The
Conversion Of The Jews
Stumbling
Of Israel
In a Brief Survey
of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans
Based on sermons
preached in PCC Worship Services, July 2003 to Sep 2005
Part 53a of 83
“11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they
should fall? God forbid: but rather
through their fall salvation is come
unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.…” (Romans 11:11-16).
We have entered into another controversial
chapter in the book of Romans.
The most prevalent opinion today about this
chapter is that it teaches us that God
has not rejected Israel PERMANENTLY.
According to this opinion, there will come a time when God will
deal with Israel as a nation again.
We are living in the time of the Gentiles, it is said. During this
time, God has two people: Israel and the Church. God has a special providence
for both His people. He is saving His Church. And he is protecting and blessing
Israel as a nation—until the whole nation is ready for salvation.
When the “fullness of the Gentiles be come
in” (v. 25), THEN “all Israel shall be saved” (v. 26)! This will happen after a
great tribulation. After the tribulation, the hearts of the Jews would be so
softened that they will regret what they did to Christ, and they will be
converted en masse.
But we saw in the previous study, that Israel
as a nation is no longer the people of God, and in fact, the apostle Paul is
not really dealing with what will happen to Israel in the future in this
chapter. He is concerned, rather, with what was happening in Israel in his own
time, or throughout the whole period of time until the Last Day when Christ
returns.
In the first ten verses, which corresponds to the first of five
major paragraphs in this chapter, Paul teaches us three things:
1. God has not cast away
Israel TOTALLY, for He has a
remnant according to the election of grace.
2. God
has not cast away Israel completely, but being an Israelite does not make one
more ‘saveable’.
3. God has not cast away
Israel completely, but the nation is being judged and most of her members will
remain in unbelief.
In the present study, the Lord helping us, we
want to consider the second major paragraph from verse 11 to 16.
Now, the common interpretation of this paragraph is that God has
not cast away the nation permanently
and God will restore the nation fully one day. That is, God will deal with the
nation as a whole distinctly, and every, if not, most of the Jews, will be
converted.
But as we shall see, this interpretation is impossible and does
not make sense. We shall see that Paul is not speaking about a national
conversion of the Jews, though he does speak about how desirable the conversion
of the Jews will be; and he is encouraging us to desire the conversion of the
Jews. We should never boast against the Jews, much less persecute them. We
should rather desire that good may come upon them in our own time.
Now, because the popular interpretation of this paragraph is so
deeply lodged in the minds of most Christians, it can be very difficult to
understand it. But it is important for us to disabuse our minds of the errors.
So do bear with some exegetical considerations as we go along.
With this in mind, we may understand this
paragraph by considering how it answers three implied questions. First, …
1. Why Did Israel, as a Nation,
Stumble?
11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they
should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to
provoke them to jealousy.
Israel as a nation has stumbled. They
stumbled at the stone of stumbling, even Christ, the rock of Salvation (Rom
9:33). By and large the Jews according to the flesh were not converted. Why did
God allow that to happen?
Well, the most common reading of what Paul is
sayings is that the Jews have not fallen beyond recovery, but that God is doing
something to try to provoke the whole national to repent and to be converted
unto Him. How is He doing so? He is doing so by the salvation of the Gentiles,
they say. God’s original intention is to save the nation of Israel; but since they
have rejected him, He is now saving the Gentiles so that hopefully the Jews
might get jealous and be provoked return to the Lord as a nation.
But is this what he is saying? Well, I don’t
think so. Why? Because if this is the purpose of God, then it appears to have
failed many times over, for more than fifty generations of ethnic Jews have
lived and died since the time of Paul and still the nation is not converted.
Let me put it this way: If Paul was thinking
that the conversion of the Gentiles would result in the national conversion of the Jews, then it was wishful
thinking. Because that simply did not happen! It did not happen in his
generation. It did not happen in the next fifty generations. Millions and
millions of Jews have entered a Christ-less eternity since the Gentiles began
to be added to the Church.
Our critic immediate objects: It will happen
towards the last day. The majority of the Jews would be provoked to jealousy
and be converted then. But that seems rather strange, isn’t it? Could it be
that God only intend to provoke to jealousy that final generation of Jews and
not the fifty generations that have already perished? And where does Paul say
that God is not concerned about the present generation of Jews?
What then? What is Paul saying? Well, the
word of God cannot be broken.
