If Israel rejected and disobeyed God, are you saying that God still has a plan for them as a nation? The answer is in the BOOK of ROMANS. ◊

As ROMANS Chapters 9, 10, and 11 deals with the Apostle Paul’s anguish over the plight of Israel, let’s pause and take a layman’s summary view of the BOOK of ROMANS, so far, at least through Chapter 10.

Remember, in good Bible study, besides Jesus, context is king.

Recall that ROMANS Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are about our sin and need for redemption via faith and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ as God’s atoning solution. Nothing else suffices. This message is for all of mankind, Jews and Gentiles alike.

Chapters 4 and 5 reiterate the message of salvation through that faith alone in more detail with proof points. Actions and behavior don’t earn us, or bar us from, God’s eternal saving grace.

Chapters 6, 7, and 8 deal with the practicality of Christian living through ups and downs with this new-found hope and freedom. The Christian life is not easier, it’s just a richer/deeper/blessed life lived with a richer/deeper/blessed sense of purpose.

Outside of that, a Christian’s life is just as challenging as the next person.

Then we get to Chapters 9, 10, and 11 where Paul laments for his fellow Jewish kinsmen whose ironic unbelief in Jesus opened the door of salvation for the rest of the world. At least for Jesus-believing Gentiles.

And this is where we see a problem; a problem arising in Paul’s day, and surely today in our own modern era.

So What’s the Problem?
While God’s salvation-door has been, is, and will continue to be, open for all Jews and Gentiles until the end of time as we know it, the pre-eminence of Israel (then and now) is a big issue for many.

Paul uses ROMANS Chapters 9, 10, and 11 to explain the big miss by his own people/nation of Israel:

The promised blessing was to come through Israel (Abram’s descendants) for all the nations; specifically, for children of the promise, or those that believed. But the blessing was not for Israel alone. And not necessarily for all of Israel.

This is a big distinction that many miss.

Of course, it could easily be assumed that Israel, as God’s chosen people, through Abram, would participate as well as have a front-row seat to the fulfillment of this promised blessing.

And they did. But while God’s promise to Abram was unconditional in GENESIS, God’s promises and commitments to the nation of Israel, in order to fulfill His purposes (fulfilling His promise of restorative blessing to all the nations), was highly conditional in DEUTERONOMY (see chapter 28!)

So Paul is lamenting the fallout of Israel’s disobedience. They did disobey God and His commandments. They did reject their promised Messiah Jesus. They even conspired and killed Him in conjunction with their Roman oppressors.

And now, in Paul’s day, some 25 years after the death and resurrection of Christ and the birth of Christianity in Jerusalem after the miracle at Pentecost (see ACTS 2), Paul is trying to reawaken his own people to the truths about God’s true Israel post-Jesus:

…For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children….”

In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. (Romans 9:6-8)

I can readily imagine the real confusion in the mind of a 1st century Jew.

And What Was the Promise?
The promise was the blessing for all mankind that came ultimately 2,000 years after Abraham in the form of God incarnate as Jesus, born in Bethlehem. The new condition (New Covenant vs Old Covenant) is that we either believe and submit to His Lordship of our life, via faith, or not.

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:5-9)

And now, furthermore:

For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  (Romans 10:10-13)

Now That’s A Problem
Yes, Paul had a lot of explaining to do with a Jewish nation who were trained up to believe in their specialness. That their specialness was now actually, even through them, being extended to their inferiors, the Gentiles.

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. (Romans 10:16a)

As we well know, in Paul’s day and ours, there are people, even Christians, who still want to draw distinctions between peoples in the eyes of God.

But in this era of the New Covenant, to paraphrase a popular verse:

God does not see us as either Jew or Gentile, master or slave, male or female, conservative or liberal, single or married, young or old, etc., etc., but for all those that believe in Jesus as Lord, we are all one people, God’s new Israel.

Yes, Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega of the entire Bible, fulfilling the Old Covenant and replacing it with the New Covenant. Blessed are all of us, Jews and Gentiles who believe in His name.

In ROMANS Chapter 11 we’ll further address the ongoing issue of the nation of Israel past, present, and future.

Categories: Abundant Living, Books of the Bible, Calling, Church, Creation, Devotion, Discipleship, Faith, Fathering, Forgiveness, Israel, Jesus, Marketplace, Old Testament, Parenting, People, Purpose, The Church

Tags: God's Chosen People, Jews, Romans 10