Romans 11:25–36 (ESV)✞: The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation
A couple of times, while going through Romans 9–11 (in which Paul talks about God’s relationship with the Jewish people), I’ve mentioned that there are Christians out there who hate and/or distrust and/or disdain Jewish people, and I’m guessing this is a passage that they will point to in particular. So let me just say, once more, that these people are holding sentiments in their hearts that are anti-Christian in nature. They’re wrong, and they’re supporting their unchristian beliefs with bad theology.
That out of the way, let’s get into the last part of Paul’s thoughts on God’s relationship with the Jewish people in his letter to the Romans.
To start with, Paul reiterates that this is all part of God’s plan – and, in fact, points out to the Gentiles, once more, that this is a new opportunity for non-Jewish people:
Lest you be wise in your own sight, 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 in.
Some thoughts:
- “Mystery” doesn’t, in this context, mean something hard to understand (or that only the elite can understand); it just means something that had previously been hidden and has now been revealed.
- This “hardening” of Israel (the Jewish people) is only “partial” – God has not cursed the Jews, so that none of them can be saved! Jewish people were saved in Paul’s day (including Paul himself), and are saved now, and always have been and always well be. However, God is not saving all Jewish people, then or now. Before Christ, to be born a Jew was to be a Jew, but now salvation comes through faith, not through birth (nor through works).
- “Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” seems to indicate that God has some kind of number He’s trying to hit. Like, as soon as He has, say, ten billion Gentile Christians He’ll stop this partial hardening of the Jewish people. I have no idea what that number would be, nor if we’re even supposed to take this so literally in the first place. But I will say, once more, as I’ve often said on this blog, I don’t need to understand How God has orchestrated the future, I just need to accept the Grace He’s bestowed upon me and do my best to share it with others. He’ll figure out whom to harden and whom not—He already has figured all that out—I just need to trust Him.
All of that being said, Paul’s main point is that he doesn’t want the Gentiles to become wise in their own sight – he doesn’t want them to do exactly what modern, 21st Century antisemitic Christians do all the time: think they’re saved because they were smart enough to follow Jesus whereas the Jewish people weren’t.
Regardless of how literally we take the “until the fullness of Gentiles has come in” part, it’s clear that there is an end in sight (for God).
26 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”;
27 “and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
That quotation is from Isaiah 59:20–21✞, but this is a case where the quotation is directly and firmly applied based on context1 so read all of Isaiah 59✞ to get that context: the sins of God’s people have separated them from Him, and most of that chapter demonstrates how far removed they are from Him – until the very end, the verses that Paul is quoting, when God promises that He will nevertheless redeem them. I believe that Paul was saying that the Jewish people were still separated from God, per Isaiah’s prophecy, such that the redemption was still to come. The only difference is that Paul now identifies that Redeemer (or Deliverer) as Christ.
However, Paul continues, that redemption hasn’t happened yet:
28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
I’m tired of having to harp on this over and over, but I greatly fear what Christians do with the idea that the Jewish people are “enemies.”
Firstly, I think people in the 21st Century are far too likely to read the word “enemy” in a very narrow sense. And the Bible does use the word in that sense – especially in the historical books of the Old Testament there is a lot of talk of the “enemies” of Israel, meaning the nations that were militarily against Israel. But God also talks of His own people being His enemies; when they turn away from Him and prefer their own sin to worship of Him (and dependence upon Him), they become His “enemies.”
However, even when God is calling His people His “enemies,” there is also always the promise that He will deliver them if they just come back to Him. They are, in a sense, His “enemies” (because they’re so totally against everything He stands for – just like the nations around them), but they are also still His people, and He is still their God. When Paul talks about the unsaved Jewish people being God’s “enemies” for the sake of the Gentiles it doesn’t mean “enemy” in the sense that Babylon was Judah’s enemy, it means “enemy” in the sense that God’s people have often—maybe even always—been His “enemies” over time: they aren’t following Him the way He wants them to, but, He will still save them if they turn and repent. He still loves them – He is still their God.
So, again, if you read Paul talking about the Jews being God’s “enemies” and it leads you to thoughts that “the Jews control the media!” or “the Jews control the banks!” or anything remotely along the lines of, “the Jews are out to get us!” it says much more about your own fears than it does about how the Bible talks about God’s people.
Where is your faith?
