In chapter 11 of Romans we come to the climax of Paul’s explanation of God’s gracious plan of redemption for His covenant people Israel and for the Gentiles.
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery…so that you may not be conceited: that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and in this way all Israel will be saved. 28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved.
Paul writes of Israel’s election in chapter 9….Israel’s defection in chapter 10…and Israel’s restoration in chapter 11.
Paul starts verse 25 off with the word ‘for’ …it’s a conjunction which means ‘because’…Paul is linking what he’s about to say with what he just said.
Paul has just made reference to a mystery… I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery…up until now God’s dealing with the nation of Israel had been a mystery…Paul says I’m going to clear that up…a mystery in the New Testament is not like what we think of as a mystery today.
A mystery in the Bible speaks of a truth which is not discoverable apart from being revealed by God… something made known to us only by revelation.
The mystery Paul is revealing is something that would have never been realized …people hearing this for the first time are thinking ‘how bazaar is this’.
Paul is explaining the reason for Israel’s refusal to accept Jesus as their Messiah …Paul says a partial hardening has caused Israel’s blindness to who Jesus is.
Paul doesn’t want them to reach the wrong conclusion about the truth…he wants them to understand one of the central mysteries of God’s relationship with Israel.
Regarding this partial hardening Paul says two things:
FIRST…God has brought this ‘partial hardening’ upon Israel…SO… why has God done that…for what purpose and how long will it last?
Paul has already stated that God has not rejected His people… chapter 10 reveals God’s plan to regather Israel back to a nation that once honored Him:
I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you. [18]
Knowing the arrogance of the Hebrew people God is using their own pride and jealousy against them.
Then to the Gentiles Paul says…don’t let this go to your head…don’t be conceited thinking that you’re now somehow better than the Jews…because if God did not spare the natural branches (Israel) He will not spare you either.
Second…when will this partial hardening end?…Paul tells us exactly when it will end.
Israel’s refusal to accept Jesus as their Messiah will last…until the fullness of the Gentiles has come [25].
A strange saying…does that mean that God is waiting for all Gentiles to believe in Jesus? …we all know that’s not going to happen…so what is the meaning of… until the fullness of the Gentiles has come?
It’s the time when as many as are going to believe…believe…NOT as some think until God has finished selecting all those whom He will save have been saved…it’s the time when all the Gentiles whom God knows will come to be saved are saved.
When that mysterious point in time is eventually reached two things will happen:
FIRST…the rapture will occur and every Christian alive at that time will be transported to Paradise…those remaining on earth will experience the Great Tribulation of Matthew 24 and Revelation.
God will continue His evangelistic effort on earth through the Jews who remain on the earth after the rapture.
SECOND…the Jewish people will no longer be hardened in their unbelief in who Jesus is.
So, does the wording… 26 and in this way all Israel will be saved…mean that every Israelite will come to faith in Jesus…NO…but that only a representative proportion will believe in Him whom they crucified.
Someday the nation as a whole (not necessarily every individual [1 Kings 12:1 / 2 Chron. 12:1]) will be converted to Christ and be saved.
Have to understand Jewish history…what Paul is sharing is the result of hundreds of years of Jewish disobedience…knowing the events that contributed to God’s punishment of Israel and Judah are crucial in understanding Israel’s deportation into foreign lands because of their unfaithfulness to God (Deut. 4:25-40).
Habakkuk prophesied about the source God chose to accomplish that purpose …He will use a heathen king and a heathen nation.
5 Look among the nations, and see…I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
6 https://biblia.com/bible/esv/habakkuk/1/5-11#footnote3 I am raising up the Chaldeans that bitter and hasty nation, to seize dwellings not their own.
7 They are dreaded and fearsome;
9 They all come for violence,
Here’s what Isaiah writes about the Babylonians…God says…I was angry with My people and gave them into your (the Babylonians) hand [Isaiah 47:6].
God allowed Babylon to conquer Judah…even calling Nebuchadnezzar ‘my servant’ …in the Hebrew the wording used in reference to Nebuchadnezzar as my servant is the same personal suffix used when referring to God [Jer. 2:6].
God did not create sin…sin entered the world due to an act of rebellion against God by Satan and his angels…but…God can and sometimes does use the sin already existing in the world to fulfill His purpose…God used the Babylonians …an evil people…to accomplish His will.
There is an important distinction between God controlling evil and God creating evil…God can and does use sinful men to attain an objective.
