[0:00] Please take out your copy of God's Word, which I hope you brought with you this morning, and turn to Paul's letter to the Romans chapter 10. To be honest and humble this morning, I have been dreading coming to this point in the book of Romans.
[0:22] And by this point, I mean chapter 11, verse 26, which we're going to get to today, if you can believe it or not. But, beginning in chapter 9, I have been wrestling with the meaning and the implications contained in such difficult, difficult text.
[0:44] I have taken some comfort in kind of widely reading and seeing that I'm not the only one, a bit confused by it. I take comfort that Peter himself, the apostle in 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 16, said that there are some things in Paul's writings that are hard to understand.
[1:01] Even Peter himself was a tad confused at times. I have been actually kind of physically in anguish over the bearing and the meaning of this text that we're going to get to today.
[1:16] You're going to think I'm crazy. We are going to go from chapter 10, verse 16, through chapter 11, verse 32, taking a particular look at Israel and the meaning.
[1:30] What is Paul getting at about Israel? How is it that the grace of God is relating to Israel? And that has been really the argument that he began for us at the beginning of chapter 9.
[1:44] So let's read it together. And I just ask that you be very attentive. As we normally do verse-by-verse exposition, I won't be quite verse-by-versing it today.
[1:54] So this is your verse-by-verse dose. And then I'm going to kind of jump a little bit through the chapter so that we can actually make it through today. And I hope you'll see the value in that by the time we finish our time together, which is starting at 11.
[2:08] We'll see how this goes. All right. So begin reading in verse 16 of chapter 10. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?
[2:21] So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have. For their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
[2:33] But I ask, did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who did not seek me.
[2:48] I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me. But of Israel, he says, all day long I've held up my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. I ask then, has God rejected his people?
[3:02] By no means. For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah?
[3:14] How he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets. They have demolished your altars. And I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what is God's reply to him?
[3:27] I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.
[3:39] Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened. As it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see, and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.
[3:58] And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.
[4:09] So I asked, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means. Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.
[4:22] Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more would their full inclusion mean? Now, I am speaking to you, Gentiles, and as much then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.
[4:42] For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
[4:55] But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.
[5:08] If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. That is true.
[5:19] They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
[5:31] Note then the kindness and the severity of God. Severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
[5:44] And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted contrator nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree?
[6:07] Lest you be wise in your own sight. I want you to understand this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way, all Israel will be saved.
[6:20] As it is written, the Deliverer will come from Zion. He will banish ungodliness from Jacob. And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake.
[6:32] But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy.
[6:51] For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Let's pray together. Father God, I feel the weight of this text this morning.
[7:02] But I pray as we've read from your Holy Scripture, and as we listen to the preaching of it, and just even as I preach it, that you will teach us from it.
[7:14] We know that all Scripture is profitable. So this text is for us this day. And I pray, God, that will be the case. That by your Spirit, we will feel the truth, and it will move us to action.
[7:28] And I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. So we've been in the book of Romans for quite some time now. We've been marching through it. I need to go back and look and actually see how long we've been at this now together.
[7:40] But those of you who are here may remember in Romans chapter 3, I preached a sermon on verses 19 through 16, and I said that this text was the crux of Romans.
[7:55] For those of you not familiar with that term, I used to, I don't really anymore, but used to rock climb quite a bit. And every route has or had, for me, a crux.
[8:06] And the crux was always the most difficult move in the entire climb. So if you could pull the crux off, with fair certainty, you were going to be able to finish that particular route.
[8:17] And that is this for Romans. Martin Luther actually called it the center of the Bible, verses 19 through 26. And it's where we see that the whole world, verse 19, is going to be held accountable to God.
[8:32] For no human being will be justified in his sight. Down in verse 22, there's no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
[8:43] And could be then only justified, verse 24, by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, who's the propitiation, the replacement for our sin.
[8:57] We received his righteousness in what Martin Luther called the great exchange. So to understand the entirety of Scripture, as well as just where we're at today in Romans, we have to get this right.
[9:11] The case that Paul has been building, beginning in chapter 1 and working his way through, is that all man is condemned in God's sight, because all men have sinned.
