The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, in the eleventh chapter, is dealing with the question of whether or not God has rejected Israel. He opened up this chapter with this question: “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has he?” This question is of utmost importance because if God has made specific promises to this nation that He is not going to keep then the trustworthiness of God is on the line. If God cannot be trusted to keep His promises to Israel, then logic would dictate He cannot be trusted to keep any of His promises. This would mean that His promise, whoever believes in Christ will not be disappointed, cannot be trusted. This would mean that His promise that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, cannot be trusted. This would mean that God is not to be trusted.
However, we know that God keeps His promises and that it is impossible for God to lie. We as God’s people are fully assured that what God has promised, He is also able to perform. There are those who say that God has forever rejected Israel because of Israel’s rejection of Christ. However, I want to be quick to point out that those who believe that God has rejected Israel and is through with the nation do not believe that God doesn’t keep His promises. On the contrary, they believe that He does keep His promises but that His promises to Israel were conditional promises and not unconditional. But as is plain from Romans chapter eleven, God has not rejected Israel and therefore He has not violated His promise to the nation which we believe to be an unconditional promise given at first to Abraham and then to Isaac and then to Jacob whom God changed his name to Israel.
In Romans 11:1-10, Paul gave three proofs that God that God has not rejected Israel and therefore has not violated His promise. First, Paul pointed to himself as a saved Israelite whom God has not rejected (Romans 11:1). Second, Paul pointed to Israel’s past during a time of great apostasy in Elijah’s day to show that God had not rejected His people but had a remnant (Romans 11:2-4). Third, Paul pointed to the truth that a present remnant had received grace while the majority was hardened (Romans 11:5-10).
We have already considered Paul is proof that God’s rejection of Israel is only partial (Romans 11:1). Now we will consider Romans 11:2-4.
The remnant of Elijah’s day is proof that God’s rejection of Israel is only partial (Romans 11:2-4). The story of Elijah is of great importance to establishing this truth that God’s rejection of Israel is only partial. If there had ever been a time in the history of the Israel that God should have outright rejected them, this was one of them. It was a time of widespread apostasy. This was during the reign of Ahab, the King of the ten northern tribes known as Israel. Ahab’s wife was Jezebel, a priestess of Baal, who, with her prophets of Baal, led seemingly the entire nation into apostasy and idolatry.
Baal was a false heathen god who was believed to be in control of the weather. He was the lord of Canaanite religion and seen in the thunderstorms. Baal was worshiped as a great god who provided fertility. It was in the middle of this apostasy and idolatry that Elijah prayed to the Lord that it would not rain for three and a half years at the end of which he would pray again for it to rain. This drought set the stage for the showdown between Elijah, God’s true prophet, and Jezebel’s prophets of Baal, to show the nation whether the Lord or Baal is God (1 Kings 18:20-46).
After Elijah’s great victory over the prophets of Baal, he expected that the nation would turn from its apostasy and come back to the Lord. Instead, Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and she sent him a death threat that made him realize that not only had the people not turned to the Lord, the King and Queen had not turned to the Lord either.
Elijah fled for his life, becoming despondent and depressed because he believed that he was the only faithful Israelite left in the land. This brought about Elijah’s pleading with God against Israel – “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life” (Romans 11:3; 1 Kings 19:10).
Surely God had rejected Israel and failed to keep His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. At least this is how it appeared but this wasn’t how things really were. As Paul put it, “But what is the divine response to him? ‘I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal’” (Romans 11:4; 1 Kings 19:18).
The divine response to Elijah was that God had preserved a believing remnant in Israel. This is important because this shows that God’s rejection of Israel is only partial. If God were going to reject the nation He would not preserve or keep for Himself a remnant.
