Romans 11:25-36 – Romans

Today's reading is Romans chapter eleven, verse twenty-five to thirty-six.

Lest you be wise in your own sight.

I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery.

Brothers, as a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written.

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.

As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.

But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.

For the gifts of the calling of God are irrevocable.

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

For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Amen.

And so reads God's word.

Don't Google it.

Phones away.

Sorry?

No, no, not how deep.

What is it called?

It has a name.

No, nobody?

Oh well, that's my lollipop then.

The abys that was in the abyssal zone.

That's quite but anybody, anybody?

Challenger deep.

Okay, look it up.

It's called Challenger Deep.

How deep is Challenger Deep in kilometers?

Who said 11?

Immediate.

Who was that?

Okay, last one.

Because he's so tall, Stefan has plumbed those depths.

Now do you want watermelon or raspberry?

Raspberry.

There we go.

You're welcome.

And I get this watermelon to go home with.

Well, we know it's that deep because of technology, right?

We've been able to scan the bottom of the ocean floor, especially in recent years.

And so we've been able to work out how deep it is.

One of the ways that we haven't been able to find out how deep it is is to have actually somebody stand there.

You can't have somebody stand at the bottom of the Marianus Trench, because it's it's unfathomably deep.

Now imagine for a second that somebody said to you, hey, after church today, let's uh let's go on a trip.

We're gonna go to California.

We're gonna go to Monterey about two hours outside of of LA.

We're gonna drive up the Big Sur, and we're gonna be in Monterey just before sunset, and we're gonna go swimming in Monterey Bay, and we're gonna watch the sun dip into the Pacific Ocean.

What would you say?

I'd say, I'm there.

That sounds great.

I'd love that.

I've done that.

It is amazing.

Go and do it.

You wouldn't say, well, there's no point in me swimming off the coast of Monterey in California because I'm never going to be able to stand at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

What's the point in going into the Pacific if I can't plumb the depths of it?

There's no point in me even getting wet at all.

It would be equally weird to say, once you've come out of you know, snorkeling with the dolphins and hearing the smelly seals in Monterey, it would be weird then to say, well, I have seen and understand now all that there is to see and understand about the Pacific Ocean.

That'd be weird too.

But just because I've gone swimming in Monterey Bay, I not understand the vast expanse of that body of water.

Paul in verse 33 exclaims, Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how unscrutable are his ways.

In a sense, Paul is saying, guys, we've been swimming over, we've been swimming over some deep waters.

Not only have we been swimming, but Paul's been, he's taken us down in his in his theological submersible over these last four weeks in particular, over the chapters of Romans 9, 10, 11.

And if you've been with us during that time, you see like it was it's heavy stuff, it's taxing.

You need kind of you need thick theological windows on that submersible in order to kind of deal with the the pressure of some of the things that that Paul is is saying.

And now as he concludes this section and transitions into another, he's kind of saying, I've taken you so far, but there's there's depths below us that that we can't quite fathom, that we can't quite plumb, that we've gone so far down, and and at that depth we just marvel at what we see.

And so you know, you descend, you've maybe seen those nature documentaries, small by nature documentaries in Romans 9, 10, 11.

Don't worry, I'll not do my David Addenborough impression, though it is excellent.

Uh you see this, uh, those nature documentaries, you descend into the midnight zone.

What do you see?

You see those little those bioluminescent creatures, squid and octopus and stuff like that.

And how can they survive with no light and and at those pressures?

And yet there's more to find, even deeper.

I grew up in a in a more dogmatic and confident wing of the Christian church, more theologically assured.

We were right, and we needed other people to know that we were right.

We would make confident proclamations and assertions about theological matters, and we left little room for for mystery, for additional depth.

And then in about the the mid-2000s or or so, round to about, I'd say kind of 2012, 2013, there was a movement within the church that basically was a reaction against that kind of that confidence, that assurance, that dogmatism.

If you're old like me, you'll know it as the emergent church.

And it's still kind of it's a thing in some spaces, but it's largely kind of faded into the background.

But basically what they were saying was well, we can't really know anything at all.

That all we can do is is question.

That for me to declare anything confidently, to assert anything as being objectively true, well, that was seen as that's seen as arrogant.

That's uh that's a power play, that's intellectually reductionistic, that to be a truly enlightened Christian was to be a person who held on to nothing, who questioned everything, who rejected every traditional orthodoxy in favor of something more provocative and subversive, and they thought they were very cool.