Secondly—yes, I have still more thoughts on this topic—whenever a Christian hears the word “enemy” we should immediately be thinking of one of Jesus’ most famous sayings:
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:43–48 (ESV)✞, emphasis added
Even if you want to take the concept of Jewish people somehow being Christians’ enemies—which, as I’ve stated above, I believe to be anti-Christian, non-Biblical foolishness—even if you take it that way, and believe Jewish people are somehow your enemies, you would still be commanded to love them! To pray for them! If you only love those who are for you, and not your “enemies,” then you’re no better than they are! I’m not saying that, Jesus is.
“But they’re not our enemies,” the bigot might counter, “they’re God’s enemies! So if they’re God’s enemies then we should be against them! Jesus’ words don’t apply here! Any enemy of God’s is an enemy of ours!” Which would be intellectually dishonest (really, it would be a matter of trying to find a Scriptural basis for clinging to your hate), but even taking this argument at face value, it still doesn’t fly. Again, when God calls His people His “enemies,” He is still, always, extending the offer to them to come to Him and be saved.
In fact, what’s a big difference between Old Testament times and New Testament times? In the Old Testament there were Jewish people who truly belonged to God and people who were Jewish by birth but who didn’t actually follow Him. In New Testament times, it was much clearer whom of the Jewish people were truly God’s and those who weren’t, because they had to take the extra step of joining the Christian community.
In the modern world, in places like North America or other places that are predominantly Christian, Christians have the same problem that Old Testament Jewish people had: who is truly Christian, and who isn’t? If you grew up in a Christian family, and attended church your whole life, that doesn’t mean you belong to the Church – it doesn’t mean you’re actually saved! But how will people know who is a Christian and who is not?
In the 21st Century we have the term “secular Jew,” for those who are Jewish by birth but don’t practice the religion of Judaism, and, frankly, whether we use the term or not, there are also a lot of “secular Christians” in North America. Those who were born and raised “Christian,” who would identify as Christian if asked, but who don’t “practice the religion” of Christianity – they haven’t met, nor been changed by, Christ or the Holy Spirit. I think those people are “enemies of God” in the exact same way that Isaiah spoke of the nations of Israel/Judah as being God’s “enemies,” and exactly the same way as Paul is using the word “enemies” of his Jewish contemporaries.
And should be treated exactly the same way I’m arguing that we should be treating Jewish people now: not as “enemies” in the sense of people to be feared, hated, or spurned, but “enemies” in the sense of people who are loved by God, and, if they would accept His Grace, could become His children.
Just like I was. Just like every Christian person once was. “For,” says Paul, “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” – He has made the offer, He isn’t going to rescind it!
Or, as he says next:
30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
God is merciful. Those who are currently His “enemies” can become His children. Regardless of what they’ve done, or how they’ve felt about Him, or anything else – they can be saved by faith, just as I was.
“But Paul,” we might be thinking, “this is hard teaching! Who can understand all of this?!? We’re not you! We can’t understand all the things you understand!”
Well, as it turns out, Paul also thinks this is hard teaching!
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
But I think Paul is doing more here than just saying, “Well, it’s God, we can’t understand His ways – oh well!” No, this isn’t existential nihilism – Paul isn’t saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that we can’t understand so we shouldn’t try. It’s worship. It’s acknowledging how amazing our God is; it’s taking the lessons of the book of Job2 to heart: it’s understanding that we can understand everything God can understand, which, in turn, leads us to worship God for being so above all that we could dream or conceive.
Which leads Paul to the final verse of this passage:
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
I’m not going to claim to understand all that Paul has written in Romans 9–11. Not even close; not even with the benefit of two thousand years of history, of Christians thinking about this part of the Bible. That shouldn’t lead me to despair; it clearly shouldn’t lead me to hating or fearing Jewish people. (That’s the last time I’ll mention that!3) It should lead me to worship of the God who does understand all of this, who has all of human history in His hands—who is in control, in other words—and to feel blessed that He loves me.
Footnotes
- I’m often surprised, when I follow Paul’s references back to their Old Testament source, to see how he’s showing that the surface interpretation we get from the Old Testament Scriptures gets much deeper and richer when we read them in light of Christ. In this case, however, Paul is having us interpret Isaiah 59 exactly as we would have interpreted it on a surface reading. ↩
- Part of me is very much looking forward to blogging through the book of Job; it comes to mind so often when I’m going through other books. ↩
- Spoiler alert: I’m reasonably confident this isn’t true, and I’ll be mentioning the topic of Christian antisemitism again – and again … ↩
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