Paul is proof that God’s rejection of Israel is only partial. Elijah and the remnant of 7000 are proof that God’s rejection of Israel is only partial. God has not failed to remain true to His covenant with Abraham. God’s rejection of Israel is only partial because God is a promise keeping God.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
God Has Not Rejected Israel: Paul is Proof (Romans 11:1)
Most people who know anything about the Bible know that God has made certain promises to certain people in the past. We know these promises as covenants. Most Christians are particularly familiar with what we call the Abrahamic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant. To Abraham God promised a Son who would be the redeemer of the world and He promised Abraham the land from the river of Egypt as far as the Euphrates. When God made this promise to Abraham He did it through the ritual of a covenant. God had Abraham cut certain animals in half and make a path in between the pieces by laying the halves opposite each other with a space in between. God then passed in between these animals cut in half and swore to Abraham that He would bring about what He promised (Genesis 15:7-18).
Abraham did not pass in between the animals cut in half, only God did. This means that God’s promise to Abraham was unconditional. In other words, there were no conditions that Abraham would have to meet for the promise to come about. God was making a promise to Abraham without Abraham having to make a promise of some sort back to God. This was not God saying to Abraham, “I’ll do this...if you do that.” That is a conditional promise. This was an unconditional promise – no strings attached.
God’s passing through the animals cut in half was an ancient Near East custom. The one making the promise passed between the slain animals and was in essence saying, “May the same thing happen to me that happened to these animals if I don’t keep my promise.”
God also made a promise to King David which we call the Davidic Covenant. In that covenant God promised David that one from his lineage would rule forever over God’s kingdom. Of course we know that God was speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God keeps His promises. We as God’s people are to be fully assured that what God has promised, He is also able to perform. The author of the letter to the Hebrews appealed to the trustworthiness of God to encourage them to remain steadfast in the face of persecution and opposition. “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.’ And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:13-18).
There are those who say that God has forever rejected Israel because of their rejection of Christ. Paul takes up this subject in this chapter. Here we see that the trustworthiness of God is on the line. Can we trust God to keep His promises – especially if He hasn’t kept His promise to Israel?
In Romans 11:1-10, the apostle Paul gave three proofs that God hasn’t rejected Israel and therefore hasn’t violated His promise. First, Paul points to himself as a saved Israelite whom God has not rejected (Romans 11:1). Second, Paul points to Israel’s past during the time of great apostasy in Elijah’s day to show that God had not rejected His people but had a remnant (Romans 11:2-4). Third, Paul points to the truth that a present remnant received grace while the majority was hardened (Romans 11:5-10). Paul uses these proofs to show that the setting aside of Israel was only partial because God keeps His promises.
Paul is proof that God’s rejection of Israel is only partial (Romans 11:1). In Romans 11:1 Paul asks a rhetorical question. That is a question that isn’t seeking an answer but making a statement. Paul emphatically states that there is no way that God has rejected His people. He uses the strongest negative in the Greek language to make his point – “May it never be!” In other words, “God forbid” or “perish the thought.” For God to reject His people would be for God to be untrue to His promises to them.
Now I want to point out in a hurry that God is under no obligation to keep misinterpreted promises. Just as in Romans 9:6-13, Paul explained that the Jews had misinterpreted God’s promise to Abraham as wholesale for all of Abraham’s descendants – it wasn’t for all his descendants as Paul proved from Scripture – it is possible to misinterpret His promises and believe that He has failed to keep His word.
How does Paul prove that God has not rejected His people and gone back on His Word? First of all, Paul points to the evidence that he too is an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. The logic is that if God has rejected His people then He would have also rejected the apostle Paul.
Were there any reasons that God would have rejected Paul? Well sure! We remember Paul’s past. He was no different than any other Israelite. He was seeking to establish a righteousness of his own through the Law as a Pharisee. He was depending upon his heritage as a descendant of Abraham. He was especially proud of the fact that he was of the tribe of Benjamin which was also the tribe from which the first king of Israel, Saul, came from. At first he rejected Christ and his witnesses. He persecuted the church. However, God saved him by grace and did not reject him.
The Jews had failed God. Paul had failed God. But God did not fail to remain true to his covenant with Abraham which was not a covenant that promised every single descendant of Abraham would be saved but that God would save some of them based solely on His grace and good pleasure. Those who were of the faith of Abraham are the children of Abraham and these are the heirs to the promises of God.
