Has God Rejected Israel? | Romans 11 Explained | God's Grace, Faith & the Remnant

This morning we're going to see where the Apostle Paul says or asks, has God rejected his people?

And then again, in verse five, in uh Romans chapter 11, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

The fact we Gentiles who are Christians are where we are should provoke within us a reason to honor God for all that He has done.

Just like we've been singing about this morning.

Appreciate all the leaders this morning already.

Our hearts and our minds uh more at ease and able to worship uh the great God of heaven this morning.

Appreciate that very, very, very much.

And it's good to have each one with us this morning.

If you are a guest with us, we're glad you're here.

We have a lot missing today, so uh uh that is the thing, but you are here, and we're glad that you're here and uh and with us today.

I always thought that uh Christmas and and um just the first of the summer was was the most difficult time for members to be here, but it turns out it's actually camp week.

That actually is the week where most of our members uh have departed, at least a certain age group of them.

Uh but uh that's okay.

Appreciate you all here and and uh pray for their safety and their and their good return.

Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 11, if you're not already there, you're gonna want to be there this morning.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

That's page 1125 in the church Bible, if you're using that today.

If you don't have a Bible, we encourage you to take that one home with you because everyone should have in their hands the Word of God anytime they want to know what God wants to tell them.

And so if you don't have a Bible, we want you to have one.

We want you to take that one with you.

Great to have everybody here this morning.

If you have kept up with the Romans series, you may have noticed that Paul has been pretty tough on the Jewish people.

Now that is saying something since Paul himself was a Jew.

It could be that there are even some who are beginning to think that this one-time great Jew has turned to be anti-Jewish, that is to say, anti-Semitic, in his thinking, that he has rejected the Jews, and he is teaching that God has rejected the Jews, because as you can see, just in these few verses, and these are not the only things, this is these are not the only references we could make to make this point.

He started out talking about not just the Gentiles, but you might remember chapter two is all about the Jews having departed from the faith.

That is to say, having departed from their place as children of God.

So the whole book is filled with this kind of thinking.

Paul could rightly say, however, his motivation was not against the Jewish people, but more accurately, his desire is for them all to be saved.

And therefore, some negativity comes into that.

If they're not in a safe state currently, then they needed to get there.

How do you point that out without showing that they are in error in their current thinking, at least the majority of them?

So, yes, it's been pretty negative towards some of the Jewish people.

He has said that in chapter 9, chapter 10, uh explicitly, but he also has said in those chapters that they had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, for example, in verse 2 of chapter 10.

Here in chapter 11 and in verse 1, we begin this text or this section of his writing with him asking, has God rejected his people?

And he says, By no means.

For my uh for uh I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

He didn't forget his physical lineage.

More importantly, he had not forgotten his spiritual lineage or heritage either.

God, he says, has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

Now, here is an important question from this.

Who are the people whom God foreknew?

And I understand that to answer that question, you either had to have recently studied Hebrews, know something about the Hebrew letter, uh, in order to get there, because this has been one of the subject matters of the book.

Was it those born to the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

In other words, was it a specific family that came from these men of faith?

Was it everyone who was a Jew by nationality?

Or was it those who remained faithful to God as compared to those who stood in opposition to God?

Who were the faithful?

Who was the family in the sight of God through all generations?

Whether it be the patriarchal period, whether it be the Mosaic period, or even here in our Christian dispensation.

God did not consider those who were opposed to him as accepted by him.

Let me say this clearly, in any covenant.

In any covenant, it didn't matter if you were born a Jew.

What mattered to God was, are you a faithful Jew?

And that's still true in our day.

We'll see that as we continue on in some of the thinking that Paul sets forth for us this morning.

Proof of this actually can be seen by following Paul's logic in his illustrations and citations that are quoted here starting in verse 2 of our text this morning.

Do you not know, he says, Romans chapter 11, verse 2, follow along.

Romans 11:2

Do you not know that the scripture says of Elijah, how did he appeal to God, not for, notice that word, against Israel.

Was Elijah anti-Semitic?

Of course not.

Just because one speaks against those of his own nation does not mean he's against the whole nation, but rather against the sin of the nation.

And that's what Paul is pointing out here.

Look at verse 3.

Lord, they have killed, this is what Elijah says, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars.

I alone am left, and they seek my life.

But what is God's reply to him?

I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

So too, verse 5, at the present time, here's the application during Paul's day.

There is a remnant chosen by grace.

But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.

Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.

