Romans 11:25-32
Each Christmas when we sing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, I feel a bit uncomfortable. I love this hymn. Emmanuel comes from the Hebrew and means God with us. This is the wonderful part that makes me want to sing this hymn. But it is the first verse that makes me uneasy.
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Now it is clear that this is a hymn that anticipates the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and the Israel that is mentioned is the Israel into which Jesus was born. Jesus was born a Jew in a land occupied by the Romans. The ministry of Jesus was primarily to Jews. His disciples were Jews. This Jewish history is the foundation for our Christian history.
So the first verse of this hymn should not make me feel uncomfortable, but I feel the need to explain what Israel is referred to when we sing this hymn because of the prominence of the modern state of Israel in world news. This is especially true now because since December 27, the Israeli military has been attacking targets in Gaza and this leads the news night after night with pictures of women and children injured or killed in the attacks.
I have the same hesitation with our annual Seder meal. In two and a half months we will enter into Easter week, my favorite week in the life of the church here in Rabat. On Thursday night of that week we will have the opportunity to celebrate the Seder meal which is the meal God instructed the Israelites to have each year to remember the deliverance of Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. This is the meal Jesus was having with his disciples the night he was arrested and the meal at which he instituted what we call The Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion.
This too is part of our history, but because this is a part of Judaism, I feel obligated each year to explain that as we go through the service we are not supporting the modern state of Israel in our observance of the Seder meal. We are remembering our roots in Judaism that gives depth and breadth to our Christian experience.
It is because we live in a Muslim country that we are particularly sensitive to these references to Israel in our church services. Israel announced a cease fire last night but Hamas has said they will not stop shooting rockets into Israel. It is unlikely the fighting will stop for long, if it stops at all. The world, and particularly the part of the world in which we live, is inflamed by these attacks and demonstrating for an end to the hostilities.
A couple weeks ago there was a pro-Palestinian demonstration just a block from where we were having our Sunday morning service. This was fairly modest in size but in past years there have been a couple hundred thousand demonstrators.
Just a month or two before the May 16, 2003 bombings in Casablanca there was a large pro-Palestinian demonstration here in Rabat and the demonstrators marched down the street shouting out that they wanted to be suicide bombers for Palestine. Of course just a couple months later, after the bombings in Casa, signs went up all over the country, Don’t touch my country. The politics of demonstrations are strange.
In the three sermons from Romans 9 thus far we have been talking about Paul’s passion for the lost and God’s passion for the lost. As Tracy and I see it, this is the dominating theme of these three chapters in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome. As we move through the text over the next four Sundays, this will be the underlying theme of our messages.
But before going through the text, Tracy and I thought that it would be good to have a message discussing who Israel is in Romans 9-11. There are many opinions about this and we thought it would be good to clarify what we think before going further through these passages.
So let’s come to the text that we read this morning that is at the end of Paul’s discussion about what will happen to the Jews in the mystery of salvation.
Romans 11:25-32
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved
As with other passages that no one really understands, the commentaries talk a lot about these verses. What does Paul mean when he talks about the full number of Gentiles and what does he mean when he says all Israel will be saved?
On the face of it, it would seem that Paul believes there is a predestined number of Gentiles who will be saved over time and then at that point everyone in Israel will be saved. But does this mean the Israelis living at that time will be saved? Or all those who were ever part of Israel will be saved? If there is a set number of Gentiles who will be saved, is there special favor shown to Israelis who will all be saved? There are lots of questions.
Let me try to put these verses in context. Remember that as Paul wrote this, he was dealing with his perplexing frustration that for the most part, the Jews were not accepting Jesus as their Messiah. As he went from city to city preaching the good news of Jesus, his pattern was to begin teaching in the synagogues until he inevitably met opposition and proceeded to preach and teach to the Gentiles of that city in the streets, in halls, or wherever he could find a place to speak. The Jews rejected his teaching so he went to the Gentiles.
Paul is speaking in this letter to his brothers and sisters in Rome, fellow believers, some of whom are Jews and some of whom are Gentiles, and he wrote that he did not want them to be ignorant of this mystery. What was this mystery? Paul used this same language in his benediction at the end of the letter: (Romans 16:25-27)
Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him— 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.
It was about this mystery, this secret of salvation that had now been made known that Paul did not want his brothers and sisters in Rome to be ignorant.
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved,
I think Paul was mystified by the rejection of the good news of Jesus by the majority of Jews. Many of us who made an adult commitment to follow Jesus similarly expected that our family members and friends would join with us when we explained to them the good news we had discovered. And just as many of us experienced rejection and indifference from those with whom we shared, so did Paul experience rejection and indifference from his fellow Jews as he took the good news of Jesus from city to city.
