Expound: Romans 11 - Part A

Now Israel has had its share of problems nationally. He disobeyed God. He went into captivity for 70 years. The nation was essentially destroyed. It had been divided already tribally between north and south.

The Assyrians had taken the 10 northern tribes captive. The Babylonians did the rest on the two tribes left over in Judah. But eventually they came back after 70 years, as predicted by the prophet Jeremiah, they came back into their land. God's enduring love for his chosen people shows us just how much he loves those he calls. Today on Connect with Skip Heiting, Skip examines the history of Israel and how God's plan for them also includes you. Before we begin, we want to let you know about a resource that will help you enjoy and get the most out of studying your Bible. Guinness World Records has again confirmed that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time.

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Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, let's dive into today's teaching. We'll be in Romans chapter 11 as Skip Heitzig begins the study. Now, I remember when I first bought my first set of Encyclopedia Britannica, I knew that it was the gold standard in research, and I also knew that I couldn't afford it. But there was in a local newspaper somebody who had been gifted a brand new set of Encyclopedia Britannica. They weren't interested.

They needed the cash. I saw the ad. I made the phone call. I scored a deal on Britannica. So I have loved that, and of course this is all before online.

Now it's a moot point. You just signed up to become a member of Britannica, and you can do all the research with that membership. But back in the day of libraries and people reading books, there was Encyclopedia Britannica, which of all the encyclopedias I feel, as I said, was the gold standard. You know, people writing encyclopedias would look up what Encyclopedia Britannica had to say. So it's always interesting to me when such when such a reputable and formidable source like Encyclopedia Britannica makes a huge error.

And they did in their 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica. You see, the Hebrew language had been considered a dead language since about 300 to 400 A.D. After the Bar Kochba revolt in Israel, after the Jewish dispersion around the world, Israel was not a living language. It was not used like it had been used in antiquity. It was only preserved in certain synagogue prayers. The temple wasn't in use.

Israel wasn't in their land. So it just sort of died. And there was talk among some that God would revive it one day. Well, the scholars at Encyclopedia Britannica in 1911 wrote this comment. The possibility that we can ever again recover the correct pronunciation of ancient Hebrew is as remote as the possibility that a Jewish empire will ever again be established in the Middle East.

If they would have just waited, and of course they did have to wait 36 more years, because 36 years after this was printed they had to revise it. Because essentially what you have today is people speaking the ancient Hebrew language as an everyday language and doing so in the Jewish empire, in the regathered state of Israel. So that brings us to the very first question that is posed in chapter 11. Has God cast away His people? Paul the Apostle asks in Romans chapter 11 verse 1, certainly not. Obviously for God to regather them back in the land as we see today, May 14, 1948 that happened, is an indication to us that something is up. God isn't done with His people.

The covenant people are still in line to be blessed by God in the future. Now Israel has had its share of problems nationally. It disobeyed God.

It went into captivity for 70 years. The nation was essentially destroyed. It had been divided already tribally between north and south.

The Assyrians had taken the 10 northern tribes captive. The Babylonians did the rest on the two tribes left over in Judah. But eventually they came back. After 70 years, as predicted by the prophet Jeremiah, they came back into their land.

So there they were growing and thriving and rebuilding and populating that land. But 70 AD rolled around. The Jews had rejected the Messiah that came to them. Jesus held them accountable for that rejection. In fact, held them accountable for the very day He came to Jerusalem, fulfilling the prophecies of Daniel. And since 70 AD, after that, the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem.

Again, they were taken captive, so to speak. There was a diaspora, a dispersion into countries around the world. Until, as I mentioned, May 14, 1948, when the United Nations established Israel again as a nation. And that perked up the interest of Bible scholars around the world. Because Isaiah the prophet said, or God said through Isaiah the prophet, that the Lord will set His hand a second time to restore the remnant of my people, Israel. The first time was after the Babylonian captivity.

The second time was May 14, 1948. God, once again, gathered literally, not figuratively, not spiritually, Israel within its own borders. But as to our chapters that we have been dealing with, the promises of God had been coming under scrutiny. God's promises to the nation of Israel, the national promises of the plan of God for Israel had come under scrutiny.

Why? Because Israel had rejected the Messiah. Jesus said, you will not come to me that you may have life. They rejected Him. So the question is, if they rejected Him, hasn't He rejected them? Again, that is Romans 11, verse 1. Has God cast away His people? If they have rejected Jesus as their Messiah, then certainly God must reject them as His people.

