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Romans 11 must be one of the most important chapters in the Bible, reaching back into God’s choosing Israel in the Old Testament to the Jews in Paul’s day and extending all the way into Israel’s future when God will keep His promises to Israel in the tribulation period and the millennium. We’ve already seen from Romans 9 and 10 that Paul is concerned about the Jews. Christ has come and they cried out “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” and “Let his blood be upon us and our children!” Where do they fit now that they delivered their Messiah to be crucified by the Gentiles?
In Romans 11:1 Paul asks, “Has God rejected His people, Israel? Has God thrown the nation of Israel into the trash can of history?”
Romans 11:1, I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
A good number of biblical teachers have said, “Yes, God is finished with Israel.” They claim that the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 by the Romans was God’s final blow of judgment on Israel and that the church must now be regarded as spiritual Israel. However, Paul’s answer rings out full of conviction, “May it never be!” or “Don’t even think about parking there!”
Before we go further, you may wonder, “What’s the big deal with Israel. We’re not Israel. Why is this important?” As Steve Lawson said, “For us to be unconcerned about Israel would be for us to be unconcerned about the Bible.” The Bible is predominately a Jewish book. Jesus is Jewish, the early church was Jewish, the twelve disciples were Jewish, Jesus is returning to Israel and will land on the Mt. of Olives (Zechariah 14). Zechariah 12:10 says Israel will look on Him whom they have pierced. Jerusalem will be the worship center for the entire world in the millennial kingdom (Isaiah 2). Revelation 7:4-8 says God will save 144,000 Jews from the twelve tribes of Israel. In fact, the heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation 21 has twelve gates named after the twelve tribes of Israel and Jesus calls Himself the root and descendant of David in Revelation 22:16. God has not tossed Israel into the garbage can of history. God has a future plan for Israel and He will keep all His promises to Israel. Jeremiah stakes God’s integrity on it:
Jeremiah 31:35-37, Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: 36 “If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever.” 37 Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured And the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel For all that they have done,” declares the LORD.
King Frederick the Great of Prussia asked his physician for one proof of the existence of God. The physician immediately responded, “Your Majesty, the continued existence of the Jews.”
ISRAEL IS ISRAEL.
Before plunging into Romans 11, I want to make a simple point – Israel in the Bible is always Israel. That is, Israel is never used of the church or of Gentiles. Israel refers to the nation, to the land, to the house of Israel, the twelve tribes of Israel, the sons of Israel. In Acts 1:6 the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” Galatians 6:16 is often used to support the idea that the church is now spiritual Israel. Paul is not referring to the church, but to believing Jews within the church, the Israel of God. Let’s go back for a little more for a biblical background on Israel.
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT.
Israel began with the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12:1-3.
Genesis 12:1-3, Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
God made three promises to Abraham. “I’m going to give to your descendants the land of Canaan. You will have an innumerable number of offspring. And through you I will bring blessing to the entire world.” The Abrahamic covenant is the backbone of the entire Bible. Everything from Genesis 12 to the end of Revelation flows from this great covenant. God reaffirmed the covenant to Isaac in Gen. 26:2-4 and to Jacob in Gen. 28:13-14. Israel enters the promised land and within the Abrahamic promises, God makes a promise to David that his seed would rule over Israel forever. Later in the prophets, the blessing aspect of the promise is spoken of as the new covenant that would bring forgiveness, new hearts, and the very presence of God to believing Israel forever (as well as to believing Gentiles).
What happened? Two thousand years after God’s promise to Abraham, Gabriel appeared to Mary and promised that she would have a son who would rule as David’s son over the house of Jacob, and his kingdom would have no end.
Luke 1:31-33, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. 32 “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; 33 and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”
So, what did Israel do? They repudiated their own Messiah. He came to His own and His own received Him not! Peter told them in Acts 2:23, “This man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death!” Later Stephen in Acts 7:51-52 rebuked them, “You are doing just as your fathers did!” Israel as a nation remains in her rebellion to this very day. But that doesn’t mean God has thrown Israel into the trash can of history.
Now we are prepared for Romans 11. Has God rejected His people? “May it never be!” insists Paul. This chapter breaks down into 4 parts:
- God has an elect people within Israel – vss.1-6. He always has and always will.
- God has brought severe but temporary and purposeful judgment upon unbelieving Israel – vss. 7-10.
- God planned Israel’s rejection to bring the gospel to the Gentiles – vss. 11-14.
- God will finally restore and save Israel as a nation when Christ returns – vss. 25-32.
GOD HAS AN ELECT PEOPLE WITHIN ISRAEL – vss. 1-6.
Paul is a prime example.