Verse 7, what then?

Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking.

The election obtained uh the uh elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written in Isaiah 29, verse 10 God gave them the spirit of stupor, his eye uh the eyes would not see, the ears would not hear, down to this very day.

Isaiah 29:10

And David says in verse 9, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a and a uh uh retribution for them.

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend or bow, uh uh bow their backs forever, is the idea there.

If our justification, if our acquittal, that's what the word justification means, our right standing before God, were based in what we have done, brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, it would erase the need for a Messiah.

But Paul says that's not actually the case.

Israel's salvation as ours is based upon God's favor, Paul is teaching in this section of our text.

Not because of our greatness, not because of Israel's greatness, but because of God's kindness and love.

And therefore, Israel failed to obtain that for which it sought, which was, as he says here in this text, justification before God, to be acquitted of their sins, to stand right before God.

They sought for it through their works rather than through faith.

Right standing before God.

That's something every human wants.

He pointed this out in chapter 9, verses 30 through 32.

If you're taking notes, you can jot it down, go back there and look at it.

Fits perfectly with what we're looking at here again.

But there is another point that we can draw from this section of our text, and that is that there were some, not all Jews were in this situation.

Not all of them.

Some were actually very faithful people.

There were some who were, he says, among the elect during even Elijah's day.

I just point out to you in passing that that word elect is the very same word that we see in verse 5 that is translated there, chosen.

Elect and chosen, the exact same word that is being used.

So don't be confused that one is distinguishing from the other.

It actually is not.

Who was it?

Who was this elect, this chosen who?

Those who'd been born by uh Israelite blood, pumping through their veins?

Is that the chosen of God?

Is that who Paul has in mind here?

Was it those who looked at the law keeping as their means of somehow paying their debt of sin or being owed salvation by God for their great perfect living according to the law of God?

Or was it those who walk by faith in their relationship to God?

Paul is still making these distinctions for us to clearly understand.

So that we do understand the point, but it is through faith, walking in faith, walking with God, because of his grace, that we find favor in his sight, not on these other, by way of these other means.

Out of the millions of Jews, God recognized, Paul is referring to in the illustration of Elijah, God recognized a remnant of 7,000 of his people who had refused to bow down to false deities.

Paul addresses the idea that he's setting forth here, in my thinking, even more clearly, in places like 2 Thessalonians.

In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, notice in verse 10 that there are those who are perishing.

2 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

Why?

Why are they not among the chosen?

Why are they not elect?

Chapter uh verses 5 and verse 7 of our text.

Why are they not?

Because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion.

Notice that.

It's been a great point of consternation among many Christians.

Why would God ever do such a thing as this?

Send them a strong delusion so that they may not, so that they may believe what is false, he answers in verse 12, in order that all may be condemned.

Why would he want to do that?

Those who do not believe the truth, those who find pleasure, he says, in unrighteousness, the only way of their salvation is through Christ.

That's why.

Practicing that which is not right in the sight of God has always put one on the outside of his people, whether they are Jew or Gentile.

That still remains true today.

And Paul says here, the same is still that way.

There are only a few who are choosing true belief.

And those few are called a remnant, chosen by grace.

Isn't that a wonderful way of saying that?

Chosen by grace.

Or as stated here in verse 7, the elect who have responded to God's great favor.

It's something that Paul says the majority of the Jews were continuing to bend their backs.

That idea is to bow their backs up against God in verse 10.

And like the Gentiles, the majority really have not changed in their relationship to God.

Even as we speak today, that is true.

It was true in Paul's day.

But God will always be faithful to his chosen remnant.

In this context, Paul speaks to the reader about how us Gentiles have come to enjoy the blessings of salvation.

This chapter, if you haven't figured it out already, is mainly about the Jewish people.

Maybe you feel like that doesn't affect you at all.

Here Paul is going to teach us.

It does.

It affects you a lot, actually.

And he'll help us to understand in what way that is true as we continue on now from verses 11 to the end of the text.

Look there at verse 11.

Through the trespass, the Jewish trespass, salvation has come to the Gentile.

Now we might stop there and ask the important question why, Paul?

Why are you why why is this the case?

He says to make Israel jealous.

Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean?

How often in Paul's teachings, if you're uh somewhat familiar with those, did he first go to the Jews?

And after the Jews, the majority of the Jews, rejected him, he would go to the Gentiles.

How often did that happen?

It's quite often.

