But where does that leave the Jewish people? If, as we discovered last week, the Jewish nation rejected God and the truth about God, then what about God’s sovereign promises to them as a nation and as a people? Does Israel as a nation have a future based on their rejection of God and His promises through Jesus? This week, we will see Paul address the question as to whether or not the nation of Israel has a future as a nation. And in his answer to this question we will see Paul address how to balance God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. So let’s look at this question together, beginning in Romans 11:1:
I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads 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." But what is the divine response to him? "I HAVE KEPT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL." In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.
Paul begin this section of his letter by responding to a possible question that the members of the church at Rome could have to the fact that the Jewish people had stumbled over the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel by attempting to do things for God instead of trusting in what God had done for them through Jesus Christ. This question, if asked in the language we use in our culture today, would sound something like this: “Since the Jewish people refused to trust in the promises of God that were fulfilled through Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, are the Jewish people no longer God’s chosen people? Since the Jewish people rejected, is God going to reject the Jewish people and not keep His promises to them?”
Paul responds to this question with the strongest negative response possible in the language that this letter was written in and explains that if God had rejected the Jewish people, then he, being Jewish, would also be rejected by God. However, Paul has not been rejected by God, but instead has been chosen by God to be rescued. And it is here that we see Paul reveal for us a timeless truth that is necessary to embrace if we are to balance God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. And that truth is that God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility is revealed by God’s promises to the Jewish people. In Romans chapter 11, we see Paul unpack for us three ways that God’s promises to the Jewish people reveal both God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility.
In Romans 11:2, Paul explains that God has not rejected His people who He foreknew. As we discovered earlier in the series, foreknowledge refers to God’s knowledge of everything that happens in human history before it happens. God knew all of humanity before they came into existence on this earth. God is all knowing. He not only knows what you did yesterday; He also knows what you will do tomorrow, next week, and for the rest of your life. In God’s foreknowledge, God knew that every human being would selfishly rebel against God and the truth about God. And God, in His sovereign grace, chose some to experience forgiveness and the relationship with God that they were created for. Theologians refer to this choice by God as election. Paul’s point here is that God did not reject His people or ignore His promises to the Jewish people that He had previously chosen to receive grace and rescue.
And to back up his point, Paul points the readers of this letter to a section of a letter in the Bible called the book of 1 Kings. In 1 Kings 19 Jezebel, the evil and rebellious queen of Israel responded to God’s activity through the prophet Elijah by killing every prophet of the Lord. Elijah was running for his life when, in 1 Kings 19:10, He had an encounter with the Lord. In that encounter the Lord asks Elijah “what are you doing here? Why are you running?” Elijah responded to the Lord’s question by explaining that he was running because he was the only one left; no one was worshipping the Lord and everyone else had been killed. Paul then reminds the members of the church at Rome of God’s response to Elijah. The Lord’s response was “no Elijah, you are not the only one left; quit running and hiding, because I have kept for myself 7,000 faithful followers. In spite of the evil leadership and in spite of the rebellion of the Jewish people, God had kept; God had chosen and rescued some to be faithful to Him.
Paul’s point is that, just as it was in the days of Elijah, God had kept a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. In spite of what appeared to be rebellion and rejection by the Jewish people as a whole, God, through His transformational activity, had graciously chosen a small section of the Jewish people to experience forgiveness and the relationship with God that they were created for. In verse 6, Paul explains that this remnant, this smaller section of the whole of the Jewish people were rescued and rightly related to God as a result of God’s transformational activity and intervention in the world, not through their performance, or what they did for God. You see, if our works or our performance for God is what makes us right with God then it is not God’s sovereign and gracious choice that rescues us. And it is here that we see Paul reveal for us the reality that God’s sovereign choice results in the rescue of a remnant of the Jewish people according to His promises.
Now a natural question that arises here is “Well what about the rest of the Jewish people? What happens to them?” Paul provides the answer to that question in verses 7-10. Let’s look at it together:
What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; just as it is written, "GOD GAVE THEM A SPIRIT OF STUPOR, EYES TO SEE NOT AND EARS TO HEAR NOT, DOWN TO THIS VERY DAY." And David says, "LET THEIR TABLE BECOME A SNARE AND A TRAP, AND A STUMBLING BLOCK AND A RETRIBUTION TO THEM. "LET THEIR EYES BE DARKENED TO SEE NOT, AND BEND THEIR BACKS FOREVER."
Here we see Paul explain that while the Jewish nation had a strong desire to be right with God based on what they did for God by keeping the Law, they were not successful in achieving a right relationship with God as a result of their selfishness and rebellion. However, according to God’s sovereign and special choice, some Jewish people experienced forgiveness and the relationship with God that they were created for. The rest, Paul explains, were hardened. As we discovered earlier, God’s hardening is an act directed against human beings who are already in rebellion against God and the word of God. God’s hardening does not cause spiritual insensitivity to the things of God; it maintains people in the state of sin that already characterizes them. God did not take good Jewish people and make them bad. Instead God chose to confirm and set into place the selfishness and rebellion that is already present in the majority of the Jewish nation, while graciously choosing to rescue some from selfishness and rebellion.
Paul then reveals that this should not come as a surprise to Jewish people, because this was predicted and proclaimed throughout the Old Testament. Paul quotes three different section of the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 29:4, Moses reminded the Jewish people that they were blind to all that God had done for them. In Isaiah 29:10, Isaiah predicted that destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians as a result of their rebellion. And in Psalm 69:22-23, Paul applies King David’s prayer against his persecutors to the Jewish nation who had resisted and rebelled against the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. All three quotes reveal the reality that the sovereign God is free to choose some and reject others and that the Jewish people were responsible for their ultimate condemnation because of their rebellion.
But that only served to provoke a second question, which we will see Paul respond to tomorrow.
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