Romans 11:1, I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
Paul says, “No! I’m an Israelite, I’m a Hebrew, I’m a Jew.” In fact, there were many more Jews who came to Christ in the early church. All the apostles were Jews. All the authors of the New Testament except for Luke were Israelites. Warren Wiersbe sees Paul’s conversion as a picture of how the nation of Israel will be saved when Christ returns, “They will see Him, look upon Him as their crucified Savior, and receive Him as their Messiah.”
God’s people in Elijah’s day.
Romans 11:2-3, God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 3 “Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE.”
Elijah lived in an awful time in Israel. Wicked Ahab ruled with his pagan Queen Jezebel the Baal worshipper right behind him, pulling his strings. One day Elijah challenged Ahab to a showdown between Baal and Jehovah (1 Kings 18:19). They held the biblical “Superbowl” on Mt. Carmel, Baal vs. the God of Elijah. Whoever can get their god to bring fire out of heaven is the true God. Four Hundred Fifty Baal prophets versus one man of God! Being the gentleman that he was, Elijah let the Baal team go first. They set up their altar and proceeded to dance and scream and twirl and cry out, “Oh Baal, answer us!” But no fire. Elijah chided them with a little trash talk. “Call louder, maybe he’s hard of hearing, maybe he went to the bathroom, or perhaps he took a vacation or is sleeping.” Read the details in 1 Kings 18. Finally, in desperation the Baal prophets began slashing themselves until blood gushed from their bodies, but they never got a response from Baal. First Kings 18:29, “No voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.” One major problem was evident – Baal didn’t exist! You simply can’t get something out of nothing. Just like evolution. It doesn’t exist. It’s just a big lie.
Elijah told the people to come to him as he repaired and built the altar of the Lord. He dug a trench around the Lord’s altar and had people pour water all over and around the altar, even filling up the trench, not once, but three times. Then Elijah prayed to God, “O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel…” Then God sent fire down that licked up everything, ox, water, twelve stones, the whole deal. The people immediately confessed, “The Lord, He is God.” They took the Baal prophets down to the brook Kishon and Elijah himself slew them. But then he got wind that Jezebel was ticked off and out to kill him. Hell has no fury like a woman, especially a Jezebel, scorned.
Elijah sank quickly into a blue funk and fled into the wilderness and holed up in a cave, feeling like God’s whole plan was about to go up in smoke. Suddenly God comes to him and asks, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Now when God comes asking a question, you’re probably in trouble. Elijah answered, “I’m the only one left and Jezebel’s going to get me. Just kill me, God. That’ll solve everything.” He had lost all perspective on who God is! Satan comes along with his master weapon called discouragement and tries to let all the air out of Elijah’s tires.
Romans 11:4, But what is the divine response to him? “I HAVE KEPT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL.”
Here is God’s authoritative response. “Stop it, Elijah. I still have my people. I know my own. I’m not losing, Elijah. I’ve got 7,000 who are faithful to Me.” And notice, “I have kept for Myself.” God knows and keeps His own. When you think God is losing, the church is losing, when everything around you is going haywire, when right is wrong, evil is called good, when mere children or gangsters rule the nation, when there seems to be no fear of God in the land, girls want to be boys and boys want to be girls, boys can join girls’ sororities, entertainment is simply bizarre, corruption fills the courts, everyone seems to be going crazy, or as Martyn Lloyd-Jones described it, “organized insanity,” you need a word from God. God rules, not Satan. God has His people and is not losing. So, pick your mouth off the floor, Elijah, and start rejoicing in the Lord!
Just like in Elijah’s time, God has his remnant today. You are part of it. There are still God’s people who haven’t bowed their knee to the Baal of sex and wealth and materialism and government tyranny and mandates. People who know that Christ, not government, is head of the church. There are devout people who are living for God and trying to do the right thing. There are families faithfully rearing their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, teenagers and young people who want to please the Lord in their lives. Let us go on with our eyes “fixed on Jesus” and keep running the race. God still has His 7,000 all around!
The Jewish remnant is saved by pure grace alone.
Romans 11:5-6, In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.
A remnant is a piece of something bigger. While Israel was chosen by God to be the chosen nation to bring in the Messiah, within the bigger circle of Israel is a smaller circle of true believers. Even today there is a remnant of Jewish believers. Some of you have read Alfred Edersheim on the life of Christ. John McArthur tells the story of Charles Feinberg, a brilliant Jewish Hebrew scholar who knew more than thirty languages. He studied to be a rabbi, but a neighbor and others challenged him about the Messiah, and he came to faith in Christ. He was the dean of Talbot seminary when John was a student. John tells the story about how he had to preach one day in chapel with all the faculty behind him. He preached on 2 Samuel 7 about the Davidic Covenant. John wanted to impress Dr. Feinberg. He said his sermon “had a zinger for a beginning and a zapper at the end.” After the message you had to walk past all the faculty who handed you an evaluation of the sermon. When John got to Dr. Feinberg, he had folded up his evaluation and handed it to John, avoiding all eye contact. Anxious to see what his revered professor wrote, he opened it. All Dr. Feinberg had written on the paper in large red letters was, “You missed the whole point of the passage.” Needless to say, MacArthur was devastated, but God used it to push him to always find the meaning of the text. (from GTY article, The Day I Missed the Point (gty.org)).