Paul's desire was that this opening of blessing to the Gentiles would result in jealousy on the part of the unbelieving Jew.

And it was more than just Paul's desire, it was God's desire, is what Paul is teaching us.

Paul was following God's desire, and it would cause the Jews to become believers in Jesus, to want what the Gentiles were receiving.

So he would go to the Jews, most of them would reject him, he would then go to the Gentiles in hopes that through the Gentiles receiving the saving message of God, even the Jews would become believers as a result, being provoked.

And that brings us to how Paul gives special attention to the Christians' view of the Jewish people.

And that may be especially important in our day, given all of the anti-Semitic rhetoric that we are now hearing, even from our own nation as well as the other nations of the world.

Maybe you're not all that familiar with it.

If you're not, you I can only say you you you you're not up on politics at all.

Because we're hearing a lot of this actually.

And there are even people being put in places of great authority who are quite just downright anti-Semitic.

I want you to notice verse 13, where Paul begins this conversation more deeply with us.

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles.

That's probably 99, almost a hundred percent, maybe it is a hundred percent, of those of us who are gathered in this auditorium right now.

Unless you have Jewish blood in.

That word magnify literally is to make the most of, if we were to put it in more modern English.

In order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.

That is an important point.

I've heard my whole life, and maybe you have as well, that there's really nothing special about the Jews.

They're just like everybody else now.

In one sense, that may be true, and we'll see that later on.

In another sense, that absolutely is not true, and Paul is emphatically teaching against that idea.

Not everybody is a Jew.

Not everybody has received what the Jews have received, and that is Paul's point.

His answer is there is something about the Jews.

God still wants every Jew saved.

That makes them special.

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the Gentiles, what will the acceptance by the Jews mean but life from the dead?

That's what Paul has said even since the beginning that he was wanting for his people, the Jewish people, was that they all be saved.

Well, that's the same thing God wants.

Paul's not erring from the message of God when he says he wants all Jewish people to be saved.

I don't know if you have thought about this or not, but under the old covenant, it was the Israelites who were provoked, who were to provoke the Gentile people to come to God.

Do you remember that?

I mean, Isaiah points it out, for example, in chapter 49, verse 6, I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

What does that mean?

Their job as Israelites was to cause people to magnify and reverence the God of heaven.

That was their job.

Like that was the main thing God wanted them to do.

But here, Paul is teaching under the new covenant, God is using Gentiles to provoke the Jews to believe God and God's promises in Jesus Christ.

Isn't that cool?

Today he uses us to help all to believe, Jew and Gentile.

But to make that impact, brothers and sisters, it is important that you and I understand the point that Paul is making.

And that is we need to live out what it means to be a Christian, or we will not be among those who are of the chosen, resulting in a provoking of those who are without Christ.

Provoking them to come into Christ.

It's important that as we just stop here before we move on, that we remember as children of God, our job as a child of God is to provoke to jealousy, to want to make others want to come into Christ.

I mean, like that is our job.

You might have other jobs, but this one is paramount to your walking in Christ.

Many people may not realize how important that is in your Christian living.

And so Paul answers his question in verse 1.

No, God has not given up on his original people, the Jews.

Verses 16 and 17.

He calls them his original lump of dough.

He calls them tree uh branches on the tree, the original tree.

This is where we come from as Christians.

You might think that your Christianity is something God came up with second hand, that he had this system over here that was for the Jews, and then one day he decided, no, I need to include all the Gentile, I'm gonna do that, and so now he comes up with a different system.

No, that actually is not true.

What Paul is teaching is that if we are Christians, we've been grafted in.

We've been added to this lump, been grafted into this original tree.

Us Gentiles are being told by Paul, I hope you realize that you get to be where you are because of God's plan through the Jews.

Through the Jews.

It's important for us to understand, isn't it?

It's as though he's telling us we who are Gentiles, don't disparage the Jews.

Don't get to thinking that you're better than they are, that they're lesser than you are.

If the dough, he says, offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump.

What that tells us is our being added into that old covenant system, the family of God, we are only made holy because of what we're being added into, which was holy before our Christian conversion.

That tells us if God had not set apart the Jews, which is what the word holy actually means, if it weren't for this remnant of Jews that Paul has been talking about, none of us Gentiles could be counted as holy.

Because you know why?

There would be no lump.

There's nothing to be added to if you don't have the holy lump to begin with, which started before Christianity.

The branches to be added to.

Keep reading with me, but if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, that's us Gentiles, were grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree.

