaphor, there is only one olive tree, one way for being rightly related to God – that is by grace.

 

In the OT, Judaism was God’s means of bringing his salvation to the world.

A right relationship with God in the OT for Jew or Gentile was only by God’s grace through the law and sacrifices of Israel (which pointed forward to the Messiah).

That means a Gentile in the OT had to become a convert to true Judaism to be part of the people of God.

 

In the NT the church, through the Messiah Jesus, is God’s means of bringing salvation to the world.

A right relationship with God in the NT for Jew or Gentile is only by God’s grace through the fulfilled law and sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah.

That means to be part of the people of God today, anyone, Jew or Gentile, must become a convert to Christ, a part of the body of Christ, the church.

 

Whether Jew or Gentile, whether OT or NT, we only have a relationship with God by God’s grace through faith in God’s revealed provision.

Jew or Gentile we are recipients of unmerited favor.

Neither is superior to the other!

 

Furthermore the warning is not only to not act superior to the Jews, but to also remember that if we don’t persevere in faith, we too can be cut off.

In verse 22 Paul writes, “Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.”

 

Those who believe in what they call “eternal security” don’t like this verse and attempt to explain it away.

But here Paul gives no comfort to the idea that a carnal Christian is still “saved and safe.”

 

Very difficult for me are funerals where a loving relative says, “I know that Johnny didn’t give any evidence of being a Christian but when he was 5 he asked Jesus into his heart, so I know he’s in heaven.”

That is not the teaching of the Bible or of this passage.

 

The Bible is consistent in teaching that those who trust in Christ do persevere in trust and obedience otherwise it is clear they never truly turned to Christ. 

 

I believe Paul is warning not to assume that just because you are not a Jew and you are a part of a church, that you are somehow okay.

Don’t make the same mistake the Jews made.

 

But now in verse 24 Paul says, there is coming a day when it won’t be harder for Jews to become Christ-followers, but actually easier. 

Exactly how it will easier, is not explained. 

The point I think is simply that we shouldn’t assume that the Jews are counted out, but to the contrary, understand that God will do something with the Jews in the future that is very different from what we see now.

 

Then we come to the climax of Paul’s explanation that God has not failed the Jews.

Listen to these unexpected words:

Romans 11:25-27 “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.    26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.               27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”    

 

Paul consistently uses the word “mystery” to mean not something mysterious but something previously unknowable but now revealed.

 

And what God is now revealing is that a day is coming when the Jews will turn to Jesus in such great numbers, that Paul could say, “all Israel will be saved.”

Don’t get hung up on the word “all” and force it to mean every single Jew. 

Both in the Bible (E.g. Matthew 4:24) and in common usage among all peoples, the word “all” often means simply the great majority.

A recent news report could well have said, “All Pakistan mourned the death of former Prime Minister Bhutto”

 

In contrast to the few Jews who are now being saved, in the future, masses of Jews will turn to Jesus.  “All Israel will be saved!”

 

When will this take place?

The end of verse 25 reads, “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.”

 

Jesus spoke of this same time when he said,

Luke 21:23b-24 “There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. 24 They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”

 

When Jesus speaks of “the times of the Gentiles being fulfilled” and Paul speaks of “the full number of Gentiles coming in,” they have in mind the same phenomenon.

 

Both are describing a future time and Jesus puts it in the context of his 2nd Coming.

And during that time, after the great number of Gentiles are saved, those who are part of ethnic Israel, the Jews, will turn to Jesus in great number.

 

Some Bible students who hold to a Covenant theology say that these verses have nothing to do with Jews specifically, but Paul is simply using biblical language to describe the new Israel – the church.

 

But I think there are good reasons to believe that Paul is here talking about Israel as an ethnic group, that particular people descended from Abraham and Jacob.

One reason is that every usage of the word “Israel” in this passage is referring to ethnic Israel, not to the church as the new Israel.

And the whole point of the passage is to show the place of ethnic Israel in God’s plans. 

 

Paul’s greatest concern in chapters 9-11 has been to say that God’s promises to Israel, to the Jews, have not failed.

Surely to now equate Israel with the church would be to destroy Paul’s argument.