To do faith of theology like that is a little bit like the person who says, Well, because I can't stand on the floor of the Marianas Trench, I can have no confidence about what the Pacific Ocean is like at all.

There's no point in me swimming at all because I can't completely know, and so I must question all of the knowledge that I have.

Similarly, the the dogmatic person, the person from my particular bent and inclination, is a person who says, Well, I can see the bottom.

I've got this completely nailed.

I know exactly what's going on.

But when Paul here talks about the depth of the wisdom of God, I think he's challenging both of those views, don't you?

Because there's depth, oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God.

Because there's depth, one of the things that Paul is saying, well, there's there's substance there, guys.

There is things there to know.

There is there are depths to be plumbed, things to be discovered, things about God to be explored and rejoiced in, things that can be known, maybe not exhaustively, but truly.

And if you think about it, I mean, do you know, do you know exhaustively about anything?

Do you know exhaustively about the chair that you're sitting in?

Well, no, you don't.

But you know some true things about it, namely that it would support your weight, and that gives you the confidence to sit in it.

So you might not know exhaustively, but you do know truly.

And then at the same time, because there is unfathomable depth, unsearchable judgment, Paul is also saying, yeah, there's substance there, but there's gonna come a point where where we all, we as finite beings, we're gonna reach our limit.

We're gonna reach the limit of our comprehension.

There's gonna be things which lie beyond our reach, and we need to know how to respond to God when we find ourselves buffeting up against those those limits.

Over the last few Sundays, we've been swimming in deep waters, the deep waters of God's sovereignty, of human responsibility and how the two interact, of God's unbreakable promises to his people Israel.

And as we've peered out of the reinforced theological portholes that Paul has crafted for us in these chapters, we've seen some things that we have to affirm, even if the the how and the why and the mechanism lies at a depth of comprehension that's beyond us.

Those things that we ought to affirm from these chapters are things like this that if salvation is all of God's grace and not of anything that is good in us that merits it or deserves it, then salvation in the end must be a part of God's gracious choosing of his people before they're born, before the world is created.

And also simultaneously affirm that human beings are responsible for their rejection of God and are obligated to respond to him in repentance and faith, to not try and establish a righteousness of our own, but to cast ourselves upon his mercy.

And at these depths, those things might surprise us, shock us even.

But there are also beautiful things to be perceived.

This morning, I have really just two main aims for us.

I want to show us the surprising nature of God's grace shown to Israel and then by extension to us all, to all of his people.

And then in the second half, I want to give us some ways to think about and interact with God when we feel like we're at the limits of our of our understanding and of our comprehension.

When we find ourselves just simply crying out, oh the depths of the riches, how unsearchable are your judgments, Lord?

How do we interact with it?

Because that can be a destabilizing thing, right?

When you think, oh, I can't, I can't get my head around this.

How do you interact with that?

So, first of all, let's let's try and tie things up as best as we can with regards to what Paul's been talking about with Israel and see from it the surprising nature of God's grace.

One of the things about these chapters is that you read Romans 9, 10, and 11 and all the things that God is saying about how He how He hardens some people, but He's hardening them temporarily, and He's hardening them temporarily so that other people might come to know the grace of God.

And uh and that the grace of God is really not dependent on anybody's merit or or or descent or lineage or ethnicity, that it's it's to do with God's sovereign choosing and inheriting his promise.

You read these things, you think nobody would make up salvation like this.

That nobody would ever have thought that God would rescue the world the way that he does.

To base it not on merit, and then to say that actually a people's unbelief helps others to believe.

But that's what he says in verse 25.

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be aware of this mystery, brothers.

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

When Paul uses the word mystery, he doesn't mean it in the sense of, here's something that is uh that is forever long hidden.

He's saying, here's something that was hidden that I'm now able to kind of explain at least in part to you.

And what he is saying about that mystery is that at least temporarily, some people are not believing, that they're hardened so that other people would believe.

Remember what Jesus says to his disciples when he's sending out his disciples two by two to go to the to the towns and the villages around Capernaum, he sends them out.

And and do you remember the instructions that he gives them?

He says, you know, if you go into a city and and they don't welcome you, they don't receive you, as he says, okay, shake the dust off your feet and go to another town.

Until somebody welcomes you in and receives my message.

Saying, you know, some people are going to be hard to the gospel, but that hardening is actually going to propel you further.

It's going to send you out to other towns and villages.

Or remember the book of Acts.

This is exactly how the gospel moves in the book of Acts.

The the Jews in Jerusalem and in Judea, they're they're opposed to the gospel.

They're hardened.