And as we mentioned last week, the amillennial believer would say, that's true. Now there's spiritual Israel. There's no such thing as national Israel.

There's no such thing as geopolitical Israel. God is not concerned with that. It's all spiritualized in the church. We have fulfilled and will fulfill the promises that God made to the Jews. Now, by the time this book was written, there was already a shift in the church from Jew to Gentile. The early church was all Jewish, all Jewish. Every single believer in Jerusalem had a Jewish background. Jesus was a Jewish Messiah. Salvation came to the Jews through a Jew named Jesus. So all the believers in Judea had a Jewish background. That changed when Peter went to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, and Cornelius believed and was filled with the Holy Spirit. Things began to change.

I'll get back to that story. At this point, the church is largely, especially in Rome, not Jewish, but mostly Gentile, non-Jewish. So just looking at who is populating the seat next to you in church around this time, one could surmise, I guess God really is done with Israel. That was sort of a starting point, but they rejected him.

He's rejected them. Now God is turning to and dealing with the Gentiles. Now, why would they think this? They would think this because indeed, and Paul will make this clear, there was a blindness that happened to Israel. We're going to get down to chapter 11, eventually verse 25, where Paul says blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles are come in.

They became hardened. They became so hardened voluntarily that God added to that by causing a blindness to occur because of their willful rejection. So I'm sort of going around the block to get next door, but I'm going to read a complementary verse of Scripture, and that is 2 Corinthians chapter 3, where Paul says, Moses put a veil over his face. This is 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 13. Moses put a veil over his face so the children of Israel could not look still steadily at the end of what was passing away.

That is the covenant of the law. But their minds were hardened. Their minds were hardened, or as other translations say, their minds were blinded.

They became blind. For until this day, he continues, the same veil remains un-lifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. He's speaking of a national blindness that occurred to the Jews, a stupor, a spiritual stupor, so that they read the Scripture, but they don't get it. They don't have a real, full-orbed, clear understanding of how Jesus Christ fulfills their Scripture. Now, that was true when Paul wrote it.

It's true to this day. And I'm underscoring that, because by the time we get to verse 25, you'll have that as a background of understanding. Now, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19, Jesus comes to Jerusalem, and as He drew near, it says, He saw the city and He wept over it, saying, If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. You are blinded to it. You are hardened to it.

That spiritual stupefication has ruled over you. For the days will come, Jesus continues, saying to Jerusalem, the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation. He is predicting the fall of Jerusalem under the Roman siege that occurred in 70 AD under General Titus. They're going to come in and destroy this town, take the stones, toss one off the other, and if you go and see the ruins today of Israel, you will see how complete that destruction is.

One stone not left upon another. So, they lost their temple. They lost their national identity. They lost their land.

They lost eternal life. And so, Paul begins in this section by asking a series of questions, rhetorical questions. It's that Socratic method. He offers a question as somebody who would dissent in a conversation would ask. Somebody would say, well, wait a minute now, Paul, I have a rebuttal. So, he supposes that, so he asks a question, then we'll answer it. And one of those questions is, as we noted in verse one, has, I say then, has God cast away his people? Certainly not, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. He didn't cast me away. I'm a Jewish rabbi.

I believe in Jesus as the Messiah. He continues in verse 11. I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? The next question.

Let me put that in a more understandable way. Have they fallen so they can't get up? You know the commercial. That medical alert. I've fallen and I can't get up. And it's no laughing matter. I mean, that really is a tragedy when that happens. But the question is, have the Jewish people fallen to the extent that that fall is irrecoverable, that God has set them aside from his plan in the future? Have they fallen so they can't get up?

Certainly not. But through their fall to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. It's tragic that the Jewish people did not see Jesus as their Messiah. Now, many did. Hundreds did. Thousands did. We see that in the book of Acts.

But as a nation, they were so hardened their leaders would not permit it. So they rejected Jesus. They were glad when he was crucified. But as tragic as it was, it opened a door for God to let Gentiles, non-Jews, come in. That is one of the grand points of this chapter.

Because Jesus was rejected by Israel, salvation was offered to the whole world. Remember the parable of the wedding feast? And people said, no, I'm busy. No, I won't come. They didn't come. So the master of the feast said, go into the highways and byways and get anybody who will come. That's the same thing.

That's the same truth. Non-Jewish people. Anybody who would believe in Jesus could be admitted to it. And really, that was the idea of Israel from the beginning. When God first established the nation, who did he establish it through?

Who was the first person? Abraham. God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees.