 

I think Paul makes it even clearer that he is talking about ethnic Israel, the Jews, when he writes in verses 28-29:

Romans 11:28-29 “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, 29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.”

 

As Paul explained earlier, it was when the Jews were enemies of the gospel that the Gentiles were brought into the family of God.

But, to Paul’s immediate point about Israel, he says you must understand that when God elects or calls a people he doesn’t go back on his word.

God promised the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) that their descendants would be God’s people, in numbers greater than the stars of the sky or the sand of the sea.

“And so all Israel will be saved.”

 

But I must also add, some Bible students, who hold to Dispensational theology, think these verses were partially fulfilled with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. 

I don’t think Paul is describing either a national/political Israel or a religious Israel with a reinstituted sacrificial system, but he is simply describing the Jews as those physical descendants of Abraham and Jacob.

And now, and in the future that Paul describes, Jews will become part of the true people of God in the same way that anyone comes, by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.

But come to Christ they will, and in great number.

 

No, Paul say, for all the reasons he has given us in chapters 9 through 11, God’s word has not failed the Jews and it will not fail the Jews.

AND he has not and will not fail you.

 

What I want you to leave with is a confidence and an expectation.

 

Listen to what Paul wrote just a few verses earlier:

Romans 11:12 “But if their (the Jews) transgression means riches for the world (you Gentiles), and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!”

 

The great coming-to-Christ of the Jews in the future will mean even “greater riches.”

I think Paul has already defined the “riches” in terms of multitudes coming to faith and becoming part of the people of God.

So the promise here is that even as the Jews come to faith in great numbers, in the future, so more and more Gentiles will come to faith.

 

This idea is not the one we usually have of only a few out of the entire world being part of God’s forever family.

 

No, the future described here is of a massive turning to Jesus in the end.

It is also what we see in Revelation 5:12-13 “In a loud voice they sang: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”    13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

 

The work that God began in Abraham and through Jacob and Moses and David and Isaiah and through Jesus Christ and the Apostles, he continues to this very day.

And there is a day coming when his plan will result in, not a river of people coming to faith, but a veritable flood.

 

God has never failed to keep his word and he will not fail you.

 

“Nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

Is it any wonder that Paul ends with this outburst of praise?

 

33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

 

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Additional Notes:

 

 I think the late James Boice captured well the teaching of Romans 9-11 in these few statements:

 

“God’s historical purposes have not failed because all whom God has elected to salvation are or will be saved. (Romans 9:6-24)

God’s purposes have not failed, because God had previously revealed that not all Israel would be saved and that some Gentile would be. (Romans 9:25-29)

God’s purposes have not failed, because the unbelief of the Jews was their own responsibility, not God’s. (Romans 9:30-10:21)

God has not failed because some Jews (Paul himself was an example) have believed and have been saved. (Romans 11:1)

God has not failed because it has always been the case that not all Jews but only a remnant has been saved. Romans 11:2-10)

God’s plan has not failed, because the salvation of the Gentiles, which is now occurring, is meant to arouse Israel to envy and thus be the means of saving some of them. (Romans 11:11-24)

Finally, God’s historical purposes toward the Jewish nation have not failed, because in the end all Israel will be saved, and thus God will be seen to have honored his promises toward Israel nationally. (Romans 11:25-32).”  From Boice, Romans, 1368

 

 

As to the future ethnic Israel see:

Chapter 2 “What About Israel” in G.E. Ladd’s The Last Things.

 

 

 

“Historic” Premillennialism is distinguished from “Dispensational” Premillennialism.

 

Historic Pre-Millennialism

http://gospelpedlar.com/articles/Last%20Things/hispremil.html

 

Alexander Reese

 

 

Until the second quarter of the nineteenth century general agreement existed among pre-millennial advocates of our Lord's Coming concerning the main outlines of the prophetic future: amidst differences of opinion on the interpretation of the Apocalypse and other portions of Scripture, the following scheme stood out as fairly representative of the school

(I) The approaching Advent of Christ to this world will be visible, personal, and glorious.