Do not be arrogant, do not be conceited, the idea is there, toward the branches, those that were already there.

If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.

Where do you come from as a child of God?

It's an important question.

What is your true lineage as a child of God?

We Gentile Christians need to remember where it all started and how we came to be and to have the blessings that we have through Christ.

The same tree who supported our spiritual ancestors still supports us as a wild olive branch that is grafted into this tree that existed even before Christianity.

The second point that Paul makes here is to remember the same thing that happened to them because of unbelief can also happen to us.

It's difficult not to do what we often hear and criticize the Jews for how faithless and terrible a people they were.

And all of that fits, they were faithless.

But they were no more terrible than we.

What does he mean by that?

Except that we can meet the same demise while we're pointing fingers at our spiritual siblings of the past.

There's a common theme here that has plagued man's relationship with God, it seems like, at least, through every generation.

The Jews become proud of their relationship with God.

They look down on the Gentiles, they actually hated the Gentiles.

They went so far as to call them, just in simple terminology, dogs.

Why did they do that?

Because of their great religion and their great God.

And how they were chosen.

Now, here in Romans, Paul tells the Gentiles, don't look down on the Jews.

Your relation with God came through them.

You're special.

So were they.

At some point it was new.

Walk by faith.

Because they failed in that.

Just because they are our spiritual siblings of the past does not mean we need to make the same mistakes.

And it does not mean that we need to look down on them as if they are somehow now despised by God, when in reality, God wants them all to be saved.

Still today, we can easily become proud in our religion, in our relationship with God.

And in the harshest terms, Jesus would point out this dilemma, this great problem we can bring on ourselves when he speaks to the scribes and the Pharisees and calls them hypocrites, saying that you shut the kingdom of heaven in Matthew chapter 23, verse 13.

Matthew 23:13

You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourself nor allow those who would enter to go in.

They were a poor example for God's religion.

What he wanted in provoking jealousy among all who saw it to come to him rather than reject.

I want what they have.

I want this special relationship with God too.

Instead, they shut down the kingdom.

Taking from and tacking on works which God had not approved, nor had He demanded.

It did not help their religion, it did not make them more special.

All it did was shut people out.

You and I can do that.

We can tack onto our religion.

Whatever we feel like is greater than what God has said.

And it will do the same thing.

It will shut people out.

God made his system of religion no more stringent nor any more allowable than what we can handle.

He's the authority on the issue.

Again, in Luke chapter 11, verse 52 woe to you lawyers, those who were experts in the law of God.

Luke 11:52

For you have taken away the key of knowledge.

You did not enter yourselves, and you hinder those who were entering.

What was the key of knowledge?

God and his pure, undefiled teachings.

Peter used it on the day of Pentecost to bring people to God.

We got to have that in order to understand God's plan of salvation.

And without what he says, we're lost.

But they refused it themselves.

They bowed up against it, Paul says here in chapter 11 of Romans.

Bode up against God's ways, and their haughty and proud attitudes prevented them from coming in, and it pushed others away from entering using their influence is in opposition to God and God's intention.

Paul says, don't make the same mistake in your Christianity.

Think appropriately about your ancestors that you come from as Christians.

For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

That is not a threat.

That is a warning, isn't it?

Notice then the kindness and the severity of God, severity toward those who have fallen.

But God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.

That kindness is what calls us to him by his grace.

Otherwise, you too will be cut off.

He goes on to say in verses 23 and 24.

So don't be wise in your own sight as if you did something to receive this great grace of God.

You were no more deserving of it than the Israelites were, is Paul's point.

God's desire is not to get rid of those branches, though, the branches that were broken or cut off, but to easily graft them back in upon their belief in Christ.

God's always desired to see his human creation saved, regardless of their nationality or their background.

He wants people saved.

No one is excluded from that.

Not even those who at one time had rejected him, like the Israelites, or at least the majority of.

There's a lot of places that refer to this in the Bible.

I have there Ezekiel 33, 11.

We could also go to Psalms chapter 45, verse 9.

Psalms 45:9

The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.

I have down there uh 2 Timothy, but we could also go to 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 9.

2 Peter 3:9

The Lord is patient toward you, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

What a God we serve.

He is rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.

By grace we are saved, aren't we?

Paul begins to sum up and conclude this section, this chapter, in verse 26, saying, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers.

A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come.

I don't want to leave any section of the text out.

I know it's a difficult piece.

We've been dealing with some difficult pieces up to this point out of this chapter.