[9:22] There is no good thing we can do. There's no lineage we can have, no associations, no activity that's going to make us right before God except faith in his Son, which is a grace to us.
[9:39] I didn't know it at the time. I didn't have verse 26 and chapter 11 in mind when I said that this was so key, so important that we get this absolutely right.
[9:50] I'm glad I did, and I'm glad I'm saying it again now. We must see that this is the case. This is the lens by which we must look at the rest of Romans and all of the Scriptures.
[10:02] It's very key that we get that right. Man has sinned, and therefore we are found unworthy. We are depraved, utterly worthless in God's sight.
[10:17] But by the propitiation, the work of Christ, and our faith in him, we can be redeemed, have a right standing before God. That is the way of salvation.
[10:28] Not a way of salvation. That is the way of salvation. So Paul continues to go on and build a case for what now life in Christ looks like.
[10:41] This receiving of the Spirit and life by the Spirit. The difficulty that we're going to experience as Christians in chapter 8. And then he gets at the end of chapter 8 to talk about the sovereignty of God in salvation.
[10:52] And so if God was sovereign in our salvation, he's also going to be sovereign in our perfection and our final completion. He is sovereign over all things. So as we suffer, we have this great and glorious truth that if God is for us, who can be against us?
[11:06] No one. Not even ourselves. Right? He is good and loving to us because he is God and he is in control. Right? Then he, in chapter 9, says, but, the question in his own mind, and I'm sure the question he was asked many times is, what about the Jews?
[11:23] What about the people that, that culturally they had an understanding were God's people? These were the people that God had given all these blessings to. You see in verse 4 and verse 5 of chapter 9, they had the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises, the patriarchs.
[11:39] And it's from their flesh, according to the flesh, that Christ was born. He himself was a Jew. What about those people, right, that had all these benefits given to them?
[11:52] And Paul then gives us his famous argument in chapter 9 of God's sovereignty and salvation. We see the introduction of the term election in verse 11.
[12:04] That God's purpose of election might stand not on the basis of works. Jacob and Esau is the example given there, right? Esau was the eldest son. His work was that he came out of the womb first, but the promise was given to Jacob, so that the eternal purpose of election might stand not on the basis of works, but because of him who calls.
[12:26] That's verse 11. He turns back then in chapter 10, end of 9 and then into 10, to talk once again about the Jews. So what is it that's going on in God's sovereign eternal purposes?
[12:41] How is it that he still is relating and he kind of rewinds back to the beautiful simplicity of the gospel that anyone who believes in him, verse 13 of chapter 10, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
[12:59] Verse 14, how will they call on whom they have not believed and how will they believe in him and whom they have never heard? And how are they here without someone preaching? We talked over the past three weeks about the mission of the church, which is to preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, because anyone who hears it and believes it and calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
[13:18] So as Paul talks about the exclusion of some in Romans chapter 9, he then wraps it back around and says, but anyone who believes will be saved.
[13:31] And then he turns back in the most challenging text I've ever had to preach, I hope ever will have to preach, at the end of 10 and into 11 to continue to address Israel.
[13:44] And that's what we're going to talk, we're going to focus in on today. Next week, Lord willing, we're going to talk about us, the Gentiles, and how it is we've benefited from this. This morning's going to be a bit academic, and for that I apologize.
[13:58] At the end, I promise to make it practical for your living. But I think it's important that we get this absolutely right to the best of our ability by the grace of God. But let's see things.
[14:10] In Paul's argument, he's argued in chapter 9, verse 27 through 29, that God has always saved a remnant of Israel. Okay, so look at that there at the end. And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.
[14:27] For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay. And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah. So, number one, we have to recall that he's already stated that God has always saved a remnant of Israel, remnant being the operative word in this case.
[14:47] Secondly, God has the right to show mercy or to harden whomever he desires. He is God. We talked about him being the great I am.
[14:58] Everything plugs into him, but he plugs into nothing else. He is God. And the question asked in verse 19 of chapter 9, the person who says, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault?