(2) This Advent, though in itself a single crisis, will be accompanied and followed by a variety of phenomena bearing upon the history of the Church, of Israel, and the world. Believers who survive till the Advent will be transfigured and translated to meet the approaching Lord, together with the saints raised and changed at the first resurrection. Immediately following this Antichrist and his allies will be slain, and Israel, the covenant people, will repent and be saved, by looking upon Him whom they pierced.

(3) Thereupon the Messianic Kingdom of prophecy, which, as the Apocalypse informs us, will last for a thousand years, will be established in power and great glory in a transfigured world. The nations will turn to God, war and oppression cease, and righteousness and peace cover the earth.

(4) At the conclusion of the kingly rule of Christ and His saints, the rest of the dead will be raised, the Last Judgement ensue, and a new and eternal world be created.

(5) No distinction was made between the Coming of our Lord, and His Appearing, Revelation, and Day, because these were all held to be synonymous, or at least related, terms, signifying always the one Advent in glory at the beginning of the Messianic Kingdom.

(6) Whilst the Coming of Christ, no matter how long the present dispensation may last, is the true and proper hope of the Church in every generation, it is nevertheless conditioned by the prior fulfillment of certain signs or events in the history of the Kingdom of God: the Gospel has first to be preached to all nations; the Apostasy and the Man of Sin be revealed, and the Great Tribulation come to pass. Then shall the Lord come.

(7) The Church of Christ will not be removed from the earth until the Advent of Christ at the very end of the present Age: the Rapture and the Appearing take place at the same crisis; hence Christians of that generation will be exposed to the final affliction under Antichrist.

Such is a fair statement of the fundamentals of Premillennialism as it has obtained since the close of the Apostolic Age. There have been differences of opinion on details and subsidiary points, but the main outline is as I have given it.

These views were held in the main by Irenaeus, the "grand-pupil" of the Apostle John, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and the primitive Christians generally until the rise of the Catholic, political Church in the West, and of allegorical exegesis at Alexandria (Harnack).

The Approaching Advent Of Christ. Alexander Reese. Grand Rapids International Publications, 1975. Pages 17-18. Reprinted from Marshall, Morgan and Scott edition 1937.

For many more articles on “Historic Premillennialism go to :  http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Eschatology/Historic-Premillennialism/

 

 

Election of two kinds:

Personal Election:  Spoken of throughout Romans 9-10.

Corporate Election: The main topic of Romans 11 although references to personal election are included.  Paul is an example of personal election, as are the remnant in Paul’s day. But Israel as a people, an ethnic group, is still being used by God to accomplish his purposes without it meaning that every one of the Jews is personally chosen by God.

An illustration of blessing on the unsaved because of the saved:  Unsaved Brits and unsaved Americans have been part of blessed people even though they personally have not responded to Christ.

God can choose to bless an entire people even though not all are Christians. Likewise God chose to bless Israel even though many of them were not following him.  Much of the OT testament is testimony to that phenomenon. 

 

 

OT Texts that probably refer to this future for Israel:

 

Hosea 1:10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

 

Zechariah wrote following the restoration of Israel after the Babylon captivity and thus could not have been predicting that event:

 

Zechariah 12:1-9 On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume right and left all the surrounding peoples, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place.

7 “The LORD will save the dwellings of Judah first, so that the honor of the house of David and of Jerusalem’s inhabitants may not be greater than that of Judah. 

8 On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the LORD going before them. 

9 On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.

 

Zechariah 12:10“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

 

Zechariah 13:1 ““On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.

 

Nothing like this has ever happened yet – it is future.

 

 

See Charles Hodge’s arguments for a future restoration for ethnic Israel in Romans, 333-334. (not printed here)

 

John Piper on why he believes the Israel of this passage is ethnic Israel and not just the church: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/10/164_All_Israel_Will_Be_Saved/

1. I think the term “Israel” in verse 25 and 26 most naturally refer to the same thing.

Verse 25: “Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel. . . .” That must refer to the nation as a whole from generation to generation. He continues, “. . . until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved.” I don't think the meaning of Israel changes between verse 25 and 26. The hardened Israel (the nation as a whole) will be the saved Israel (the nation as a whole).

