This morning in our RMM readings we read Paul’s wrestling with the troubling matter of the general rejection of the Gospel by the vast majority of Jewish people in his (and our) time. We can understand Paul’s interest and anxiety – after all, he was Jewish and he felt a natural affinity and affection for the Jewish people. However, even Gentiles like most of us reading the New Testament today have a sense of wonder and concern at the troubling reality that those who should have been best prepared to recognize Jesus as the long promised Saviour and Redeemer of Israel generally failed to do so. Why is that?
Why is it that the very people who lined up festival after festival with their little lambs in tow should be the last to recognize “the lamb who takes away the sin of the world?”
Why is it that the very people who were led out of slavery, through the waters, behind their mediator and into freedom should be the last ones to see the salvation of God through the person and work of Jesus Christ? Why is that the people who went into exile and then were miraculously delivered and returned to their natural home should be the last ones to see that it is only in Jesus and only through the Gospel that we are ever finally and ultimately brought home?
Paul could have been staggered by that – indeed he recognizes the challenge that this strange state of affaires presents to the claims of the Christian Gospel – but instead he wrestles with it from a position of faith. There is much to learn from how he resolved this difficult tension.
There are a number of Christians today who seem to want to by-pass Paul’s struggle. They settle for easier and more palatable solutions. Some seem to think that there is no conflict whatsoever. Jews will be saved one way, Christians will be saved another. Therefore it is hardly cause for concern that so few Jews have decided to “get on board the Jesus train”, so to speak. They already have suitable passage to the Promised Land by means of the Old Covenant. Some of the “Hebrew Roots” and radical Dispensational devotees seem to come perilously close to this sort of distinctly unchristian thinking. Others, at the opposite end of the spectrum, seem to be dangerously and culpably unconcerned with the present state of the Jewish people. “The Jews are reaping what they have sown. They crucified Jesus and now they have to live with the consequences of that decision”. That sort of sloppy thinking, bordering on anti-Semitism , has sadly been all too common at the fringes of the Christian movement. Paul rejects both of those unhelpful extremes. Instead he tells the truth about how Israel stands presently with respect to the Gospel and he rejoices in what he sees as the great hope and future prospect of his people. His observations provide helpful counsel for those of us wondering how to understand the present state of Israel and how to pray for the conversion of the Jewish people. These verses also contain a warning for the very privileged and increasingly entitled Evangelical church in North America.
Paul offers an honest and plain assessment of where Israel presently stands with respect to the Gospel:
30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone (Romans 9:30–32 ESV)
Israel Is Lost
Paul says that Israel has rejected the Gospel because they were offended at the suggestion that they needed to be saved. People of privilege have never enjoyed being told that they are sinners in need of salvation. That is why so many people today want to present the Gospel without first telling people that they are sinners. But the grace of God makes no sense unless we first confront the reality of God and the reality of human sinfulness. The Jews of Paul’s day wanted grace without guilt. In fact Stephen Westerholm, the New Testament scholar making a name for himself critiquing the so called “New Perspective on Paul” has wrote that the chief point of departure between the Apostle Paul and the Judaism of his day was the seriousness with which Paul viewed the sinfulness of sin. E.P. Sanders has correctly noted that in the Judaism of the time, grace and merit were not seen as incompatible. The Jews did not think of themselves as sinners in need of a Saviour. They saw themselves as people in need of deliverance – but they saw the enemy as external – Rome – Paul saw it as internal – sin. That was the point of departure and Paul understood that he had not won over the bulk of his countrymen to this Gospel conviction. Most Jews of his day did not know that they were lost and there is no one so lost as the person who does not know it.
But while this reflection is focused on Paul’s perspective in Romans 11, we should notice that Paul’s perspective was not entirely unique. It may not have been the majority view of his countrymen, but it was the unanimous view of the Apostles. When a Jewish audience under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and having heard the Gospel message asked Peter what they needed to do to be saved, Peter did not pull any punches:
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38 ESV)
That is the Gospel and the Jews in Paul’s day – most of them - were offended by it and so the grace of God passed them by and they were lost. They were lost and therefore, Paul says:
Israel needs the Gospel!
