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The
Abounding Grace of God to
Israel
At
a time when
Israel
is seen by the wider world
as an irritating problem that just won't go away, many Christians have reacted
by simply politicising the nation of
Israel
and dismissing the Jewish
people as irrelevant to God's Kingdom strategy. This may be one reason among
many why there is an upsurge in attempts to reinterpret many biblical passages
in which a significant place is given to the Jewish people in the plan and
purpose of God. Romans
11:26
- "And so all
Israel
shall be saved" (NKJV)
- is one of those verses. Listen in to the debate and you will find interpreters
questioning whether the term "
Israel
",
as used by the apostle Paul, really means
Israel
.
I
find myself wondering why there should have to be any debate at all? Why would
any Christian want to withhold the blessing of salvation from God's covenant
people or limit the tender mercy of God? What agenda underlies this attempt to
make God's word in Romans
11:26
read, "And so all the
Church shall be saved", or "And so all the
elect shall be saved"? This interpretation, albeit unwittingly,
ends up limiting the grace and mercy of God.
Martyn
Lloyd-Jones effectively demolishes such an understanding of Romans
11:26
in his volume of sermons on
Romans 11, where he points out, "The view we hold [regarding the meaning of
'all
Israel
'] will affect our
understanding of the Apostle's great doxology that starts with verse 33 ["Oh,
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known
the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be
repaid to him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be
glory forever. Amen."] That
is a good test of our exposition with regard to 'all
Israel
'
- it has to lead you on to this tremendous doxology." (D. Martyn
Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Exposition of Chapter
11. To God's Glory, Banner of Truth Trust, 1998, p.217.
This
doxology makes no sense at all if Romans
11:26
means simply that God will
save "the Church" or "the elect". As Lloyd-Jones points out
elsewhere, there is no "mystery" (v.25) in such an interpretation.
However, the doxology makes perfect sense, if God is going to continue His
covenant faithfulness with a covenant-breaking people who Romans
10:21
calls "a
disobedient and contrary people" to whom God stretches out His
hands all day long.
Would
an unbiased reader coming to Romans 11:26 without presuppositions ask, "I
wonder if '
Israel
'
means
Israel
"? God is not stingy
with His grace; why should we be!
In
his Second Letter, Peter writes "The Lord is not slack concerning His
promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing
that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter
3:9 NKJV). Who was Peter writing to? If he is addressing the same people as in
his first epistle, they were believers in the Jewish diaspora (1 Peter 1:1) and
Peter, the apostle to the Jewish people (Galatians 2:7,8), tells them that God
is not slack concerning His promises "toward us [
Israel
]". Then, building on
God's generous heart towards
Israel
, Peter shows that God
doesn't want any to perish; He wants the Gentiles to come to repentance as well.
God is generous, pouring out His grace on those who don't deserve it. Do
you think that you deserved His mercy? That is the glory of the Gospel; why
should anyone want to change the plain sense of Romans
11:26
simply because God
specifically identifies
Israel
as the object of His
unmerited love and mercy in Messiah Jesus? A day will come, says Paul, when
"all
Israel
shall be saved".
Prof.
F.F. Bruce, in his Tyndale commentary on Romans, writes: "
Israel
's blindness is only partial
(for some Israelites have already been enlightened), and only temporary... The
new covenant will not be complete until it embraces the people of the old
covenant." (p. 220)
Matthew
Henry notes in his famous commentary: "The blindness will be removed from
Israel
, and the nation saved from
its rejected and dispersed state, and must at last become true believers."
The
Puritan genius Jonathan Edwards also affirms: "Nothing is more certainly
foretold than this national conversion of the Jews in Romans 11" (Works,
p.607).
The
great Charles Simeon of
Cambridge
wrote: "At Romans
11:25
-27 it is assured to them [
Israel
] by a special promise; and
that promise is ratified by an unchangeable covenant... He will, by the power of
His Word and the effectual operation of His Spirit, 'turn away all ungodliness
from Jacob;' and make them 'a holy nation, a peculiar people, zealous of good
works' " (Expository
Outlines on the Whole Bible, vol 5, p.444).
"Oh,
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"
"Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more" (Romans
11:33
;
5:20
NKJV).
Richard
Gibson (Editor of Chai)
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