Paul goes to them first on his missionary journeys.

He goes to uh to places like Ephesus and he reasons in the synagogue, talking to the Jews, and what happens?

Well, there's a riot.

And it's from that hardening that actually the gospel flows then to the non-Jews, to the Gentiles.

The Jews become hardened in Jerusalem and Judea.

And so what happens?

Well, the apostles take the message to Samaria and beyond.

Paul is reasoning in Athens in the synagogue, and some are accepting the message, lots of people are rejecting it, and so what does he do?

Well, he ends up going to the Areopagus, the great uh debate society of Athens, and shares the gospel there.

And so what Paul is saying is not all that hard to understand when you put it in the context of the other, those other instances in the Bible that actually sometimes people's rejection of the gospel allows the gospel to flow on to others.

The same is true, has been true in the history of the church.

Where the gospel has been rejected in one place, it has caused others to take it to another.

Missionaries have moved on and to places where they have found great gospel fruit.

You see, God's surprising grace means that He doesn't immediately soften someone's heart.

And that maybe their hardness is needed in order that others might hear.

But remember, we're at we're at quite a depth right now.

The theological pressure is hard outside.

But here what Paul is saying that sometimes people are hardened so that others will hear the gospel.

This is what has happened with the with the Jews and the Gentiles in verse 25, that a partial and temporary hardening, Paul says, has happened until more non-Jews hear the gospel and respond.

And then we get to possibly the hardest set of words, not just in the book of Romans, but in the entire New Testament.

Then he says in verse 26, and in this way all Israel will be saved.

I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give it a good go.

There are things about this verse that I am confident about.

There are things about this verse that I am less confident about.

Okay.

I'm more here's what I'm more confident about.

I'm more confident about the first three words before we start talking about Israel.

So if you're looking at it, actually you should have it open in front of you, uh, Romans 11.

Look it up in your phone, Romans 11 ESV, scan down to verse 26.

Look at the first three words.

Oh, sorry, four words.

And in this way.

And in this way?

What way?

What's Paul talking about there?

Well, the first thing you need to know is Paul's talking about mechanism.

And in this way, here's the process, guys.

Here's the process that all Israel will be saved.

Before we get to what does he mean by all Israel?

He's talking about a process that let's just remember.

Before we understand all Israel, we must understand how Paul is talking about how God is going to save them.

In this way, well, what way, Paul?

Well, namely, that God is going to lavish his grace upon the Gentiles and make the Jews so jealous of that grace that they're going to be wooed in and go, well, actually, I would like that.

Why have you just lavished the grace upon the Gentiles, Lord?

We're your people.

And say, well, yeah.

Believe that Jesus is your Messiah.

He's going to make them yearn for that grace by making them jealous for it.

That's what he's been saying all the way through.

Romans chapter 11.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

In this way, how does God show religious people how amazing and surprising and beautiful his grace is?

He gives it to others.

Gives it to people who don't deserve it.

How do you make religious people jealous for the grace of God?

Give it to somebody who doesn't deserve the grace of God.

In this way, all Israel will be saved.

Now, what do we mean by all Israel?

There are three possible options, right?

The three possible options are this: that all Israel means here the whole people of God, Jew and Gentile, right?

Paul has used the term Israel in that way in other letters in the New Testament.

So Galatians.

Galatians talks about the Israel of God being the collection of Jews and Gentiles.

I don't, I almost wanted to make it mean.

Because that would just make my life easier this last week.

But I actually don't think that that's what he's saying.

Because in the context of Romans 11, Israel means Jews over and against Gentiles.

So I think it would be a switch of meaning to suddenly mean Jews and Gentiles together, right?

So whatever he's talking about, he is talking about Jewish people, right?

That's the first one.

I don't think it means that.

The second possibility, therefore, is that Israel means the whole ethnic group that is Israel, every ethnic Jew.

But we've already seen, so I reject this one as well, we've already seen specifically that the people, specifically Jews, cannot claim to be part of the people of God simply by ethnic descent.

That to be a child of Abraham is not simply to share in Abraham's lineage or ethnicity or to carry his DNA, but is to share in Abraham's faith.

So it would be Paul kind of contradicting and going back at himself if it means every ethnic Jew without distinction.

So third, and obviously this is the one that I think it is, this is the one that I think makes best sense of what Paul is saying is that all Israel means every elect Jew from every age, every elect chosen Jew from every age.

Here's why I think that.

Last week Paul was saying that there is a there's a remnant of Jews like himself who have recognized that that Jesus is the Messiah and have come to believe in him, that he is the promised one.