2. The reference in verse 26 to banishing ungodliness from Jacob fits with the national view of “all Israel.”

Verse 26: “And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.'” This seems most naturally to be a picture of Christ's return at the second coming, and banishing ungodliness from Jacob refers most naturally to the removal of the hardening referred to in verse 25. “Jacob” is not a natural or typical reference to the elect remnant of Israel. The hardening lasts until the full number of the Gentiles comes in (the climax of world missions), and then Christ comes and lifts the veil and removes the hardening—he banishes ungodliness from Jacob, from “all Israel.”

3. The parallel between the two halves of verse 28 point to all Israel as the nation as a whole.

Verse 28: “As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake.” Now that half of the verse surely refers to the nation as a whole—they are enemies of God. So the second half of the verse surely refers to the nation as a whole as well: “But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.” The point of this verse is to show that even though Israel now is a covenant-breaking, unbelieving nation, that is going to change. The nation that are enemies now, will be converted later because of election and love.

4. The parallels in verse 12 point in the same direction.

Verse 12: “Now if their [the Jewish nation's] trespass means riches for the world [salvation for the Gentiles], and if their [the Jewish nation's] failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion!” Here “their full inclusion” most naturally refers to the same nation as “their trespass” and “their failure.” So “their full inclusion” refers to the salvation of “all Israel” and is national.

5. The same thing is true about the parallels in verse 15.

“For if their [Jewish nation's] rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their [Jewish nation's] acceptance mean but life from the dead?” The nation now rejected will be accepted. So the “acceptance” of the Jewish nation most naturally refers to the salvation of “all Israel”—the salvation of the nation as a whole some day.

“Now how is this going to happen? I don't know the details, but it seems to me that Paul does mean that in connection with the second coming of Christ there will be a great turning of Israel to Christ. Just how it works, I don't know. But I find certain prophecies very suggestive. For example, Zechariah 12:10, “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” And Isaiah 6:8, “Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children.” And Matthew 23:39, where Jesus says to the hardened nation: “I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

I don't want to go beyond what is clear. So I say that I am not sure about the precise when and how of Israel's conversion. But that it is coming and that it will be given by Jesus Christ, the deliverer who banishes ungodliness and forgives sins—of that I feel sure.

 

 

Differing Views on the teaching of Romans 11

Pastor Duncan of the Jackson, MS PCA church:

“Those of you who are students of the Bible will know that these verses are the occasion of much debate and discussion and disagreement in the Christian church. More than one phrase in this passage has provoked rigorous analysis. The phrase for instance, all Israel will be saved, what does it mean? There are some that believe that phrase means that one day the nation of Israel itself will be re-instituted and every member thereof will be a believer in God through Jesus Christ. Others believe that that phrase, all Israel will be saved, refers to a future generation when before the end, God will bring a tremendous influx of the Jewish people into His kingdom believing in Jesus Christ. And it will be, as it were, life from the dead, from the church that will be floundering under persecution and will gain new light from this influx of Jewish believers and Jewish participation in the kingdom of God. Others believe that this verse simply states that God will continue to deal with the people of Israel generation after generation and that once we have gotten to the end of time we will look back and we will see this great cumulative work that God has done amongst His ancient people in all generations. And still others look at this passage and say, ‘Well really, it doesn’t give us any hope at all for Israel in the future. Paul is really just saying that all the church will be saved. Both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians and that this isn’t speaking necessarily to some future for ethnic Israel."  From sermon on Romans 11:23-27 available at “monergism” online.

 

 

 

John Piper from a sermon March 7, 2004

“Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East”

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/10/165_Israel_Palestine_and_the_Middle_East/

 

Romans 11:25-32

Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob"; 27 "and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins." 28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 Just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Today I would like to address the issue of Israel's relation to the “Promised Land” in the Middle East. This is not primarily an expository message from Romans 11, but an effort to draw out implications of Romans 11 and the rest of Scripture for a very vexing problem in the world today. The existence of Israel in the Middle East and the extent of her borders and her sovereignty are perhaps the most explosive factors in world terrorism and the most volatile factors in Arab-Western relations.