[15:09] For who can resist his will? And Paul's response to them is, who are you, O man? To answer back to God. God has spoken. He has decreed that he'll have mercy on whom he will and he'll harden whom he will because he's God.
[15:21] Don't be so haughty. Don't be so arrogant and stand in judgment over him. He's God. You're a man. As the creation, worship your creator for who he is. He's worthy of that praise.
[15:34] So that's the second one. God has the right to show mercy or to harden whomever he desires. Number three, Israel has rebelled against God throughout her history.
[15:45] It's been a constant theme throughout the history of Israel. Rebellion, even though they had received all of these beautiful pictures of God's grace, the things that were meant to point to the Christ that was coming, the tabernacle, the law, the sacrifice, the patriarchs, the prophets, all of those things, these reflections or shadows, if you will, of the coming glory in Christ.
[16:08] Yet, she continued to rebel in chapter 10, verse 21. But of Israel, he says, all day long, I've held out my hands to a disobedient and a contrary people.
[16:21] And that's the stage. We can't divorce where we're about to be in chapter 11 from where we've been in chapters 1 through first half of 10.
[16:32] Right? We can't do it. It would be exegetically unfaithful to do so. But let's step even a little bit further back from the book of Romans. Okay? And let's just see how Jesus dealt with the Jews, speaking to the Jews in Matthew chapter 8.
[16:49] If you'll turn with me there, we're going to look at three texts in Matthew and then two in Zechariah, which you don't have to turn to. Okay? Matthew chapter 8, verse 11.
[17:10] Jesus says, now remember, in all three of these texts, he's speaking to a Jewish audience. He says, I tell you, many will come from east and west, the world, and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom, Israelites, will be thrown into the outer darkness.
[17:27] In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Here, Jesus is already beginning to expand the gospel message out beyond just the nation of Israel. Okay?
[17:37] We see Paul as the carrier of that message, as the culmination, the fulfillment of what Jesus is saying here as he begins to take the gospel out to the Gentiles. And just in case you don't know, Gentiles is everybody but Jews, just in case.
[17:51] I think we're all, I'm pretty sure, we're all Gentiles in this room. That's what the scriptures mean. All right? So, there's going to be this passing of the gospel from the unbelieving Jews to the nations, to the world.
[18:03] Matthew chapter 21, verse 43. He says, I'm going to read it as you're getting there. Please don't dislike me for that. Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.
[18:19] Okay? So, again, the same thing he's been saying in Matthew chapter 8. The gospel is going to be passing from the Jews to the Gentiles. Okay? And then, Matthew 22.
[18:30] So, turn just a little bit there. Verse 1. And again, Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, God throwing a wedding feast for Jesus Christ, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.
[18:52] Again, he sent other servants, saying, Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.
[19:04] Okay? So, these are all the blessings given to Israel. All right? The prophets, the sacrificial system, the tabernacle, all these things, these pictures of the coming Christ. Verse 5.
[19:15] But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. And those are the prophets. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
[19:31] Then he said to his servants, The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.
[19:46] So the wedding hall was filled with guests, but when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment, and he said to him, Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
[19:57] Then the king said to the attendants, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. So there's this expansion, once again, of the invitation to come to the party.
[20:14] Both good and bad, he says, are invited. The both good and bad, in reference here, are the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews and the Gentiles.
[20:25] So they go out and he invites, he brings. And a man comes in and he's not wearing a wedding garment. In these days, if you showed up to a wedding, you were given something to put on to show that you were an invited guest.
[20:37] I didn't have time to research what it was you would put on, but it was a garment of some sort you would wear and you would joyfully put it on to say, I am here celebrating what's going on in this place.
[20:48] And this is ultimately talking about the marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus Christ feasting with his people and guess what our wedding garment is going to be? It's going to be the righteousness of Christ. Because we're invited guests.
[21:01] So there's this picture. Then in Zechariah, there's just some prophecy. So Zechariah 12.10, God speaks through Zechariah and says, and I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and please for mercy so that when they look on me on 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.