And then there is a majority of Jews who are hardened to the gospel.

Some of those in that hardened category have rejected Jesus permanently by seeking to establish their own righteousness.

They have rejected the grace of God and have been hardened therefore by him.

But I think Paul is saying here that there is a group within that hardened category of Jewish people who are currently hardened.

They're not yet shown themselves to be part of this remnant.

They're currently hardened to the message of the gospel, but who God will soften by showing grace to the Gentiles and will who finally bring to himself.

And so Paul, this I think makes best sense of this very odd verse in verse 28.

As regards the gospels, as regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.

What Paul is saying here is that they oppose the gospel right now.

They oppose you right now, but it's not always going to be that way.

God's eternal purposes have some in that hardened circle as part of his people, as elect Jews.

And he goes on in the rest in verses uh 29 to 32 to say, well, you were kind of the same, actually.

That you were once disobedient and then you received mercy.

Well, now they're disobedient, so that mercy would overflow to you, but eventually actually it will flow them.

Mercy.

Paul's saying, that's what's that's what's happening here in space and time, that there are those who are who are opposing you who in the end will show that they were actually always part of the people of God.

And so who is all Israel here?

Well, I think that it is every elect Jew from every generation, whether part of that faithful remnant now or those who are currently hardened to the gospel.

Now, here's an area where I'm less confident, right?

I'm less confident with regards to timeline.

So if you are particularly theologically versed in these chapters, you might have a strong opinion on whether or not this is something that is happening concurrently in every generation, or whether this is something sequential.

So, what I mean by that is that God has hardened the Jews so that the gospel can go to the nations.

You're welcome, you're all here, right?

So he's hardened the Jewish people until such a point, until whatever, um uh until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, whenever that is, whatever that means.

And then there's going to be a gospel explosion amongst those who are ethnically Jews.

That would be a kind of sequential or dispensational view, right?

I am broadly in the concurrent camp that this is something that happens in every generation.

Though rather than it just being a cycle that goes around, I would be inclined to hold a view that sees it as a spiraling, that actually there as time goes on, there is an increasing number of uh of Jewish people coming to see Jesus as the Messiah, broadly speaking.

That's just my position.

I'm at a depth where I don't think that I can be dogmatic about it.

We can debate and discuss it, but I wanted to address it anyway.

But at these depths, what we are to marvel at, what Paul wants us to marvel at, is how amazing and surprising and a little bit shocking God's grace is that God would be so patient, so merciful to act in such an unexpected way with those who are hardened to Him now.

I want to give you confidence.

Again, we talked about this last week.

You think of people in your life who seem so hardened to the gospel, their story isn't over.

It's one of the big things that Paul's saying about God's dealing with the Jews, is that whatever's going on, whether it's you know there's going to be a big in-gathering towards the end or not, is Paul saying the story of the Jewish people isn't over.

And brothers and sisters, the story of the hardened person that you love is not over.

Grace continues to flow.

And so we respond to him at these depths with praise.

And that's the second part that I want to address more briefly.

Paul concludes this section, I think, on initial reading, perhaps a little bit strangely.

He concludes with this doxology, that is, this expression of praise and exuberance.

Again, let me read it for you.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable his ways, for who has known the mind of the Lord, who has been his counselor, who has given him a gift that he might be repaid, for from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be glory forever.

Amen.

And Paul, you kind of want to sit down and go, Paul, you have just you have just cooked my noodle with talk of sovereignty and human responsibility, and there's this whole thing about Israel that I still don't really get.

And and now we're supposed to kind of stand up and sing?

And Paul's like, yeah, absolutely.

That is the most appropriate response.

What we've been thinking about has been so intellectually searching and challenging.

And in the end, Paul falls down and he he worships.

Folks, what should we learn from that?

How do we go from the deepest, richest, most challenging section of theology in the New Testament to expressions of praise and worship?

Why does Paul do that?

I think he does that for some really important reasons.

Let me give them to you first.

Paul is teaching us that theology, what we know about God, should always lead to doxology, the praise of God.

The things that you learn should always drive you to worship, to awe and wonder.

That what we know about God should inform how we feel about God.

In the same way that if you were to visit, if you go to Arizona, say you're to visit the Grand Canyon, nobody ever stands.

I'm all about America today.

Uh nobody stands at the at the at the precipice at the edge of the Grand Canyon and look down at that vast expanse and look to your right and your left and see those huge monumental gorges, and think, hey, I'm pretty great.