Paul’s response to their initial rejection of the Gospel is not to hate them, it is not to get angry at them, it is to be concerned for them and to be motivated to keep bringing them the Gospel. The Jews now, having rejected Christ, were in Paul’s mind, in the same place that all lost people are in: they are people in need of the Gospel! In 10:12 he says:
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:12–13 ESV)
This may sound obvious but in fact it is not. The Apostle Paul looked at Israel in rejection of Christ and said: “These people need the Gospel!” but many Christians today do not come to that same conclusion. Some people today, even so called Evangelical Christians look at the Jewish people and say: “We Gentiles need the Gospel but the Jews can be saved by keeping the covenant that God gave to them.” Some in the hyper-dispensational crowd see such a distinction between Israel and the church that they also see two ways of salvation; one for Jews and one for Gentiles but Paul sees no such distinction. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is over all and whoever calls on the name of that Lord shall be saved. Let me be very clear. If a Polish person wants to get saved, they better look to Jesus. If an Italian person wants to get saved, they better look to Jesus. Not the Pope mind you, but JESUS! If an Egyptian person wants to get saved, they better look to Jesus. And if a Jewish person wants to get saved THEY BETTER LOOK TO JESUS. For there is no other name on heaven or on the earth by which men may be saved. Period. As in Paul’s do, so in ours.
According to the Apostle Paul Israel’s problem is urgent but it is not unique. The solution to this problem is simple:
Israel needs Gospel preaching from the Word of God
Paul says in Romans 10:14ff:
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:14–17 ESV)
I love that Paul does not conceive of a special solution for this special problem. No! He says, “this problem of lostness will be solved the same way every other problem of lostness will be solved. We will trust the word of God to do the work of God as ever we were called to do.” Would that the modern day church had the same unchanging game plan! Every time we see a new problem we invent a new solution. Every time we meet a lost person with a unique story we invent a new Gospel. Every time culture changes we invent new models for doing church in response. Paul says: NO!!! Gospel preaching from the Bible is still the answer. I bet you that sounded dumb in his day. I know it sounds dumb in our day. Do you know how many times people have told me that you can’t get people today, whose brains have been all mushed by T.V. and video games to come and listen to a sermon where one guy talks and reads from an old book while everyone else sits quiet and listens? Do you know how many times I’ve been told that? And yet the longer our sermons have become, the more our church has grown. Why is that? Because the Word of God does GOSPEL WORK in the hearts of lost men and women and that’s been happening for a very long time.
The Apostle Paul says, “the present state of Israel is that they are lost. The solution is Gospel preaching from the word of God.” Amen. He turns his attention now to Israel’s future.
The first thing he says is that:
Israel’s temporary blindness with respect to the Gospel serves the end of evangelism among the Gentiles
Consider Romans 11:25:
I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:25 ESV)
When Paul uses the word mystery he uses it in a different way than we use it. We use it to talk about things that are hidden that need to be ferreted out – like a murder mystery. Bible writers use ‘mystery’ to talk about things that are there in plain sight but that require Holy Spirit illumination to understand. Paul is saying that what seems confusing to you is actually clear in the Word of God. The remnant of the old is always the nucleus of the new. That was the case in the OT; a remnant of Israel went into exile in Babylon and later came back under Ezra and Nehemiah to form the reborn people of God. So here, Paul says! The remnant of the old Israel has indeed been saved, the small inside the large, and it is this remnant that has been the nucleus of the new community of God that has grown to encompass people from diverse tribes, tongues and nations. It will keep growing until Gentiles from every tribe, tongue and nation are brought to it.
This by the way is not the unique hope of Paul, it is also the vision of the Apostle John:
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9–10 ESV)
It was verses like these that motivated our grandparents to take the Gospel into every nook and cranny of Africa and Asia. The Bible itself promises that the first cause of God’s election and the secondary agency of Gospel preaching from the Word of God will surely result in people from every tribe, tongue and nation being gathered around the throne of God in eternity singing the praises of the Lamb who was slain. You would have to have been a fool to get on those ships leaving England and New York and Toronto headed for Africa, India and China if these promises were not in the Bible! But they are in the Bible. God has his people everywhere on this earth and we just need to go get them. We just need to let the Word of God do the work of God and we will watch the kingdom of God grow up around us like wheat unto the harvest.