[21:27] Chapter 13, verse 1 of Zechariah. On that day there shall be a fountain open for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanliness. So we see that the gospel passes from the Jews to the Gentiles but it has not left them entirely.
[21:47] The grace of God has been expanded across the world including those who are of the nation of Israel, including the Jewish people.
[21:59] Paul asks that question in chapter 11, verse 1, right? I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means. And he makes the case of himself, his present day self. I'm a Jew and I'm a believer.
[22:11] By and large the nation had rejected Christ but many Jewish yep, not a good word for that, Jewish people, right? Many Jewish people had been turning to Christ at this time.
[22:23] God hadn't rejected his people and you see here the teaching of Jesus and Matthew and this prophecy in Zechariah. We see these two things. Both are going to be true and that's where Paul's wrestling.
[22:38] Alright? So we've seen the stage in Romans. We've come back from it a little bit just to look at some other scriptures generally. And so we get to this phrase in chapter 11, verse 26.
[22:54] And in this way all Israel will be saved. There are three major arguments for what this means.
[23:07] And within those three majors there are some variations certainly on them. I say to you humbly that I have an opinion that is not inspired.
[23:19] Certainly what I say should only be weighed against the scriptures. I hope I make a clear case because if I don't then I shouldn't be studying to preach. I hope that the opinion I've arrived at makes some sense to you as I present it to you.
[23:34] But I want to quickly tell you these three arguments and then tell you kind of where I rest on this. Number one, there's an argument that when he refers to all Israel that he's speaking of the church.
[23:50] And that kind of logic is pulled from the beginning of chapter 9, verse 6 when Paul says, but it is not as though the word of God has failed for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.
[24:01] And he makes this argument that those of us who are of the church are of the spiritual Israel. And certainly the scriptures do that. They do do that. And I can see why somebody would be tempted because it cleans it up.
[24:13] It makes it really nice and neat to do it that way. But you kind of have to ignore the rest of the chapter for that to be possible. Paul is speaking of the nation of Israel.
[24:24] Look with me. I'm going to do this really fast so we don't run out of time. But look with me beginning in verse 1 of chapter 11. He asks the question, has God rejected his people?
[24:37] No. I myself am an Israelite. So he's talking about his heritage. I'm an Israelite. His people an Israelite. Then he goes on in verse 2 to talk about his people whom he foreknew.
[24:48] And at the end of verse 2 being Israel. Verse 7. What then Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking? The elect obtained it.
[25:00] Verse 11. They, so I ask did they stumble in order that they might fall? And it goes on and it goes on. I'm probably wasting time to continue to do this, right? Verse 11.
[25:11] There. Israel. Verse 12. There. Then you see the world. And if there. Failure. Riches for the Gentiles. How much more will their inclusion mean?
[25:22] Okay, so if we follow the pronouns through, and I'm just going to stop there, but it keeps on marching its way up to verse 26. We follow the pronouns. Certainly we can't say that he just suddenly changes his language at this point.
[25:34] He just suddenly totally throws out and shifts it just to massively confuse everyone who might read this letter, right? That's not the case at all. So we can very quickly and easily dismiss that.
[25:45] Paul is not arguing here that in verse 26 that in this way all Israel, meaning all the church, will be saved. It's not what he means.
[25:57] The second option, and this is the most prevalent and popular, which is not the one I'm resting on, which gives me great hesitation, is the national argument, right?
[26:09] It's an eschatological argument. It's an end times argument that the day will come one day when all of the Gentile peoples meant to be saved will be saved, and then all Israel will be saved.
[26:23] My challenge with this is that it seems inconsistent. I want to focus in, these people do, on the word all Israel. I want to focus in on that, but then neglect what that would actually mean.
[26:37] If we just simply look at the phrasing all Israel, would that not mean every Jew who ever lived? From the beginning to the end? That in some way God is a universalist in regards to this nation?
[26:50] And here's where chapter 3, verse 19 through 26 serves us well. There's not a separate promise, as some have suggested. There's a separate covenant for the Jewish people and a different covenant, the covenant of grace, for the church.