In the first place, we must realise that Paul
is not asking, in verse 11, as the NIV suggests, whether Israel “stumbled so as
to fall beyond recovery.” He is
only asking “Have they stumbled that they should fall?” The words, “beyond
recovery” in the NIV simply do not exist in the text! The translators of the
NIV have inserted a popular idea into the verse that is simply not there. Paul
is not suggesting that the nation of Israel will be recovered. He is simply
asking: Have the Jews stumbled for the purpose of falling? Has God allowed them
to fall, for no other reason but so that they fall?
And the answer is absolutely not! God is not
capricious. There is a very important reason why they fell: namely, the
salvation of the Gentiles!
There is simply no indication that Paul
believes the whole nation of Israel would ever be converted as a whole. Well,
it is possible that he personally desired that, since they were his kinsmen.
But there is no indication here, nor in the verses before or in the verses
after that he expects the whole nation of Israel to be converted.
No, no; he is saying that there is a good
reason for Israel to stumble, namely, that “through their fall, salvation is
come to the Gentiles.” That is: the primary reason for the stumbling of the
Jews is that through their fall, salvation would come to the Gentiles.
Now, this is very clearly indicated in the ministry
of the apostle Paul.
Three times, the apostle Paul announced to
the Jews that the gift of the salvation of God is being taken away from them
and sent to the Gentiles.
The first time was during Paul’s first
missionary journey. This is recorded in Acts 13:46-48. Paul and Barnabas were
in Antioch of Pisidia. They were preaching in the synagogue when the Jew became
envious, and began to contradict them and to blaspheme the Lord.
“46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been
spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of
everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. 47 For so hath the
Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that
thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. 48 And
when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the
Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:46-48).
This was the first indication that the
rejection of the Jews would result in the salvation of the Gentiles.
The second recorded indication brings
us to Corinth during Paul’s second missionary journey. This is recorded in Acts
18:6. Here again, Paul was preaching in the synagogue. But we are told:
“… when [the Jews] opposed themselves, and
blasphemed, [Paul] shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon
your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles” (Acts
18:6).
Notice how Paul is using the language of
Ezekiel. He had done his duty of warning the Jews. The ball is in their court.
He is absolved of responsibility towards them.
The third instance occurred in Rome. This is
recorded in Acts 28:28. Paul had gathered the Jews to hear him out. But the
Jews started to argue with one another instead of receiving the Gospel. Paul
then rebuked them by telling them that the prophecy of Isaiah that they would
be blinded and harden was being fulfilled. Then he said them:
“Be it known therefore unto you, that the
salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it” (Acts
28:28).
The extension of the Gospel to the Gentiles,
then, is one the primary reasons, according Paul for the fall of the Jews.
But why does Paul say that the conversion of
Gentiles was “to provoke [Israel] to jealousy”? Does this not indicate that the conversion
of the Gentiles is for the purpose of provoking the nation of Israel to
jealousy so that they might be recovered as a nation?
Well, no! Turn back to chapter 10, where Paul
quotes Moses to say that God would provoke Israel to jealousy by the conversion
of the Gentile. Verse 19—
“But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses
saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a
foolish nation I will anger you” (Rom 10:19).
Do you see what Paul is saying? God’s
provoking the nation of Israel to jealousy is punitive rather than gracious. If
this is not clear, let’s look at Deuteronomy 32, from where Paul quotes these
words:
“20 And he [God] said, I will hide
my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very
froward generation, children in whom is no faith. 21 They have moved
me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with
their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a
people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. 22 For a
fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell…” (Dt
32:20-22).
Can you see it? Now, it is true that the word
for “provoke to jealousy” in the Greek can also mean “to provoke unto zeal” in
the good sense of the word. And this is the way that Paul would use the word in
verse 14, and our translation has rightly rendered it there as “provoke to
emulation.”
But here in verse 11, it is clear that God is
provoking the nation of Israel with a jealous anger. It is punitive rather than
gracious. Paul is merely saying in verse 11, that the Jews stumbled that the
Gentiles might be saved, and the Gentiles are saved so that the Jews might be
provoked to jealousy and anger as part of their just recompense for rejecting
God. Let us not read our own ideas into the Scriptures, for that is dangerous.
But now, though it is not true that Paul
expects a national conversion of the Jews, he does desire and expect some
conversion amongst the Jews.
Indeed, as we saw in our study of the first
10 verses, a remnant of ethnic Jews would be converted for the sake of the
fathers.
What can we
expect from their conversion, is what Paul is now turning our attention to in
verse 12.
…to be Continued Next Issue
—JJ Lim