That'd be such a weird response, wouldn't it?

No, no, no, you you look at this vast vista and you go, wow.

That's amazing.

In the same way, the study of God should always lead to that experience of awe.

Folks, do you study God through a microscope or through a telescope?

You study God through a microscope, and you're the big one, and you're dissecting all of these theological intricacies and truths, and you're trying to work out well, how does that fit together with that thing?

And that God is this small thing to be tinkered with.

Yeah, you do theology like like studying through a telescope.

What you're doing there is you recognize, of course, I'm I'm small.

And I cannot hold in my field of view the full horizon of the beauty and grandeur of God.

That he is so beyond my comprehension that his vastness reminds me of my smallness.

And then and then in this, and then I go to Psalm 8 and I go, what is man that you would be mindful of him, the Son of Man that you would consider him, but you have crowned him with glory and honor, that you're so big and I'm so small.

What a thing that you would be mindful of me.

Our study of God should always lead to worship of God.

To the extent where I might say that you have not done your study of God correctly if you come away unmoved.

Praise and devotion are the goal of all theological study.

If it is not the goal of all theological study, then what happens is you get a bunch of Christians that are like brains on sticks because there's no heart there.

When we study God as through a telescope, when we study God, having it in mind that the goal of our study is that our affections might be stirred for him, that our heart might be warmed by him, that we might stand as on the edge of the Grand Canyon and say, wow, in awe of all that he is and to say, God, I would never have conceived that you would rescue the world in this way.

And the things that I'm seeing here, well, they're they're really challenging me intellectually, but goodness me, you are gracious and you are patient.

And thank you so much that actually your work isn't done and that your grace is still flowing.

What a thing.

The goal of theology is always doxology.

Secondly, what Paul's expression of praise teaches us is that theology should always inform our doxology, that what we know about God should inform how we praise Him.

You see, praise that is solely emotionally driven and not grounded on something solid that does not reflect back to God something that is wondrous and captivating about him that he has revealed to us.

Well, a praise like that, a doxology like that is well, it's sentimental at best.

It's ultimately fruitless, it must be informed.

It's like trying to spiritually exist on a diet of candy floss.

Sweet to the taste and it's good, and it's fine from time to time, but it's ultimately unnourishing.

So it's maybe worth kind of if you're taking it, you jot it down or or think about this now this afternoon is go, well, what's one thing that I've learned about God?

Maybe today, maybe over the last few weeks, or in my own private study, what's one thing that I'm learning about God that is that should stir my affections for him, that should inform how I feel about him, that should help me love him more, that should help me to say, wow.

Third thing is that I think off the back of all of this theological learning, Paul is showing us that worship is the right response.

And that worship is the right response when we reach the limits of our understanding.

You do not need to understand everything in order to praise God.

You do not need to understand everything about him.

In fact, you will not ever.

Maybe you have this idea that, well, when I reach the new heavens and the new earth, when I die, when I go into eternity, then I'm suddenly going to understand everything.

No, I don't think you will.

Because you're still there's still gonna be a kind of a finitude to your being, right?

You're not gonna suddenly become God.

You're still going to be learning even in eternity.

And guess what?

I think that's awesome.

Because that means that you have an entire eternity of constantly discovering new things about him, that you have an entire eternity of wow moments, that there will never be a moment of boredom in your consideration and examination and study of God in eternity, that you'll constantly go, you'll constantly be hewing out new treasures, saying, This is wonderful.

When we find ourselves at the limits of our understanding, that is the place where we worship.

When we bump against the edge of our ability to reason and conceive and conceive of things, that's where we must accept with humility that his ways are not our ways.

And say with Paul, who has known the mind of the Lord?

Who has been his counselor?

That is the place where we worship.

And then finally, worship, grateful worship, is the right response to the grace of God.

For from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be glory forever.

You see, because salvation is all of his grace, because we contribute nothing to it, we can claim no glory for it.

But because it is all of his grace and of his initiative and of his love, then all glory rightly goes to him.

Amen.

Amen.

Salvation has begun and ended in God, and so rightly he is the recipient of all of the glory and thanksgiving.

And that is in the end to say that we point away from ourselves and magnify him.

And so, folks, as we transition now out of these deep waters and move into the rest of Romance, what's God wowing you with over these last four weeks?

Are you allowing the things that you're learning about him to inform how you feel about him?

Are you responding to him?

Pointing away from yourself, claiming, claiming no glory, establishing no righteousness of your own, but simply, humbly, seeking to worship him.

If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.