[27:06] They're one and the same. That's the argument Paul was making for us. Jew or Gentile, there's no distinction, doesn't matter, all of a sudden fall short of the glory of God and will only be redeemed, only be redeemed through Christ, through his propitiation, the covenant of grace.
[27:23] So if we're going to be exegetically consistent, we can't say that all means all Israel from the beginning to the end, all those who have Jewish heritage.
[27:34] So most who hold this view don't believe that. They believe that there will come a time when all the Gentiles will be included in the end of all things and then all of the Israelites who are left will turn to Christ.
[27:46] There will be a great national turning back to Christ. Maybe, but I don't believe that's what Paul is saying here. There are some who say, well, not all of them, but at least a lot of them.
[27:58] I mean, there's just going to be a big revival that will happen in Israel. But then you have to read it and say, and in this way, all Israel, well, I mean, at least most of them, or not all Israel, but the people who are left alive at this time that we don't understand.
[28:15] That's what you have to do. Now, just to be clear, I disagree with the Johns who all hold this view. You know who the Johns are? John Piper, John MacArthur, and Jonathan Edwards.
[28:29] This is what's been making me mentally sick about this. Generally speaking, if you disagree with these three men, you really ought to reconsider your stance, which I've been doing for the past two months, yeah, about two and a half months.
[28:47] I've been really, really wrestling with this. these men are godly and wise. I just think in this case they're wrong. I don't think that's what it means.
[28:59] Now, granted, if they're right, it does not ultimately change what this text really means for us. And we'll get there when we get to the practicality of it. They're not distorting it in order to meet some end of their own.
[29:11] I hope and pray that they're right. I hope and pray that there will come a time when the whole nation of Israel who's alive will turn to Christ. And that may happen. I just don't think that's what Paul is trying to teach us in this case.
[29:25] So the third argument, and the one I believe is right, is that he's referring to the remnant. He's referring to those of Israel that will be saved.
[29:35] He means all of Israel intended to be saved. And I recognize I have to do the same thing, right, to be exegetically consistent. I have to go, but we've got to add a few more words in there to make that make sense.
[29:48] And so I'm going to show you contextually why I think that's what he means when he says all Israel. So, firstly, he's speaking in the present tense throughout the entire chapter up to this point.
[29:59] He's speaking present tense, which is why I believe he's continuing to speak in the present tense. Okay? Many who hold to the remnant still think it's an end times issue, right?
[30:11] I think it's the remnant present day. Because, verse 1, right? When he asks, I ask them, as God rejects his people, he says, by no means, and he gives his current day evidence, present tense.
[30:24] I myself am an Israelite, and I'm a recipient of God's grace. Verse 5, says, so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.
[30:37] Verse 13 and 14, he says, now I'm speaking to you Gentiles. In as much then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order to somehow make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.
[30:51] When? Present tense, right? He's speaking about his ministry. Now, I magnify it to make Gentiles be Christians so that the Jews will be jealous so that some of them will be saved.
[31:02] And then look in verse 30 and 31 of the use of now. Okay? So once again, for just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy, because of their disobedience.
[31:12] So they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy. Right? So even after the infamous verse 26, we see present tense language in verse 30 and verse 31.
[31:29] Okay? So I think we're still speaking in present tense. And I want to show you, beginning in verse 11, and Michael Q, verse 11, a pattern that Paul has established throughout the scripture to get us here.
[31:45] Okay? So number one, we see the Jewish rejection of the gospel. That's the red lettering. Okay? We see the Jewish rejection of the gospel. We see that in chapter 10, verse 21, which is a quotation from Isaiah 65, 2.
[32:00] I spread up my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices. That's what he's talking about, chapter 10, verse 21. That's why he brings that up.
[32:10] Jewish rejection of the gospel. Secondly, the grace extended to the Gentiles in blue, up here. Grace extended to the Gentiles. Chapter 10, verse 20, he's quoting from Isaiah 65, 1.
[32:26] I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me. I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, here I am, here I am, to a nation that was not called by my name.
[32:39] So again, here we see, grace extended to the Gentiles and presented in chapter 10, verse 20, and again and again and again, which I'm going to show you in just a moment.