The Arab roots and the Jewish roots in this land go back for thousands of years. Both lay claim to the land not merely because of historical presence, but also because of divine right. I won't try to lay out a detailed peace plan. But I will try to lay out some biblical truths that could guide all of us in thinking about peace and justice in that part of the world. What we think about this, and what we say, does matter, since politicians are influenced by their constituents in these religiously super-charged situations. And we need to know how to pray. And we need to know how to talk to others in a way that honors the truth. So for all those reasons, and for the reason that God is very much involved in this situation, we should talk about it in the context of Romans 11.

What we've seen in Romans 11 is that Israel as a whole—that is, as an ethnic, corporate people enduring from generation to generation—has a root in the covenant promises made to Abraham and his descendants. Verse 16b: “If the root is holy so are the branches.” We interpreted that picture in the light of verse 28: “As regards the gospel, they [Israel] are enemies of God for your [Gentile] sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.” The “forefathers” here correspond to the root in verse 16. So the promises to the forefathers imply that some day the whole tree, with all its branches, will be saved.

Some day. Because verse 28 says, for now “they are enemies.” Verse 28a: “As regards the gospel, they [Israel] are enemies of God for your sake.” In other words, they are rejecting their Messiah and thus putting themselves against God. This is what Jesus said to Israel in John 8:42: “If God were your father you would love me.” Jesus is the litmus test whether anybody's religion is worship of the true God. But Israel does not love Jesus as God's son and her Messiah. So they are, for now, “enemies of God.”

So when verse 16 says, “If the root is holy so are the branches,” we take it to mean: “If God chose the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for himself, and set them apart and made to them covenant promises, then someday (after this present time of enmity and hardening are over) their descendants are going to return to God through Jesus Christ, and become God's set-apart, holy people. Unbelief and ungodliness will be banished from Jacob forever (v. 26).

So now we ask, is the so-called “Promised Land” part of the inheritance and salvation that “all Israel” (v. 26) will receive? And if so, what does that say about the rights of Israel today to the Land?

In developing the answer to this question I would like to maintain seven truths which are based on Scripture.

1. God chose Israel from all the peoples of the world to be his own possession.

Deuteronomy 7:6, “ The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

2. The Land was part of the inheritance he promised to Abraham and his descendants forever.

Genesis 15:18, “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.'”

Then in Genesis 17:7-8 God says to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

Then God confirmed the promise to Jacob, Abraham's grandson, in Genesis 28:13, “And behold, the Lord . . . said, ‘I am the Lord , the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring.” And when Jacob was dying he called Joseph to him and said (in Genesis 48:3), “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, 4 and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you and . . . will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.'”

This, of course, creates a huge cleavage between the Islamic view of God's covenant and the Jewish and Christian view of God's covenant. But we believe that this is God's word, confirmed by the Lord Jesus, and so we say, The land is destined to be Israel's land.

But it's not that simple. This is not an issue that can be dealt with in soundbites.

3. The promises made to Abraham, including the promise of the Land, will be inherited as an everlasting gift only by true, spiritual Israel, not disobedient, unbelieving Israel.

This was the point of Romans 9. When Paul grieved over the lostness of so many Jews who were rejecting Jesus and were perishing, he said in verses 6-7, “It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.” In other words, the promises cannot be demanded by anyone just because he is Jewish. Jewish ethnicity has a place in God's plan, but it is not enough to secure anything. It does not in itself qualify a person to be an heir of the promise to Abraham and his offspring. Romans 9:8 says it clearly: “It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” Being born Jewish does not make one an heir of the promise—neither the promise of the Land nor any other promise.

This was plain in the Old Testament, and it was plain the teachings of Jesus (which we will see under truth #4). For example, in the terrible list of curses that God promised to bring on the people if they broke his covenant and forsook him was this: “ And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it” (Deuteronomy 28:63). Throughout the history of Israel, covenant breaking and disobedience and idolatry disqualified Israel from the present divine right to the Land. (See also Daniel 9:4-7; Psalm 78:54-61.)