Paul wrote that Israel had experienced a hardening in part. Not all Israel was hardened. There were Jews who left the synagogue with Paul to follow Jesus, but something prevented his fellow Jews from seeing Jesus as their Messiah. Paul wrote in his second recorded letter to the church in Corinth
II Corinthians 3:14
But [Israel’s] minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. 15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away
It was a mystery to Paul that his fellow Jews were not following Jesus as their Messiah and Paul’s great heart grieved for them and longed for them to turn, to have the veil taken away and to see clearly that Jesus is Lord of all.
And then he wrote, And so all Israel will be saved.
What did Paul mean when he wrote all Israel will be saved?
Did Paul have some supernatural revelation that he referred to here? Was he speaking prophetically? Was this just Paul’s wishful thinking? Is the meaning of this something in between?
There are various views about who the Israel is that Paul is referring to in this passage.
There are some who think that Israel refers to all those who have chosen by faith to follow Jesus. This would include Jews and Gentiles who have chosen to follow Jesus.
Evidence for this comes from an earlier letter Paul wrote to the Galatians where he referred to the church as the Israel of God. (Galatians 6:16)
Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.
The problem with this view is that throughout Romans Paul has referred to Israel as ethnic or national Israel.
There are those who think that Israel refers to the modern state of Israel and that God never rejected Israel. God chose the nation of Israel and they are still his chosen people. God has also chosen those who follow Jesus to be his church. Not all people in Israel will be saved and not all people who go to church will be saved but these are two strands of salvation.
There are those who think that there will be a great revival in Israel just before the end and this is the Israel that Paul is referring to.
I would imagine some of you have never bothered to think about this too much. Others may come from a denomination where this was talked about a lot and you may have a strong opinion about what you think Paul is saying.
Let me say that whatever view you hold, you may be right or you might be wrong.
I am among those who don’t have a strong opinion about which of these views is the one Paul is thinking about. It is not that I am intellectually lazy, it simply does not seem to make much difference to me which view is right.
Let’s say you hold to one of these views. How does that affect your Christian life? If you are sitting at a café and strike up a conversation with a tourist here in Morocco and discover he or she is an Israeli citizen visiting the land where his or her parents and grandparents used to live, how will what you believe about Paul’s statement affect what you say or do?
Will you be more or less likely to share the gospel with this person because of the view you hold? I don’t think your view will make much difference. It certainly would not affect my conversation with that person.
So then, it may be fun to speculate about what will happen to Israel, whoever Israel is, at the end of time, but then it is also fun to do crossword puzzles and solve Sudokus. All of these are good stimulation for the mind but none of these have particularly redeeming qualities to them.
I think the same way about millennial views. In parts of the New Testament that talk about the end times a millennium is referred to. The millennium is a period of 1,000 years that will serve as the turning point for mankind. During that time the world will finally achieve the elusive ideals of peace, prosperity and purpose.
The New Testament also talks about a seven year period of intense persecution called the Tribulation. And the New Testament talks about the Rapture, when all those in Christ will be lifted off the earth and meet with Jesus as he returns, leaving behind those who are not in Christ.
There are many different views about how these events will interrelate. Some believe the sequence will be rapture, tribulation and then millennium. Others believe it will be tribulation, rapture and then millennium. And others believe the millennium is a metaphor and will not be an historical event. There are a lot of different scenarios envisioned by parts of the Christian church.
The discussion of this is long and intense and churches and denominations split because of different opinions of how all this will work out. There are organizations that will refuse to allow you to join with them if you do not share their millennial view.
And I scratch my head and wonder why? When someone asks me what millennial view I have, I tell them I plan to think about that just after I master the Fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians. Just after I have mastered love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, then, I tell people, I will decide which millennial view is the right one. And, I tell people, those who know me realize this will be a long time coming.
Let me explain why I think holding a view on what Paul means in Romans 11 about all Israel will be saved or holding to a particular millennial view is fruitless speculation
First, whatever we believe, we will probably be wrong.
When I was young I used to think that people were not terribly bright during the Middle Ages and then got more and more intelligent over time leading up to the present day. Then I began to read the writings of some of the great minds of the ages and realized this was not true. I read the letters of Paul and realized his mind was absolutely brilliant. Over time we gain knowledge but we do not become any more intelligent. We have more information to work with but we are not any smarter than our ancestors.
So great minds poured over the Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, and tried to figure out when the Messiah would come and how it would be. And they were wrong. They were all wrong. They were convinced the Messiah would come as a triumphant king and bring Israel back to its glory days when David was king. No one expected he would be the suffering servant who would die for our sins.
Why do we think this time we will do better than they did? We know Jesus will return, but to predict when and how and to think we can figure it all out and put it neatly in a box with a lovely bow on top, is a form of arrogance.
So whatever anyone thinks will happen, I am willing to bet they will be wrong.
A second reason I think these matters are fruitless speculation is that whatever it is we believe will be the sequence of events in the last days will not make any difference to how we live our lives now. Will there be a revival in Israel in the last days? Will there be a rapture before or after the tribulation? Unless the end comes in the next thirty years, it won’t make any difference to how I live my life. Sixty-three generations have come and gone since Jesus ascended and the likelihood is there will be a few more before he comes again – although I hope he comes sooner than that.