In the case of Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt…there was no revolution… no rebellion…no forceable evacuation…they left because God wanted them out …God designs and controls all of history to display His faithfulness to His promises.
Nebuchadnezzar is depicted as a cruel enemy…God allowed Babylon to destroy the temple in Jerusalem and capture the residents to fulfill His purpose.
God’s purpose was to use the heathen nation Babylon as His instrument to bring judgment on Judah for their idolatry…then…in one of the most amazing prophecies in the Bible… God raises up another heathen king and nation to destroy Babylon for destroying Jerusalem.
That other nation was Persia who was ruled by the heathen king Cyrus…a man identified by name 200 years before he was even born…three different prophets tell about this guy …and give the details of what he will do:
Isaiah:
…he is God’s shepherd and he will perform all My desires [44:28]
…God has called you by your name and has given you a title of honor though you have not known Me [Is. 45:4]
…he will build My city and will let my exiles go free [Isaiah 45:13]
Ezra 1:1-4:
1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation
2 ‘The LORD, the God of heaven…has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem… in Judah.
3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem…and build the temple.
4 And any survivors are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock.
Amos 9:14, 15:
‘I will restore the captivity of My people Israel….I will plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from their land Which I have given them,’ Says the LORD your God.
Cyrus fulfilled God’s promise…God rescued and restored His people back to Himself using a heathen king who really didn’t want to…the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus [Ezra 1:1].
What we see in both Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus as well as with Pharaoh is that God claims control and jurisdiction even on pagan kings…princes…and monarchs…God’s working everything according to the counsel of His will.
It is God who directs their plans…they are under His direction who raised them up for that very purpose.
Some might react to this statement by thinking that it denies people their “free will.” …that they are just robots that God has programmed to do what He has determined they should do…the biblical view is much more profound than that.
HOW GOD WORKS….While God controls all of history and moves it according to His sovereign purpose He does so through humans who are free to make choices for which they are held responsible.
Notice the interplay between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility…God has a plan for His people and He will carry out that plan right on schedule…He is not restricted from carrying out His plan by what sinful people do.
In the case of Cyrus…he had to decide to let the Jews return to their land…the Jews then had to decide to give up living in Babylon and make the difficult and dangerous journey back to Israel.
When they freely chose those things, they were carrying out God’s foreordained plan…God designs and controls how things turn out to accomplish His purposes …But at the same time, He accomplishes His purpose through people who make real choices for which they are responsible.
Both decisions were based on free will…the plan included the “free” decision of a sinful king and the “free” decision of the Jews to return to the land.
God then gives Ezekiel a vision of the Jews returning back to their homeland after 70 years in captivity…This is how Ezekiel describes that vision [Ezek.37:1-3]:
the LORD set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many…and indeed they were very dry.
Ezekiel notes that the people and the nation who were returning were nothing more than… dry…lifeless bones.
According to some commentators this vision in the valley of dry bones has numerous applications to us as well as the nation of Israel…that it is describing three forms of resurrection…illustrating several Scriptural truths.
FIRST…Some think this is a parable of the resurrection of the dead and is a vision of what will happen in the day when “the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.”
These dry bones represent all the bodies of Christians who sleep in the dust of the earth as seen in [12] where the vision appears to move to a cemetery…the phrase ‘open your graves’ [twice] describes the promise to raise all who die in Jesus to eternal life…at the word of Christ:
For the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves
shall hear his voice, and shall come forth;
SECOND…Others see this as pertaining to Israel…Ezekiel had witnessed the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem… after their captivity restoration seemed impossible…it was as impossible to bring life back to dry lifeless bones … they could see no possible renewal of the Israelite nation.
The return of the Jews to Jerusalem was only a partial fulfillment of this promise …throughout the O. T. it is prophesied that God would restore Israel…see this prophecy fulfilled in a number of ways.
This was the first time God brought the Jews back from Babylonian captivity… But Isaiah says…there seems to be a second time [Isaiah 11:11].
The prophets spoke of the day when God would fully restore his people…
gathering them to Himself once more (Deut. 30:1-3; Isaiah 40:9-11) when God will bring His people back to the land of Israel a second time.
See the grace and mercy of God…in our own lives…has God had to bring you back to Himself because of being in captivity to something in your life that has caused a barrier in your fellowship with God?
In chapters 11 and 12 Isaiah writes of the coming Millennial kingdom of Christ and a second gathering of His people back to their promised homeland from which they will never again be scattered.
The dry bones signify God’s plan for Israel’s future national restoration…a second gathering prophesied by Isaiah.