Be careful not to infer from this that Gentile nations (like Arabs) have the right to molest Israel. God's judgments on Israel do not sanction human sin against Israel. Israel still has human rights among nations even when she forfeits her present divine right to the Land. Remember that nations which gloated over her divine discipline were punished by God (Isaiah 10:5-13; Joel 3:2).

So the promise to Abraham that his descendants will inherit the Land does not mean that all Jews inherit that promise. It will come finally to the true Israel, the Israel that keeps covenant and obeys her God.

4. Jesus Christ has come into the world as the Jewish Messiah, and his own people rejected him and broke covenant with their God.

When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ [that is, the Jewish Messiah], the Son of the living God.” And Jesus responded to him, “ Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:16-17). And when the high priest asked Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus answered, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61-62).

But even though Jesus was the Messiah and did many mighty works and taught with great authority and fulfilled Old Testament promises, nevertheless the people of Israel as a whole rejected him. This was the most serious covenant-breaking disobedience that Israel had ever committed in all her history.

This is why Jesus told the parable of the tenants who killed the Landlord's son when he came for his harvest, and ended that parable with these words to Israel in Matthew 21:43, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” And it's why he said in Matthew 8:11-12, after seeing the faith of a Gentile centurion and the unbelief of Israel, “Many [Gentiles] will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Israel has broken covenant with her God and is living today in disobedience and unbelief in his Son and her Messiah. That is why Paul says in Romans 11:28, “As regards the gospel [the good news of the Messiah] they are enemies of God.”

5. Therefore, the secular state of Israel today may not claim a present divine right to the Land, but they and we should seek a peaceful settlement not based on present divine rights, but on international principles of justice, mercy, and practical feasibility.

This follows from all we have said so far, and the implication it has for those of us who believe the Bible and trust Christ as our Savior and as the Lord of history, is that we should not give blanket approval to Jewish or to Palestinian actions. We should approve or denounce according to Biblical standards of justice and mercy among peoples. We should encourage our representatives to seek a just settlement that takes the historical and social claims of both peoples into account. Neither should be allowed to sway the judgments of justice by a present divine claim to the land. If you believe this, it would be helpful for your representatives to know it.

We are not whitewashing terrorism and we are not whitewashing Jewish force. Nor is there any attempt on my part to assess measures of blame or moral equivalence. That's not my aim. My aim is to put the debate on a balanced footing in this sense: neither side should preempt the claims of international justice by the claim of present divine rights. Working out what that justice will look like is still a huge and daunting task. I have not solved that problem. But I think we will make better progress if we do not yield to the claim of either side to be ethnically or nationally sanctioned by God in their present conflict.

6. By faith in Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, Gentiles become heirs of the promise of Abraham, including the promise of the Land.

In the words of Romans 11:17, “You [Gentile], although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree”—that is, they become part of the redeemed covenant people who share the faith of Abraham. The reason, as Paul put in Romans 4:13, is that “the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” So all who are united to Christ, Abraham's Offspring, by faith are part of the covenant made with him and his offspring.

Here's the most sweeping statement of this truth— Ephesians 2:12, “Remember that you [Gentiles] were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. . . . So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”

Therefore Jewish believers in Jesus and Gentile believers will inherit the Land. And the easiest way to see this is to see that we will inherit the world which includes the Land. Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians will not quibble over the real estate of the Promised Land because the entire new heavens and the new earth will be ours. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, “All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.” All followers of Christ, and only followers of Christ, will inherit the earth, including the Land.

7. Finally, this inheritance of Christ's people will happen at the second coming of Christ to establish his kingdom, not before; and till then, we Christians must not take up arms to claim our inheritance; but rather lay down our lives to share our inheritance with as many as we can.

You recall that all-important word that Jesus spoke to Pilate in John 18:36: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Christians do not take up the sword to advance the kingdom of Christ. We wait for a king from heaven who will deliver us by his mighty power. And in that great day Jew and Gentile who have treasured Christ will receive what was promised. There will be a great reversal: the last will be first, and the meek—in fellowship with the Lamb of God—will inherit the Land.

Therefore, come to the meek and lowly Christ while there is time, and receive forgiveness of sins, and the hope of glory.