To spend my time and energy on something that will not help me grow in my faith and will not help me in my work with Jesus to build his kingdom seems to me to be a waste of time and energy.
A third reason I think dwelling on these issues is fruitless speculation is that when we do engage in speculation about the end times, we can end up doing great damage to the existing church. Let me give you two examples.
Corrie Ten Boom was a strong critic of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture millennial view. This view says that the followers of Jesus will be raptured before the seven years of intense persecution. As I say, this may be true or may not be true. But her criticism of this view was that some of those who held this view were not prepared for periods of intense persecution. They expected to be gone when persecution came and so were caught unprepared when it did come.
She blamed this view for the church not being prepared for the persecution in China that came under Mao Zedong.
Jesus said we will experience persecution. Peter wrote letters to Christians who were being persecuted. The book of Hebrews is written to Jews who converted to Christianity and then wanted to take a step backward because of the persecution they were experiencing. These teachings trump any speculation about what will happen at some point in the distant future. We need to be prepared for persecution when it comes and engaging in wishful thinking that our millennial view will take us away before it happens is destructive to our faith and to the church.
A second example relates to the passage today. Those who believe that Paul is saying that the nation of Israel was never rejected by God and still has a place in end times end up hurting the Palestinian and Arab Christians in the Middle East.
I need to give a little background. The fact that Israel became a nation in 1948 is held as evidence by those who believe Israel has a special place in salvation history that the end times are near an end. There are large numbers of Western Christians who eagerly wait the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Large numbers of Christians visit Israel each year and many of these put Israel on an end times pedestal.
Because Israel is held in such high esteem by these Christians, they turn a blind eye to the policies of Israel. Even the fact that laws in Israel against evangelism are on a par with Arab Muslim nations is overlooked.
The history of how Israel was given land is a long history, but suffice it to say that in 1947 the United Nations divided Palestine into an Israeli and a Arab state. After the Jews suffered in the Holocaust, world opinion leaned in their direction and gave them a state. The problem is that since then Israel has taken possession of more and more land.
Last week I talked about how Elias Chacour and his family were forcibly removed from the land that had been in their possession for generations and sent to refugee camps. Despite the Israeli Supreme Court saying this eviction was illegal, the army took the land. In the process tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and almost a million were sent to these camps.
Israeli settlers have continued to expand their possession of Palestinian land intruding with the protection of the Israeli military into Palestinian communities. A friend of mine lived in Bethany in the West Bank of Palestine for four years and told me of towns where the Israeli army would force the inhabitants of the town to go inside and keep windows and doors shut while the few hundred Israeli settlers could come out from their compound and do their shopping.
There has been a constant humiliation of the Palestinians by the Israelis over the years.
David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel and considered the father of Israel said,
If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti – Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?
On the other hand there has been, from the beginning, an intense determination by the Palestinians to eradicate Israel and drive them into the sea, reclaiming all that land.
Yasser Arafat, the famed leader of the PLO said,
We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.
In the current conflict, Hamas has been shooting rockets into Israel and so Israel has retaliated. But Israel has stolen land that belongs to the Palestinians and continued its humiliating domination of Palestine, so what can be done?
If Israel and Palestine were both my children, I wouldn’t know who to spank first.
Western Christians who support Israel despite its policies deeply offend the Palestinian Christians who suffer from the policies of Israel. As Christians living in a Muslim society, they are persecuted by their Muslim neighbors, persecuted by the Israelis and abandoned by their brothers and sisters in Christ from the West.
The view that the modern nation of Israel still has a special place in salvation history is harmful to the Christians who live in the Middle East.
Fruitless speculation can lead to destructive actions and weaken the church.
I don’t want to tell you not to think about something. If you enjoy speculating about what will happen in the last days, go ahead. But remember that there is a likelihood that whatever you believe, you will probably be wrong. Don’t waste your time and energy on what will not make any difference to how we live our lives. Be very careful that your speculations do not ending up damaging the church.
What I do want you to do is to direct your energy and attention to where it does matter.
Don’t lose sight of the passion of Paul that underlies his longing for Israel to be saved. All of this discussion follows Paul’s opening statement in chapter 9
I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel.
Don’t lose sight of the desire of God that we all be saved. Why has it taken so long for Jesus to return as he promised he would almost two thousand years ago?
II Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
God wants everyone to come to repentance. Everyone: you, your family, your friends, your neighbors, the people of your country, Palestinians and Israelis. Everyone. I hope and pray there will be a great revival in Israel. I hope and pray there will be a great revival in Palestine. I hope and pray there will be a great revival in every corner of this planet.
If you have some time and energy and want to direct it somewhere, direct it toward growing in your relationship with Christ so your heart will grow to have the passion for the lost that Paul had.
Speak out against injustice wherever it is found.
Rather than take a position that puts you on the side of the Israelis or the Palestinians, grieve for them, pray for them, long for them to come into the kingdom of God.
