Rejected or Elected?

Series on Romans

XIV Election and the Plan

C All Who Believe

Text: 11:1-10

Introduction

Romans 11 has produced a variety of interpretations over the centuries, and they all have to do with the fate of physical Israel. It seems to me that the fate of the biological descendants of Abraham was clearly established during Jesus ministry. First of all Jesus pronounced severe judgments upon His own people, upon the towns that rejected Him, upon the religious leaders, and upon Jerusalem and the temple which he said would be destroyed. His own people hated Him for these words. Many of Jesus’ parables deal with this issue. The parable of the good Samaritan reminds us that the despised Samaritan was a better servant of God than the Jewish Priest and Levite. The parable of the Prodigal Son pictures the profligate son who represents the non-Jew as repenting, while the elder son who stays at home represents the Jewish people being jealous of God’s favor being shown to another. We could mention many more, but in the second place there is the fact that Jesus was rejected during His ministry by His own people and he turned to others. He ministered to the despised Samaritans and many became His followers, In John 12:20-24 we see Jesus ministering to Greeks and explaining that this is how the kingdom will grow, with Gentiles, Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. In other words, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Gentiles will be gathered in, and there will be, not one nation, but many. I know that many people reading Matthew 24 which the editors of the New International Version have entitled, “Signs of the End of the Age,” believe it is talking about what is future to us in the end of the world. However the primary significance of this teaching of our Lord is to describe the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in 70 AD, and it is, therefore, ironically, about the end of an age, but not the age many think. It is about the end of the Old Testament age and the end of the preeminence and ascendancy of Israel as a nation. Romans 11 deals with that truth as well, but Paul points up a unique aspect of it in its relation to God’s plan and God’s sovereign election. The question would naturally arise that is God chose Israel, then they are His elect people, how can he now reject them and choose others. Thus Paul sets before us here that the remnant is Israel and always was, in the present, in the past, and in the plan.

I In the Present

Verses 1 and 5 make it clear that there were physical descendants of Abraham in Paul’s day, his present, for whom the ancient promises were fulfilled and they were truly chosen, I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin…So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. In Psalm 94:14, we read, The Lord will not reject his people, it is not surprising that the doctrine of the rejection of the Jews as taught in the preceding chapters was regarded as inconsistent with the Word of God. Paul removes this difficulty, first by showing that the rejection of the Jews was neither total nor final, and secondly by proving that the promises in question referred not to the Jewish nation as such but to the elect, or the spiritual Israel. His first illustration of this is personal. We can read a longer account of his heritage as a descendant of Abraham in Philippians 3:4-6, If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. This is impressive, not only because of Paul’s pedigree, but also because he was the enemy of the early Christians before his conversion. That dramatic conversion was further proof that he belonged to the Lord and was one of the chosen ones, or elect. In fact, he says in Galatians 1:11-16, I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man. When was Paul called and set apart? It was from birth, but God’s choice of Paul was not revealed until his persecution was ended by a meeting with the risen Jesus on the Damascus road as recorded in Acts 9. Paul was a perfect example of someone who was a true Israelite and part of the remnant that believed the Lord. This is why Jesus so harshly criticized the Pharisees who claimed to be Abraham’s children, but did not share Abraham’s faith. So we read in John 8:39-41, “Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.” And Jesus went on the say their real Father was the devil. They were not among the truly chosen.

II In the Past

Perhaps even more important is the fact that the same phenomenon that appeared in the life of Paul has been appearing throughout the history of Israel. So in verses 2-4 Paul writes, God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” He describes here a period in the life of Elijah when the prophet was convinced that there were no other true believers in Israel, but God said there were 7000. Elijah had that titanic battle with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and he felt as if he was standing alone, but he wasn’t. Nevertheless, God’s purpose was widely misunderstood by the Jewish people. They were not chosen except to glorify God through faith and obedience. In Elijah’s day they were, themselves, rejecting God in favor of Baal. God’s electing love never stands alone. The foreknown are always those who display true faith and obedience and follow through to the end. Remember what Paul wrote in Romans 8:29 and 30, For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

III In the Plan

The final words of this text reveal the fact that all the foregoing was part of God’s plan. What was the real difference between the elect remnant and the rest of the Jewish people? The elect remnant believed to the saving of their lives. Even though the Old Testament sacrificial system was in itself insufficient, it drew its power from the coming Savior’s sacrifice. Those who trusted in the blood atonement were saved, while those who trusted in their own works, however earnest, were lost. Their hearts were hardened to the grace of God just as many hearts today are hardened to God’s free offer of salvation. Paul tells us here in verses 7-10 that it was part of God’s plan. Not only were hearts softened by God, but hearts were also hardened by God. That is not to say that they did not cooperate in the hardening of their hearts, but it was still planned, What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day.” And David says: “May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. The first of these two quotations is conflated from Deuteronomy 29 and Isaiah 29, and the second is from Psalm 69. Both quotations serve the purpose of pointing out that this was indeed God’s plan, and Paul will go on to discuss it further in later passages. Israel had a long history of stubbornness leading up to their rejection of Christ as their Messiah. God was preparing the way for the calling of the Gentiles. We must bear in mind that God’s purpose was that Christ would be rejected. as Peter says in Acts 2:22-24, “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Their rejection of Christ was planned along with all the history leading up to it. But there was another lesson to be learned in all of this which Paul sums up in verse 6, And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. In other words, works can never save anyone and if works cannot save then salvation must be a free gift. Thus the doctrine of election cannot lightly be set aside for fear that we will be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As goes election, so goes grace. They are virtual synonyms.