You will find in Brooklyn, NYC, today The Charles L. Feinberg Center for Messianic Jewish Studies. There are over 600,000 Jews living in Brooklyn, the most Jewish place on earth. More Jews live there than in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem.
The remnant of believing Jews is a remnant because of God’s sovereign saving grace in verses 5 and 6. There couldn’t be a clearer contrast between works and grace. It is either God saves us, or we save us, but there is no God saving part and us helping God out. If I’m helping God just a tad, I’m working my way. Just like Galatians 2:21 says, “If works help a little, then Christ died needlessly.” Once you include even a little works to grace, you’ve destroyed the gospel!
Paul hammers this home because it is so crucial. We must be crystal clear here. No works of any kind. Nothing we do or are genetically, ethnically, mentally, religiously, socially, athletically. No number of rites, rituals, baptisms, communions, memberships, confessions, pilgrimages, philanthropy, contributions of charity, years of serving in Tasmania or the inner city or Washington DC. No million-dollar gift to the church. Nothing adds a minuscule of assistance to our salvation! “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.” And it is God who draws us to the cross and puts our arms around it in faith. God has His elect people, His “gracious choice,” both among Gentiles and Israel, and He sees to it that they come to faith in Christ. He will never fail. Maybe you’ve never come to faith in Christ. Now is the time.
GOD HAS BROUGHT SEVERE JUDGMENT ON UNBELIEVING ISRAEL – vss. 7-10.
Romans 11:7-10, What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; 8 just as it is written, “GOD GAVE THEM A SPIRIT OF STUPOR, EYES TO SEE NOT AND EARS TO HEAR NOT, DOWN TO THIS VERY DAY.” 9 And David says, “LET THEIR TABLE BECOME A SNARE AND A TRAP, AND A STUMBLING BLOCK AND A RETRIBUTION TO THEM. 10 “LET THEIR EYES BE DARKENED TO SEE NOT, AND BEND THEIR BACKS FOREVER.”
Paul quotes from Deuteronomy 29:4 (the Law), Psalm 69 (the writings), and Isaiah 29:10 (the prophets). God warned them centuries earlier about their spiritual deadness, blindness, and deafness. Their table should have been the Scriptures – what they fed on for their souls. But they used the Scriptures legalistically to their own judgment. They didn’t want to see the light of God, of Christ, nor bend their knee to their Messiah. They said, “We will not have this man rule over us.” Sadly, those Jews, just like Gentiles, who die outside of Christ, will only see darkness, and they will bend their backs under God’s wrath for all time.
Israel suffered divine judgment many times in the Old Testament, in Paul’s very day, and it continues to the present. Titus, son of Vespasian, was the Roman general who brought a bloodbath to Jerusalem in AD 70, slaughtering many and selling many into slavery. In AD 132 another Roman came and quashed a rebellion by Jews. The Talmud describes the killing “until their horses were submerged in blood to their nostrils.” This time Rome plowed up the ground where the temple stood and erected an altar to Jupiter. Sadly, most Jews have rejected God’s way of salvation to this very day. The time will come, however, when God will do that miraculous work of national regeneration and bring a redeemed nation of Israel into the millennial kingdom (vss. 25-26). I hope Ben Shapiro will be included.
We must include verse 11, because if you only read verses 7-10, you’d come away with the wrong understanding that all Israel was doomed.
Romans 11:11, I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous.
Israel’s hardening to the gospel is partial, purposeful, but not final. Israel is completely guilty for rejecting their Messiah, but in rejecting Christ they were fulfilling God’s sovereign plan to move the gospel to the Gentiles, just like God used wicked men to bring Christ to the cross.
SO WHAT?
First, beware of hardening your heart against the gospel. There is no worse condition than hardening of the spiritual arteries. Look at verse 10 – eyes darkened, and backs bent. What a picture of a soul under the guilt and condemnation of sin. They refused to submit to Christ. What about you? Is Christ more precious to you than anything else? Is pleasing Him your daily goal? Or are you hardening your heart through your unbelief?
Second, and we say it often, God keeps His promises. He will keep His promises to Israel and He will keep His promises to you. “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” “No temptation has overtaken you but what is common to man, but God is faithful, who won’t give you more than you can handle, but with the temptation He’ll provide a way to escape.” “My grace is sufficient for you.” “Casting all your cares on Him, because He cares for you.” Whatever is happening in your life, you know God is in it and has purpose and a goal.