This one's no different.

I'd like to suggest to you that we are living in an era of which Paul speaks now.

And in this way, all Israel, that is, those he's already described as being faithful people, will be saved.

As it is written in Isaiah 59 and in verse 20, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob, and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.

The quote is from Isaiah chapter 59, and it tells exactly the way Israel would be saved in the future.

Isaiah 59 · chapter mention

How?

Through one, a deliverer out of Zion.

That's Jesus.

But if they refuse him, they would not be part of Israel.

I mean, physically they would, but not in the spiritual sense.

We saw this back in chapter 9 and verse 6, just a quick pass through that before we move on.

Isaiah, uh Romans chapter 9, and in verse 6.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

For not all who are uh descended from Israel belong to Israel.

Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.

What in the world does that mean?

He says, this means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as his offspring.

Well, we can go back to chapter 9.

We can see that in more in more great detail as he teaches it there.

We look at verse 28.

He goes on then to say, because of this, as regard to the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.

Because of their rejection, us Gentiles got the benefit.

That's what he's still harping on.

But then he goes on to say, but as regard to election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.

God still sees the covenant of faith, like we see in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in following God.

God still recognizes that.

Now, what will that do?

In short speech, that will bring them into Christ.

They'll be saved, in other words, just like the Gentiles.

Verse 29, for the gift, the calling of God, are irrevocable.

The Jews needed to see the principle of salvation by grace through faith does not depend on their being the physical seed of Abraham, nor on their ability to perfectly keep the law, the Old Testament law of God.

On the other hand, the Gentiles were to realize the favored position of Israel as a chosen people.

God will save all of them that he can for the sake of their forefathers.

But he wants us to.

And he's invited us to come along in.

By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the deliverer who has come out of Zion.

For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, us Gentiles, but now have received mercy because of their the Jews' disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they may now receive mercy.

For God has consigned all to disobedience.

We learned that in the first three chapters of Romans.

The Greek there indicates this idea of consign indicates there's no possible escape that he may have mercy on all.

As compared to what God has done and what he is doing in order to save us all.

And I think it did that for Paul because he ends this section with this bursting forth of praise and thanks to our great God.

I mean, there's few passages that exalt God so in such grandeur as what we read here at the very tail end of this text.

Look with me at verse 33 as we close up this morning.

Oh, the depth and the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God.

I mean, really, brothers and sisters, how would anyone have known how to do what he what Paul has just described in chapter 11 between these Jews and these Gentiles that are so different, even profane toward one another?

How do you bring them all together into one body?

It's true.

The depth and the riches, the wisdom, the knowledge of God is excelling.

We couldn't even comprehend it if it weren't for him telling us of it.

How unsurchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable, how difficult and impossible for us to grasp are his ways.

For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been counselor?

Who could teach God anything?

The only person who thinks that way has never read the Bible.

For from him and through him and to him are all things.

We can't teach him anything, and we can't cause him to be in our debt that he needs to repay us anything.

Because he is everything.

God is the source, the goal of all things.

And so he ends this section of text saying, To him, be glory forever.

Amen.

What a privilege to have our heritage laid out to us.

That helps us in so many ways, doesn't it?

We all want to know where we came from, but it's bigger than that.

We all want to go beyond where our ancestors were.

We all want to do better than what our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents did.

And Paul is saying here, you can do better than where the Jews did with the covenant they were under.

You can do better.

And it's true, God gives us the advantages to do better.

It is a blessing to have a father like we have, who through these siblings can bring all of them together into one lump of dough, one tree with a great root system that provides life.

If you can say amen to God's patience and kindness toward you, but you're still walking in a way that is absolutely void of real faith, then you're missing the point of the book of Romans.

There is an option.

You can too walk by faith.

Refusing to turn from, maybe you've been refusing to turn from the corruption of the world, you can do that.

Like that's actually an option.

You don't have to continue working against, living against God.

He gives an option.

Bowing up against his desire to fulfill his promises of forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit upon baptism, you don't have to be in that state.

You don't have to bow up.

You actually can submit, and life can become what God created it to be instead of trying to walk contrary to him.

As if that is a winning plan.

What we have seen in Romans is there is no winning plan except through Jesus Christ.

If you need to respond to his call this morning, I hope you'll do that.

There's no reason to leave this place today without becoming a child of God.

If you have yet to do that, I hope you will.

You can talk to us more about it after, or you can come forward right now.

While together we stand as we sing.