God’s rejection of Israel was only partial because He is a promise keeping God. Are you fully assured that what God has promised, He is able to perform?
Abraham did not pass in between the animals cut in half, only God did. This means that God’s promise to Abraham was unconditional. In other words, there were no conditions that Abraham would have to meet for the promise to come about. God was making a promise to Abraham without Abraham having to make a promise of some sort back to God. This was not God saying to Abraham, “I’ll do this...if you do that.” That is a conditional promise. This was an unconditional promise – no strings attached.
God’s passing through the animals cut in half was an ancient Near East custom. The one making the promise passed between the slain animals and was in essence saying, “May the same thing happen to me that happened to these animals if I don’t keep my promise.”
God also made a promise to King David which we call the Davidic Covenant. In that covenant God promised David that one from his lineage would rule forever over God’s kingdom. Of course we know that God was speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God keeps His promises. We as God’s people are to be fully assured that what God has promised, He is also able to perform. The author of the letter to the Hebrews appealed to the trustworthiness of God to encourage them to remain steadfast in the face of persecution and opposition. “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.’ And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:13-18).
There are those who say that God has forever rejected Israel because of their rejection of Christ. Paul takes up this subject in this chapter. Here we see that the trustworthiness of God is on the line. Can we trust God to keep His promises – especially if He hasn’t kept His promise to Israel?
In Romans 11:1-10, the apostle Paul gave three proofs that God hasn’t rejected Israel and therefore hasn’t violated His promise. First, Paul points to himself as a saved Israelite whom God has not rejected (Romans 11:1). Second, Paul points to Israel’s past during the time of great apostasy in Elijah’s day to show that God had not rejected His people but had a remnant (Romans 11:2-4). Third, Paul points to the truth that a present remnant received grace while the majority was hardened (Romans 11:5-10). Paul uses these proofs to show that the setting aside of Israel was only partial because God keeps His promises.
Paul is proof that God’s rejection of Israel is only partial (Romans 11:1). In Romans 11:1 Paul asks a rhetorical question. That is a question that isn’t seeking an answer but making a statement. Paul emphatically states that there is no way that God has rejected His people. He uses the strongest negative in the Greek language to make his point – “May it never be!” In other words, “God forbid” or “perish the thought.” For God to reject His people would be for God to be untrue to His promises to them.
Now I want to point out in a hurry that God is under no obligation to keep misinterpreted promises. Just as in Romans 9:6-13, Paul explained that the Jews had misinterpreted God’s promise to Abraham as wholesale for all of Abraham’s descendants – it wasn’t for all his descendants as Paul proved from Scripture – it is possible to misinterpret His promises and believe that He has failed to keep His word.
How does Paul prove that God has not rejected His people and gone back on His Word? First of all, Paul points to the evidence that he too is an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. The logic is that if God has rejected His people then He would have also rejected the apostle Paul.
Were there any reasons that God would have rejected Paul? Well sure! We remember Paul’s past. He was no different than any other Israelite. He was seeking to establish a righteousness of his own through the Law as a Pharisee. He was depending upon his heritage as a descendant of Abraham. He was especially proud of the fact that he was of the tribe of Benjamin which was also the tribe from which the first king of Israel, Saul, came from. At first he rejected Christ and his witnesses. He persecuted the church. However, God saved him by grace and did not reject him.
The Jews had failed God. Paul had failed God. But God did not fail to remain true to his covenant with Abraham which was not a covenant that promised every single descendant of Abraham would be saved but that God would save some of them based solely on His grace and good pleasure. Those who were of the faith of Abraham are the children of Abraham and these are the heirs to the promises of God.
God’s rejection of Israel was only partial because He is a promise keeping God. Are you fully assured that what God has promised, He is able to perform?
