Thursday, March 1, 2018

The People of God Pt. 9- Rom. 11.7-16


I want you imagine this morning that the world is a busy city street, filled with all kinds of people moving in different directions, motivated by all kinds of things to make it to varying destinations. Now I want you to imagine in that scene that salvation is a glorious banquet taking place in the midst of this cityscape at one of the many venues on the boulevard. Invitations have gone out and there is even a glowing sign on the outside of the building revealing what is going on inside. Clean windows also expose what is happening beyond the threshold. The only thing standing between the party and the city street is Jesus Christ—the door (John 10:9ff). To gain admittance into the celebration, one must pass through that door and anyone who refuses must walk about the street into the night where danger and darkness lurk. Today we are going look at Romans 11:7-16 and pay special attention to that door and in what direction is swings for certain people as they approach it.



a) Swings Closed to the Hardened Jews-11:7-10

Paul begins his observation by surveying the pedestrians that are perambulating about on this imaginary cityscape. As he looks across the street, he categorizes the different groups of people he sees into three distinct groups. First, he observes a nation—“What then? What Israel is seeking it has not obtained,…” (11:7a). Here, Paul identifies the same nation that he has been correcting for the better part of three chapters—the Jewish nation of Israel. As had been the case for centuries, Israel in large part during the time of Paul and even to this day was actively “seeking” to be right with God but had “not obtained” such. Why? Because they were seeking about it the wrong way. Earlier Paul said of these Jews that “they disregarded the righteousness from God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness…” (Rom. 10:3).

Have you ever been shopping for something out of the ordinary—something obscure? Maybe on occasion you have traveled to the hardware store, Walmart, or grocery in pursuit of such an item. You spend some time in multiple sections—any possible department that might contain that item that you need. You search high and low to no avail and finally ask a sales associate about what you are looking for and find out that they don’t carry that item. In that moment you realize that no matter how hard you search at that particular location, you will never find that item you need. Unfortunately this was the experience of many that Paul saw around him as they sought to achieve the unachievable.
The first kind of people Paul sees are those people who try to achieve righteousness with God (a noble quest), but do so in the wrong way (shopping in the wrong store and trying to pay with monopoly money). We might draw a comparison between the first century Jew and the purely religious today who somehow believe that church membership, acts of service, and looking the part are enough to earn God’s good graces. None of these will find what they are looking for.

Next, Paul observes another type of person, a chosen people—“But those who were chosen obtained it,…” (11:7b). Earlier Paul referred to these as a “remnant” (see 11:1-5) of people who have placed their faith in the only source of true salvation—Jesus Christ. In this group you will find saved Jews and believing Gentiles for, as Paul has said elsewhere, “there is no partiality with God” (Rom. 2:11) for “anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved“ (Rom. 10:13). Not only that, but “these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). These did not earn their salvation on their own merit but received it as a gift of grace after “confessing with their mouths that Jesus is Lord and believing in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead” (Rom. 10:9). We will talk more about these later. However, let’s see who else Paul observes as he looks out into the world.

The final group is very much related to the first group identified—the hardened—“and the rest were hardened” (11:7b). To “harden” means “to cause someone to be completely unwilling to learn and to accept new information” (Louw Nida). This may be all at once or after a time of “hardening” as was the case in the example Paul mentioned of pharaoh earlier in Rom. 9:17. In Exodus 9, because Pharaoh hardened himself against God, God hardened his heart. Those who, like Pharaoh, actively suppress the truth of God and respond negatively to the revelation provided them fall into this category. This group might include Jews who, going about righteousness in their own way, refuse the true gospel of Jesus Christ and His righteousness by grace through faith. This group might also include atheists who not only disbelieve in God, but argue against him. Ultimately, anyone failing to respond to the revelation of God well falls into this category—those pedestrians who upon approaching the door of salvation refuse to approach it, and as a result, find it shutting on them.
What else does the Bible have to say about such people? –“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’…” (11:8). In other words, those who avoid the door of salvation and find it shutting on them prove themselves blind to the things of God and deaf to the message of his salvation. The Bible calls this state of refusal a “stupor” (“a numbness resulting from a sting”) and likens it to blindness, and deafness.

Truly this passage is not lost on us today as we look out into our evermore secularized world. Though at one point the Bible and its truth proved to be a code/standard many were familiar with and organized their lives around, more and more are totally ignorant to the things of God and the truth thereof and the salvation inherent therein. Justice, reason, morality, responsibility, accountability, sin, righteousness, etc. appear to be foreign concepts and/or denied altogether. Why? More and more are afflicted by spiritual blindness and deafness. Spiritually disabled, our world is run by the blind leading the blind, and the deaf calling the shots over the loudspeaker to those who aren’t listening. Imagine a world in which the majority of the people are blind and deaf. Open your eyes to see that on a spiritual level, this is true! No wonder the mess that we witness exists!

David says of such people “’Let their table become a snare and a trap, and a stumbling block and a retribution to them. Let their eyes be darkened to see not, and bend their backs forever,’…” (11:9-10). A more modern colloquialism sympathetic to this statement might read, “Now that they have made their bed, they can lie in it!” The Jews had, in fact, erected an entire system—elegant, sophisticated, complex—to service their program of righteousness by works and the law. However, ultimately this system proved to be an elegantly thought out trap. What they worked so hard to make as a means to provide salvation has ensnared them.  Now, they were stumbling around, caught in the very apparatus of their own creation and will remain in guilt and under punishment forever (bend their backs forever).