And he promised him a land. And he said, I'm going to make a great nation out of you, Abraham. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make your name great. I'm going to bless those who bless you.

I'm going to curse those who curse you. And in you, listen to this, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Not some of the families, only those with a Jewish background will be blessed. All of the families of the earth will be blessed. And my family has been blessed. This German American Gentile family has been blessed because of what Jesus did in bringing salvation. It was God's intention from the beginning to let Israel be a light to the Gentiles.

Isaiah said very clearly. But they rejected God's plan. God had a plan for them. The question is, does God still have a plan for them?

According to Paul, yep, He still does have a plan for them. Even their faithlessness to Him can't cancel His faithfulness to them. In fact, it should provoke them to jealousy because salvation has come to the Gentiles now. Verse 12, if their fall is riches for the world, that is, their rejection has opened the door for non-Jewish people, the world, anybody can believe. If their fall is riches for the world and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. If their rejection of God and His setting them aside temporarily brought such blessing to the world, can you imagine if God decided to restore them, bring them back, regather them, and cause them all to believe? What would what would that mean?

How much more their fullness? For I speak to you Gentiles in as much as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry. It's interesting that Paul, a Jewish rabbi, became the one that God used to open the door of faith largely, though he used Peter at first with Cornelius, he used Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles. And Peter in Galatians is called the apostle to the Jews.

So you have Peter, who is from Galilee, a largely Gentile region, the apostle to the Jews, and you have Paul, a Gamaliel, Jerusalem-trained rabbinic scholar, Hebrew of the Hebrews, tribe of Benjamin, Jewish, true blue Jew, an apostle to the Gentiles. I love it because God's call is often counterintuitive. If you wonder, Lord, why did you call me to that ministry or to that place or to that group or in this situation?

Just know that. Sometimes God calls you to do something, has a little smile on his face, and you're like, something has a little smile on his face when he does it because he calls you the areas you go, I don't have any experience with this. I'm not good at this. Moses, I'm calling you to lead my people. I can't even talk, Moses said. I stutter. You want me to be a spokesperson? Wrong guy. Paul, the Jewish rabbi, an apostle to the Gentiles, how much more their fullness?

I'll get back on track. For I speak to you, Gentiles, as much as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. As I said, salvation came to the Jews through a Jew. Jesus was Jewish. He was raised in a Jewish family. He was dedicated at a Jewish temple. He went to Jerusalem to go through his Bar Mitzvah to become a son of the commandment. He kept the Passover.

He kept the feasts of Israel. He said to the woman of Samaria, you don't know what you're worshiping. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. He was a pure Jewish Messiah. It was Paul's hope, however, that because God opened the door to the Gentiles and the Gentiles were now believing in a Jewish Messiah and believing in Jewish scripture and believing in the fulfillment of Jewish feasts in Christ, that that would bother some of the Jews.

Hey, wait a minute. What are you doing worshiping my Messiah? What are you doing reading my scriptures? And still to this day when I meet and talk to Jewish people and I mention the Old Testament and I'll quote the Old Testament, they go, oh, you read the Old Testament.

Wow. And they go, wow, you seem to know it pretty well. And I've had many of them say, much better than I do. I didn't even know my own scriptures. So it was Paul's hope that salvation to non-Jewish people in believing all things Jewish about the Messiah and the fulfillment, that would provoke them to jealousy and that that would drive them to Christ. Now that didn't exactly happen.

It happened in some cases. Verse 15, for if they're being cast away is the reconciling of the world. Again, the door is open to the world. Whosoever will, let him come. Whoever believes in him will not perish. If they're being cast away, and again, temporarily, not permanently, is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead. For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is holy.

If the root is holy, so also are the branches. That's Skip Hightake with a message from the series Expound Romans. Now, here's Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this coming your way as you help connect others to the gospel. God long ago planned his son coming to earth to die on a cross for our sins.

He planned to bring you into his family. That's incredible news, and we want to share with more friends all around the world, and you can be a part of that work. Through your gift today, you not only keep these teachings on the air, but you'll help connect so many people to the love of God and the riches of his word. Here's how you can give a gift right now. You can give online at connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you. Tomorrow, Skip Hightake shares how you are a part of God's plan in which he brings the nation of Israel back to himself. When you gave your life to Christ, you were given, you were gifted, and you were grafted. You were given salvation, given eternal life. You were gifted by the Holy Spirit certain abilities and capabilities for the mutual edification of the body of Christ. That's the Holy Spirit. Connect with Skip Hightake is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.