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Israel's Failure to Heed the Gospel (Romans 10:18-21)
I would like to give a quick summary of Romans 9-11 so that we can keep our text in its proper context to better understand what God is saying in this portion of Scripture. These three chapters are dealing primarily with the reasons for Israel’s rejection of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Romans chapter 9 describes Israel’s false hope of salvation by works rather than by grace. As a whole, most Jews believed they were guaranteed God’s favor because of their ancestry and their ability. In essence, they believed God chose Abraham because of Abraham’s ability to please God rather than the truth that God saved Abraham by grace (a truth firmly established in Romans 4). All through Scripture we see the Jews appealing to their ancestry and claiming Abraham as their father. Romans chapter 9 obliterates this false hope of salvation and establishes the truth that salvation is by grace and not by ancestry or ability.
Romans chapter 10 describes Israel’s failure to heed the message of salvation by grace. Since it was true that the majority of the Jews had a false hope of salvation based on their ancestry and ability, their failure to heed the message of salvation by grace was the logical and inevitable outcome. Their false hope of salvation by works led to their failure to heed the message of salvation by grace.
Romans chapter 11 describes Israel’s future salvation by grace after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Chapter 11, while dealing with Israel’s rejection and the good that God would accomplish through it (bringing salvation to the Gentiles), tempers the bad news about Israel’s stubborn disobedience with the good news that God will one day save Israel by grace.
As we conclude chapter 10 we will be considering the truth that Israel’s failure to heed the message about salvation by grace in Christ was predicted in Scripture. Chapter 10 deals with both the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ (God doesn’t save any other way than through faith in Christ) and the inclusiveness of salvation in Christ (it is for anyone who believes, Jew or Gentile). Israel failed to heed both of these aspects of the Gospel message and therefore Christ became a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to them.
Israel failed to heed the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ (10:18). Had they ever heard? Sure they had! Over and over God sent His prophets and they preached of the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ. In Genesis 3, God promised Adam and Eve that He would send an exclusive deliverer through the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head.
When giving the promise to Abraham and his seed, God spoke in the singular and not the plural (Galatians 3:16), speaking of Christ and the exclusiveness of salvation through Him. Moses also stated that God would raise up one exclusive Prophet to whom you shall give heed to everything He says or utterly be destroyed from among the people of God (Deuteronomy 18:15; Acts 3:22-23). God proclaimed through Isaiah about the exclusive Suffering Servant who would pay sin’s penalty for His people.
Instead of trusting in the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ, Israel trusted in ancestry and ability rather than the finished and sufficient work of Christ. The exclusiveness of salvation in Christ was a stumbling stone to the Jews.
Israel failed to heed the inclusiveness of salvation in Christ (10:19-21). They didn’t know that God was going to include the Gentiles did they? Well, Paul gave two Scriptures that Israel failed to heed concerning the truth of the inclusiveness of the Gospel of Christ:
First, what Moses said in Deuteronomy 32:21. Here we see that the Scriptures predicted the inclusion of Gentiles in salvation in order to make Israel jealous (Romans 11:11) so that they might also be saved (Romans 11:14).
Second, what Isaiah is very bold and says in Isaiah 65:1. Here we see that God through Isaiah preached the truth that He was going to include the Gentiles who did not seek Him or ask for Him because salvation is by grace and not by works. The Jews were seeking God through their works but salvation is by grace through faith. Israel thought salvation was exclusive in the sense that they believed it was for them because of their works and not for the Gentiles because they weren’t even trying.
Paul could have given more Scripture showing that Israel should have known about the inclusion of Gentiles because of the predictions of Scripture. Paul said in his letter to the Galatians, “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the nations will be blessed in you’” (Galatians 3:8). The truth that God would include the Gentiles in salvation was reprehensible to the Jews. The inclusiveness of salvation in Christ was a rock of offense to the Jews.
Israel failed to heed God’s offer of salvation (10:21). Immediately after God told Israel through Isaiah 65:1 the truth that He was going to include Gentiles in salvation, He told them the sad truth of their condition in Isaiah 65:2 – “All the day long I have stretched out My hand to a disobedient and obstinate people.”
The apostle Paul, making application with the Scriptures, showed that Israel’s failure to heed the message of the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ and the inclusiveness of salvation in Christ, was predicted in Scripture.
