I call upon your Name, the Name above all Names, oh God of wonder, God of grace.
“I create each human here on this earth with the built-in ability and desire to call on My Name and to seek Me and I have promised to all those who seek Me that I will be found of them. Yet the battle in the spiritual realm draws man away from that quest. I have allowed that so that each person may have the freedom of choice, yet I have not left it to chance, My hand is on those who truly seek Me to draw them into a love relationship with Me.”
We come today to the climax of Paul’s argument which he started in ch 9, trying to weld the Gentile and the Jewish believers into one body. Please read Romans 11:25-32.
Verse 26 And so all Israel will be saved” Has caused a lot of debate and furious difference of opinions about the meaning of this verse. Many people take this to mean that the State of Israel still has an important role to play in the “end times”. To fulfill this expectation there must be a different way of salvation for all those Israelites, who are alive at Jesus’s second coming. They would also support any actions of the State of Israel. This does not however take into account all Paul has said so far. Nor the fact that the majority of the Israelites living today are fiercely Zionist but reject any thought of God’s hand on them especially the role of Jesus.
So what does this last passage teach then? It simply draws the thoughts of Paul on this subject together. He has made it clear that only a remnant of Israel will be saved, due to the hardness of their hearts. The Gentiles have benefited from this by being grafted into the olive tree which was originally only limited to the descendents of Israel. Paul uses the term fulness to describe both the number of Jews (vs 12) and the number of Gentiles (vs 25). In other words, all those who Paul has been carefully describing as those chosen by God, the true believers, both Israel and Gentile all these, Paul promises, will be saved.
In the verses 28 – 32 should be read as “They” being the unbelieving Israel, and “You” the believing Gentiles. So the grounds for the confidence of the readers of the letter are 1. God’s election is irrevocable. 2. God has a future for His people because of His great mercy.
So in the words of John Stott, the conclusion is that “All men are bound over in the dungeon of sin. Yet all those whom God has elected will receive mercy, without distinction (not without exception).”
AsI have said before this subject is rather remote for us here, except in how we may view what is happening in the Middle East. May God bless you all till next week.