Friday 5 June 2009

Romans 11:1-24

So did God reject his people of Israel? (Rom. 11:1) By no means, says Paul. It is important to wonder what the question ‘did God reject his people’ actually entailed. In order to find out, it is good to listen carefully to the answer of the apostle. How does he prove that God did not reject his people Israel?

1) By pointing to the fact that he was an Israelite himself (Rom. 11:1)
2) By showing that even in the Old Testament, when Elijah felt he was the only servant of God, there were 7000 other believers who refused to serve Baal (Rom 11:2-4)
3) By saying that ‘at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace’. (Rom 11:5-6)

The fact that God has not rejected his people, therefore, does not means that all Israelites become believers and shall be saved. Paul proves that the people are not rejected by pointing to the few Jews who follow Christ. I conclude from this, that the question Paul starts with, means in fact: Has God rejected all Israelites in such manner that they will not believe and be saved?
To this, Paul’s answer is: of course not. Look around. He is a Jew, and there are many other Israelites following Jesus Christ.

So how should we view the situation of the Israelites? ‘What then?’ (Rom 11:7)
What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened. (Rom 11:7)
In Romans 9:30-31 we already read that Israel was pursuing righteousness. Paul repeats the idea here. In spite of most Israelites earnestly seeking salvation, they have not attained it. Only the elect did. Those elect were also mentioned in Rom. 8:33. There it points to believers in Christ from Jews and gentiles.

‘The others were hardened’, Paul says of the Israelites who did not believe in Christ. We must see this in line with Rom 9:18, where Pharaoh is mentioned who was hardened so that God could make his name and power known over all the earth. For this same reason, most Israelites were hardened. Later more about this issue.

Paul first underlines that it was God’s decision to ensure that most Israelites did not believe in Christ:
God gave them a spirit of stupor, even so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day. (Rom. 11:8)

And:
May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. (Rom. 11:9-10)
Paul then ask whether God make Israel stumble in such a way that they could not get up anymore. (Rom. 11:11) The Israelites who were hardened by God and who did not believe in Christ, could they not come to faith anymore?

‘Not at all!’, is the clear answer of Paul. (Rom. 11:11)
Rather, because of their transgression (literally: fall), salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression (literally: fall) means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring! (Rom 11:11-12)
The Israelites in the time of the New Testament have had Christ crucified – and thereby they made the Gospel possible. And because the synagogues rejected the Gospel, they ensured that the Gospel was preached to the nations.

Their stumbling and fall – that is, the fact that they were lost without Christ – means riches for the world. That riches is that the nations heard the Gospel and many came to Christ, to become participants in all the promises of God. (Rom. 11:12) So:
…how much greater riches will their fullness bring! (Rom 11:12)
What do these words mean? Terms like ‘stumble, fall, loss’ must be seen as opposites of fullness (Gr: pleerooma) in this verse. If the fall and the loss of Israel are about the fact that a large part of Israel does not believe in Christ and is lost, then it is logical to assume to their fullness entails the fact that they do believe in Christ and are saved. The fullness is that they reach the goal that God has with them, namely, that they are followers of Christ through faith.

The world has been greatly blessed by the unbelief of Israel; how much more will the world be blessed when Jews come to faith in Christ. How is the world blessed by their unbelief? Because the Gospel was offered to the nations after most Israelites rejected it. If many Israelites come to faith in Christ, this will be even better for the world. Then the Gospel will be spread eve further.

We must not think of all Jews who come to faith, when we hear that word ‘fullness’; fullness is the opposite of being lost. That Paul does not expect all Israelites to come to faith, is clear from the following verse. Paul points the heathen believers in Rome to his own task. He hopes to
….somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.(Rom. 11:14)
Paul places the issue of the unbelief of a great part of Israel not in an eschatological light, but in the light of his own mission in his time. He places the blindness of Israel to the Gospel in a part of salvation history that, in his opinion, is already past: the period in which God used the disobedience of Israel in order to implement God’s plans with the Messiah and in order to take the Gospel into the world of the other nations. As that had been accomplished, Paul now believes that the time has come to lead those Jews who had stumbled, into the fold of Christ.

In Rom. 11:15 Paul repeats what he had said in Rom. 11:12, but in other words:
For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
What is the meaning of those words ‘rejection’ and ‘acceptance’? I think we must see these in the light of God’s actions. Israelites who do not believe in Christ, are rejected by God. When those who initially did not belief in Christ, become believers, they will be accepted by God. Their belief will lead to more blessings for the nation, as it adds to the faith and witness to Jesus Christ.

Paul uses for this change of heart of these Jews the term ‘life from the dead’. To me, this seems to be a parallelism with the term ‘reconciliation of the world’ Paul had used in the same sentence. Because Israel rejected Christ, the Gospel could come to the nations. If Israel does accept Christ, this will even be better for those nations.

Paul then uses this imagery of the olive tree to say that Jewish branches (of Jews who do not follow Christ) have been broken of, while non-Jewish branches (of believing gentiles) have been grafted in. These non-Jewish branches were by nature part of a wrong tree. Paul uses this imagery to explain that it is natural to expect that Jews who come to faith in Christ, will be grafted in again. They are not rejected forever.

This means that believers from other nations must not look down on Jews who do not believe in Christ.

What are the branches? Paul makes clear that in his imagery, the branches are individual believers, followers of Jesus Christ. Jews who do not believe in Him are cut off from the tree and its root. Earlier in his letter Paul said that Jews who reject Christ, do not participate in the promises of God to Israel; the covenant is for them, but because of their unbelief they have no part in it.

What is the tree? The root? It seems not possible that the tree or the root point to the nation of Israel in the physical sense. If all Jews would be broken off, the tree would still be there. I think we should see the root and the tree as spiritual belonging to Abraham and his posterity, and the covental promises of God. Yes, those were made to Israel, but they are only effective for those who follow Christ, both for Jews and for gentiles.

But it is also clear that when people who physically descend from Israel, are being grafted into their own tree when they come to faith in Christ in a unique manner. Their conversion is a form of homecoming. They do not only find their Creator, but they are also linked to the roots of their own culture and family.

Consider this: Paul is writing this to believers in Rome in the context of his comment that as an apostle for the nations, he hopes that he is able to save some Jews. And about the grafting of Jews on the olive tree, he uses the conditional word ‘if’. See Rom 11:23:
And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
Paul is not predicting or promising the conversion of all of Israel. He is speaking about his own mission. He hopes that through his own labor among the nations, he will also see more Jews being grafted into the tree that is so natural to them – the relationship with God and all of his promises. Paul does not speak of an event thousands of year later, but about his mission work in his own time.

The Greek word for thus (Gr: houtoos) that we will see in Rom 11:26 (thus all Israel shall be saved) is used in Rom 11:5, where it is translated as ‘so too’. It means here: in the same manner.
The greek word for all (Gr: pas) as used in Rom 11:26 is not used in the first part of Rom 11.

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