Such are the hardened that Paul observes in the world. These see the door of salvation close on them and many are too blind and deaf to recognize the opportunity that they are missing.

b) Swings Open for the Receptive Gentiles-11:11-16

However, there is another direction in which the door swings and another group of people that exists on the inside of its threshold. However, before Paul identifies such, he makes sure to clarify that though the Jews, in particular, were still “stumbling” around in their blindness, they had not stumbled as to fall completely—“I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be!” (11:11). In other words the promises God made to the Jews were still assured and would one day come to pass. Paul has already cited the presence of a remnant of faithful Jews as evidence of this fact.

That said, the present failure of the Jews to enter by way of the door that God has given has provided an opportunity for others to enter in—“But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous” (11:11). The Jews’ refusal to embrace the salvation God made available on His terms moved God to extend the invitation to others—outside the nation of Israel. This proves that God is inclined toward grace and love, so much so that he has preserved a remnant of faithful Jews in an otherwise wicked nation and has made His salvation available to those who aren’t of Jewish heritage!

In addition to paving the way for the Gentiles to enter into relationship with God, the open door for the Gentiles is also intended to make the Jews jealous—jealous that the Gentiles were enjoying exactly what they had always wanted and worked so hard for. Why would he want to make them jealous? 

The answer lies in verse 12—“Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be!...”. God anticipates a time in which a large number of those on the outside will be healed of their blindness and deafness and respond correctly to the door of opportunity that is available to them. This will occur when the Lord Jesus returns to the earth. The second coming will instigate a revival in the Jewish community and many will flood through the door of Jesus into a relationship with God.

All of that said, Paul’s primary audience is, believe it or not, the Gentiles—“But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry,…”(11:13). Paul’s calling was to those who were receiving the revelation of God positively and as a result, were walking through the door of salvation. At this point in history (and to this day), the majority of those who fit this category are Gentiles. As much as Paul spent time talking to the Jews in this book, correcting them, admonishing them, his primary focus and aim is the Gentile reader—of which there were many in Rome. (all that we have taken the time to dissect as it pertains to the Jews is, in other words, an indirect message also applicable for the Gentiles in some way—just thought I’d mention that so you didn’t think that we had somehow wasted our time.).

Even this ministry that Paul enjoyed to the Jews was, in part, an element of God’s jealousy campaign—that is, an attempt to make the Jews jealous for the Lord—“if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them” (11:14). Paul, a Jew himself, has a sweet-spot for his brothers and sisters in the Jewish community. He was hoping that even as he ministered to the Gentiles, some of his Jewish friends might grow curious about what he was doing, jealous for what was being done, and repentant of their ways so as to join them. Put another way, Paul was hoping that some might hear what was taking place beyond the door and trickle in to experience it for themselves.

After all, as Paul sees it “For their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?...” (11:15). While the Jews’ failure led to a worldwide Christian movement that knows no boundaries, certainly those few Jews who did/do accept Jesus would/will know the same life that the Gentiles were/are now enjoying.

So convinced was Paul that Israel’s stumbling is temporary that he provides two illustrations that reiterate this one last time. His first illustration was taken from God’s instructions to Israel to take “a cake from the first of their ground meal and present it as an offering after they entered the land of Canaan and reaped their first wheat harvest. This offering was to be repeated each year at their harvests. The cake made from the first ground meal of the wheat harvest was sanctified or made holy by being offered to God (BKC). As Paul explains in verse 16 “if the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also.” Paul’s second illustration was that of a tree—“If the root is holy, the branches are too” (11:16b). Both illustrations teach that what is considered first implies the character of what is related to it. With a tree, the root obviously comes first and contributes to the nature of the rest of the plant. With the cake presented to the Lord, the flour for the cake is taken from the ground meal, but that cake is formed and baked first and present as a firstfruit. Since it is set apart to the Lord first, it sanctifies the whole harvest. The firstfruits and the root represent the patriarchs of Israel or Abraham personally and the lump and the branches represent the people of Israel. As a result Israel is set apart (holy) to God, and her “stumbling” (rejection of Christ) must therefore be temporary (BKC).

So What?

There are two directions in which the door of salvation swings—it swings closed to the hardened and it swings open to the receptive. This was true in Paul’s day and it remains true even now. You don’t have to be a traditional Jew to be left standing outside after refusing the invitation of the Lord and you don’t have to be a Gentile to respond positively to such and enter in. Salvation exists behind a double-hinged door that is a relationship with Jesus Christ and all of the blessings appertaining thereunto. On what side of the door are you? In what direction is the door swinging as you approach it? I want to end this message by sharing a parable with you from Luke 14.

But He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’  And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.”

In the spirit of this parable and in lieu of what we have discussed, we are going to extend an invitation today to walk through the door that is Christ and enter into His salvation. Maybe you have refused the door. Maybe you have proven spiritually blind and deaf to it (not able to recognize it or discern its implications). Maybe now, however, you have been made aware of the glories inside and want to come in. Don’t leave here today without accepting the invitation. Don’t let the door of opportunity close on you. Walk through and taste and see the goodness of the Lord as his banqueting table.

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