[32:49] Thirdly, we see the envy of the Jews. Chapter 10, verse 19, he quotes Deuteronomy 32, 21. They have made me jealous with what is no God.
[33:00] They have provoked me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are no people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. So the part of the goal of this rejection is that Gentiles receive the gospel so that Jews become jealous so that Jews receive the gospel.
[33:18] This pattern. And fourthly, the salvation of Israel. Chapter 11, verse 1-4. We see Elijah basically saying, destroy them.
[33:33] I'm the only one left. God's response to them. But what is God's reply? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So he establishes it for us there and then continually on and on and on.
[33:45] So the envy of the Jews is in green up there and then the salvation of Israel not found in verse 11 is going to be in orange. We're going to go through these together. Okay? Verse 11, So I ask, did they stumble in order they might fall?
[33:57] By no means. Rather, through their trespass, the rejection of the gospel by Jewish peoples, salvation has come to the Gentiles, right? Grace extended to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous.
[34:11] Okay? So the third, the envy of the Jews. Right? Verse 12. Now if their trespass, right? Jewish rejection of the gospel, means riches for the world, grace extended to the Gentiles, and if their failure, Jewish rejection of the gospel, means riches for the Gentiles, grace extended to the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean?
[34:35] Salvation to Israel. So are you seeing the pattern? Here we go again. Verse 13. Now I'm speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry.
[34:46] There's the grace extended to Gentiles, in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous. There's jealousy to Israel, and thus save some of them. Salvation to Israel.
[34:57] Verse 15. For if their rejection, rejection of the gospel by the Jews, means the reconciliation of the world, grace extended to the Gentiles, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
[35:13] Salvation to the Jews. Verse 25 and 26. Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, a partial hardening has come upon Israel, rejection of the gospel by Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, extended grace to the Gentiles.
[35:33] And in this way, all Israel will be saved. The inclusion, the salvation of Jews. Verse 30 and 31. Let's throw those together. Yeah, I did it up there.
[35:44] Okay. Verse 30 and 31. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now have received mercy, grace to the Gentiles, because of their disobedience, rejection of the gospel by the Jews, so they too have now been disobedient, in order that by the mercy shown to you, grace to the Gentiles, they also may now receive mercy.
[36:06] You see the pattern that he's establishing for us there? He's simply making this argument, right? That the rejection of the gospel by the Jews has caused God's grace to extend to the Gentiles by his sovereign plan, not like God threw a plan C in place, right?
[36:23] By his sovereign plan, that's how he always intended for it to be, grace extended to all peoples, praise God, were some of them, right? Will cause the nation of Israel to be jealous, those who are truly worshipping their God, by the right way, and they will turn to Christ.
[36:39] Okay? So, we see this continual pattern being worked through. So, that all needs to be contextually tied together, right? So, as he's referred in the very beginning of chapter 11, verse 5, so at the present time there is a remnant, right?
[36:54] So, what is he referring to then as he says all Israel? And that's why I believe he means all intended Israel. All of those that by sovereign purposes are meant to be saved, will be saved through this process.
[37:10] Verse 26, I'm proud of the ESV. I believe it's properly rendered here, and in this way. Some of your translations might say and then, right?
[37:22] Which has in mind that once the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then this thing will happen, right? It's not the proper rendering of the Greek phrase there. The proper rendering is and in this way, which I believe, with great humility, refers to the mystery that he mentions in verse 25.
[37:43] Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery. That this is the way in which God is including Israel in the plans of grace.
[37:56] He hasn't rejected them, he hasn't cast them off entirely, he's still working amongst the people of Israel, the peoples of the world and the people of Israel.
[38:10] Verse 30, verse 32, for just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.
[38:24] For God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all. We are not universalists. If you read this out of its context, you have to be.
[38:36] If I hand you just verse 32 and say these are the scriptures, the scripture. You read it that way, you say, man, God's pretty fantastic because all people will be saved even though they're all his enemies, all people, it doesn't matter.
[38:51] It's not the case. Faith in Jesus Christ, that's what brings to us the salvation of God. So contextually what is he saying? What is he saying?