Romans chapter 9 describes Israel’s false hope of salvation by works rather than by grace. As a whole, most Jews believed they were guaranteed God’s favor because of their ancestry and their ability. In essence, they believed God chose Abraham because of Abraham’s ability to please God rather than the truth that God saved Abraham by grace (a truth firmly established in Romans 4). All through Scripture we see the Jews appealing to their ancestry and claiming Abraham as their father. Romans chapter 9 obliterates this false hope of salvation and establishes the truth that salvation is by grace and not by ancestry or ability.
Romans chapter 10 describes Israel’s failure to heed the message of salvation by grace. Since it was true that the majority of the Jews had a false hope of salvation based on their ancestry and ability, their failure to heed the message of salvation by grace was the logical and inevitable outcome. Their false hope of salvation by works led to their failure to heed the message of salvation by grace.
Romans chapter 11 describes Israel’s future salvation by grace after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Chapter 11, while dealing with Israel’s rejection and the good that God would accomplish through it (bringing salvation to the Gentiles), tempers the bad news about Israel’s stubborn disobedience with the good news that God will one day save Israel by grace.
As we conclude chapter 10 we will be considering the truth that Israel’s failure to heed the message about salvation by grace in Christ was predicted in Scripture. Chapter 10 deals with both the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ (God doesn’t save any other way than through faith in Christ) and the inclusiveness of salvation in Christ (it is for anyone who believes, Jew or Gentile). Israel failed to heed both of these aspects of the Gospel message and therefore Christ became a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to them.
Israel failed to heed the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ (10:18). Had they ever heard? Sure they had! Over and over God sent His prophets and they preached of the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ. In Genesis 3, God promised Adam and Eve that He would send an exclusive deliverer through the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head.
When giving the promise to Abraham and his seed, God spoke in the singular and not the plural (Galatians 3:16), speaking of Christ and the exclusiveness of salvation through Him. Moses also stated that God would raise up one exclusive Prophet to whom you shall give heed to everything He says or utterly be destroyed from among the people of God (Deuteronomy 18:15; Acts 3:22-23). God proclaimed through Isaiah about the exclusive Suffering Servant who would pay sin’s penalty for His people.
Instead of trusting in the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ, Israel trusted in ancestry and ability rather than the finished and sufficient work of Christ. The exclusiveness of salvation in Christ was a stumbling stone to the Jews.
Israel failed to heed the inclusiveness of salvation in Christ (10:19-21). They didn’t know that God was going to include the Gentiles did they? Well, Paul gave two Scriptures that Israel failed to heed concerning the truth of the inclusiveness of the Gospel of Christ:
First, what Moses said in Deuteronomy 32:21. Here we see that the Scriptures predicted the inclusion of Gentiles in salvation in order to make Israel jealous (Romans 11:11) so that they might also be saved (Romans 11:14).
Second, what Isaiah is very bold and says in Isaiah 65:1. Here we see that God through Isaiah preached the truth that He was going to include the Gentiles who did not seek Him or ask for Him because salvation is by grace and not by works. The Jews were seeking God through their works but salvation is by grace through faith. Israel thought salvation was exclusive in the sense that they believed it was for them because of their works and not for the Gentiles because they weren’t even trying.
Paul could have given more Scripture showing that Israel should have known about the inclusion of Gentiles because of the predictions of Scripture. Paul said in his letter to the Galatians, “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the nations will be blessed in you’” (Galatians 3:8). The truth that God would include the Gentiles in salvation was reprehensible to the Jews. The inclusiveness of salvation in Christ was a rock of offense to the Jews.
Israel failed to heed God’s offer of salvation (10:21). Immediately after God told Israel through Isaiah 65:1 the truth that He was going to include Gentiles in salvation, He told them the sad truth of their condition in Isaiah 65:2 – “All the day long I have stretched out My hand to a disobedient and obstinate people.”
The apostle Paul, making application with the Scriptures, showed that Israel’s failure to heed the message of the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ and the inclusiveness of salvation in Christ, was predicted in Scripture.
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