On that day the Lord will again recover the second time with His hand the remnant of His people [Isaiah 11:11].
On that ‘day’ for a second time in Israel’s history the Lord will regather the remnant of His dispersed people back to Himself…never to be dispersed again.
In chapters 11 and 12, Isaiah writes of the coming Millennial kingdom of Christ and a second gathering of His people back to their promised homeland – from which they will never again be scattered…Israel’s full restoration is yet to be
accomplished [Rom. 11:26].
With respect to the nation of Israel…the valley of the dry bones means that not all Jews will come to accept Jesus as their Messiah…there will be only a believing remnant that will be saved.
This addresses the fallacy in believing that God will somehow mysteriously cause ALL Jews to become Christians…He won’t…the nation as a whole (not necessarily every individual [1 Kings 12:1 / 2 Chron. 12:1]) will be converted to Christ and be saved.
The Jews today must not see themselves as being automatically included in God’s promises simply because of their heritage.
Becoming a part of God’s remnant is a matter of grace and not a matter of privilege…not like it is something owed to them…that pertains to us today.
Being chosen by God never meant getting special privileges and favors from God…it means they had the honor of being used by God for His purposes.
THIRD…this analogy is looking beyond the literal for a spiritual teaching …here is a picture of the recovery of ungodly men from their spiritual death and corruption.
This is a parable of the way in which sinners are brought up from their hopeless, spiritually dead condition…the description of these dry bones is symbolic of every person who has not accepted Jesus as their Savior.
They are nothing more than dry, dead bones…with no hope…BUT…they can come to life…they can be made alive by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Charles Spurgeon was particularly troubled by this idea…as a lot of pastors are …regarding the unsaved in his church.
Spurgeon…was burdened to see the unconverted seek the Lord in the hope that some of them would seek salvation in the Lord.
I assume that some of my congregation are totally unacquainted with the plan of salvation…I will try in the simplest words that human lips can put together to tell the story of how men are saved by calling upon the name of the Lord.
So what’s the take away from today’s history lesson…Paul says: from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved.
Here’s why God is so passionate about His people…from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved.
At the expense of repeating myself for the fourth week in a row I’m going to reiterate the importance of why God reaches down to gather us back into a relationship with Him.
FIRST…is in understanding that God calls us (καλέω) …it’s an invitation for us to join Him in Eternal life.
Human beings are totally incapable of responding to God without God first empowering them to have faith…this empowerment is known as “Prevenient Grace.”
Prevenient grace is given to all men at some point in their life…it doesn’t save us but, rather it draws us to God making us WANT to come to God and enabling us to have faith in God.
SECOND…is our response to that calling…our invitation is to ‘call’ ἐπικαλέω God back… meaning I accept that call.
Here’s the blessing in all of this…it’s two-fold…Paul says: from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved.
That word ‘choice’ …from the standpoint of God’s choice…in the Greek means ‘to choose or select for oneself’. It is God’s selection of people for a purpose or task…nothing to do with choosing for salvation.
That statement is specifically directed towards the Jews…God chose Abraham and his descendants to proclaim His name to the rest of the world…God chose them for that special task even though they failed to perform God’s will and are today opposed to the Gospel.
BUT…the result is:
FIRST…it pleased God in His sovereign plan to reject a majority of the Jews in order to open His kingdom to the Gentiles.
SECOND…the Jews are still dear to God…His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still in force and unchangeable and because God has chosen Israel to be His ‘beloved’ He will bring salvation to the people in the last day.
One day the world will stand in awe when we finally see the fulfillment of God’s promises…that all things do work together for God’s good just as He designed and controlled it.
The application to us is the same…including your salvation and your life…it works together for God’s good…your freewill decision to accept Jesus as your Savior is in line with God’s plan for you.
Then…God choosing or selecting you for Himself…is in line with God’s purpose for you in this life…it has nothing to do with salvation but God choosing you for a task.
Goes back to Cyrus and the interplay between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility…Cyrus made the decision to let the Jews return to their land…the Jews had to make the decision to give up living in Babylon and make the difficult and dangerous journey back to Israel.
God has a plan…He designs and controls how things turn out to accomplish that plan…He will carry out that plan right on schedule.
He accomplishes His purpose through people…His chosen people…people who are willing to make a commitment to freely allow God to use them.
It all begins when we make the decision to accept Jesus into our lives so we can be used…so we can be the select few chosen by God to complete His purpose.