[39:02] We've all been consigned to disobedience so that he can have mercy on all kinds of people, Jews, and Gentiles. So why?
[39:16] Why? Why does he tell us all this? What is the point? And how does this mean anything for our lives today? Practically. Verse 25, he says, lest you be wise in your own sight.
[39:31] And in this case, he is referring to the Gentiles. He has turned and began speaking to them in verse 13. He says, now I'm speaking to you Gentiles. And he actually has already brought some correction that the Gentiles might understand who they are, wild olive trees being branched, being grafted in to the holy root, the root that is the nation, the peoples of Israel.
[40:01] Lest you be wise in your own sight, there is a history in the Christian church of anti-Semitism, a history of it, of Christian Gentiles looking down their noses at Jews because they were the people that killed the Messiah.
[40:21] It's prevalent still today, it certainly existed in the first century church, judging those who had originally received these benefits and had rejected Christ, looking down their noses at them.
[40:35] I don't really think that's a problem for any of us in this room. I don't think any of us really have a disdain for anybody who said, yeah, I'm of Jewish descent, we've in any way in our minds think, you killed the Messiah.
[40:46] I don't think any of us have that issue in our lives, but we just may have a superiority complex. We just may still think that we're better because somehow we figured it out.
[41:02] See, crazy Jews, you guys know the Old Testament and it points to Christ. You had all these benefits, all these blessings, you have all these national holidays that are supposed to show you Jesus and you miss the point.
[41:16] But I got it because I am pretty darn smart. Lest we become wise in our own sight, that's what he's saying to us.
[41:30] Recognize, church, that God has consigned all the disobedience that he might have mercy on all. That our understanding, our realization, even though we didn't have all these benefits, is all the work of grace.
[41:46] It's all mercy. It's all the display of his loving kindness toward us. And we have no reason to boast in anything but the cross of Christ, in anything but our God who has saved us.
[41:58] we ought to be humble and present ourselves as such to the world. This truth that Paul has presented to us, whether he's speaking about final things in all Israel or the case that I've made to you today, speaks of the nature of God.
[42:19] We ought to turn our hearts to praise him because we see another example, just one other example, of God's goodness and loving kindness to people who do not deserve it, who have rejected him at every turn, who have willfully sinned against him, who have said to God, you are my enemy and I hate you.
[42:36] It's another picture of God's goodness to his people, including the peoples of Israel, the nation. God continues to love and to love and to love, beckon people to himself.
[42:50] It's the picture in Hosea of when Gomer gets kind of cast out of the city and God talks about alluring his wife back to himself, this constant picture of God's goodness and loving kindness.
[43:05] It ought to cause us to praise him. And those two things should tie together, our humility, our understanding, our right understanding that the gospel of grace is still being extended to the people of Israel as well as the nations and this immense view of God's love for the world that should move us to evangelism.
[43:24] God's love for the people of God's love for the people of the world, including Jewish peoples.
[43:36] The church of Christ should be actively pursuing Jewish people, Israel. We should be going after them. Why? Because they'll be made jealous. God's working in their hearts to see that by his grace, we know why.
[43:53] Why the temple? Why the sacrifice? Why the patriarchs? We understand the prophets. What were they talking about? We get all that because we know the Messiah of whom they all spoke and we ought to be active and seeking to bring the gospel to the nation of Israel.
[44:10] And so that's what it means to us in this large academic pursuit of patterns of words. That's how it comes down and it comes home for us. We should have no disdain, no superiority complex over the Jews because they are people like us separated from the grace of God by their sin and they need him and they need messengers to carry the gospel to them.
[44:33] And if we rightly understand who we are and we rightly understand who God is, this will happen. This will flow out of us. So as we pump academics into our heads, it's my prayer that it works its way into our hearts.
[44:48] That we walk out of here both gladdened and abased. Glad in who our God is, his great loving kindness to us, and abased because we know that we were wretched. We did not deserve the love that he's lavished on us and that ought to be such a motivating factor to share that with the world.
[45:05] Let's pray. Amen. Let's pray.