And Paul says, in some way, the darkness of the Jews towards this Gospel, for now, serves that end. He does not say how so. We can guess. It may well be that had the church stayed dominated by Jews it would have been less attractive to Gentiles. They would have always felt like late comers and second class citizens. That may it. You don’t meet a lot of Mexican Hindus do you? Not so much. You don’t meet many Scandinavian born Sikhs. Why is that? Because religions that are associated almost exclusively with one ethnicity tend not to grow beyond that ethnicity. Whatever the reason, Paul says this blindness is only temporary and it has never been total. There have been and always will be a salting of Jews among the Gentiles that make up the Israel of God. Paul says in Romans 11:26:
All Israel will be saved
26 And in this way all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:26 ESV)
What does he mean by that? He is already told us that they are not all Israel who are of Israel (9:6) so what exactly does he mean? There are three main suggestions:
1. He means that the full elect, Jew and Gentile, will all be gathered in according to God’s perfect will.
That was the position of John Calvin and has had a great deal of support throughout Christian history. I haven’t counted, but it appears to me that this has been the majority interpretation for most of our history. Paul has made a full circle. Not all who are of Israel are truly Israel but, in the end all Israel will be saved, meaning, all the elect of God according to the promise will be gathered in, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. God knows those who are his and he will get them all.
2. He means that all the elect from ethnic Israel will be gathered in.
Many scholars throughout the centuries have taught this as well. Paul is thus saying that just as the fullness of the Gentiles will come in – which doesn’t mean every Gentile will be saved, but rather all the elect from among the Gentiles will be saved, so also all the elect from within ethnic Israel will be saved. Many people have taught that too.
The third option seems to have been the hope of some of our Puritan grandparents and may have been the hope cherished by William Carey – the father of modern missions:
3. He means that shortly before the return of Jesus the Jewish people en mass will turn to Christ
The Bible does seem to suggest in other places, namely Zechariah 12 -14 that there will be a great future harvest among the Jewish people and so this may indeed be what Paul is saying here. The point we can all agree on is that whoever it is that gets saved, they all get saved in exactly the same way. The key words in verse 26 are not really “all Israel”, theologically speaking, the key words are “and in this way” which are a translation of the Greek words kai houtos which means “in just such a manner”. The real point is that in just such a manner as the Gentiles will get saved – by hearing the Gospel in the preaching of the Word of God – so too will come the salvation of the Israel of God, however you wish to define that. There is only one way of salvation, for Jews, for Gentiles, for Italians, for Mexicans and for Canadians. We are all equal with respect to the Gospel.
Somewhere between the heretical dualism of the extreme dispensationalists and the judgmental paralysis of the hyper reformed there is a place where we pray, preach, watch and wait for the future conversion of Israel. It is strange to us – remarkably strange – that the people who should have been best positioned to recognize God at work in the person of Jesus Christ have strangely, thus far, not done so. It is strange. It is sad and it is cause for silence before the majesty and the mystery of God’s Providence. Paul found it so:
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33–36 ESV)
God’s ways are higher than our ways. He knows what he is doing. What we should be doing is made clear in the text. We should pray. Pray for a softening in the hearts of Jewish people toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We should preach. Damn the tongues that would soften or silence the Gospel in this present age of need! God is still holy, people are still sinful and grace is still our only hope of salvation! Let the Gospel RING OUT in our pulpits as in days of old. We should watch. It may be that a new openness is coming all over the Middle East to the message of salvation – even in Israel. There may be an opportunity for a strategic injection of resources and people. Watch. And wait. Of course we know that God is Sovereign, even over the hearts of men. God knows the hour and he will not be caught unawares. Pray, preach, watch and wait. As for the Gentiles, so for the Jews.
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
SDG
Paul Carter