Israel's Rejection of Yeshua Is the Reason You Were Saved | Romans 11:1-12

Perhaps the most perplexing tradition in the history of Christianity to try and understand is why much if not the majority of the church sincerely believes that God has rejected Israel as his chosen people and replaced them with Gentile Christians. From a biblical standpoint Israel is the focus of God's plan of redemption old and new Testaments therefore such a view simply cannot be supported. Because just the opposite is stated time and time again in no uncertain language thus the source of the dysfunction defaults to man-made Christian doctrines, agenda-driven theology, political considerations and a healthy helping of anti-Jewish bigotry. Now bigotry and hate is always wrong no matter who it's directed at. Bigotry is sinful because it violates God's fundamental commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. However, to harbor a prejudice and even a hatred towards the Jewish people that bears a far greater consequence. Temporally and eternally. Because God has set this particular people apart from all others in the history as of the world as specially loved by him. Specially protected as well. Now warning after warning God issues to Gentiles for treating his people badly and for trying to take from them what he has given to them as a permanent inheritance over the centuries that taking usually manifested itself in the seizing of Israel's land. But an even worse thievery is when Gentile Christians attempt to take the Jews spiritual heritage away from them. And that is precisely what replacement theology known as supersessionism in the theology circles that's what it does. Now I've spoken to countless Christian laypeople and pastors about replacement theology and interestingly I don't think I've ever heard of one of them owning up to it. Not one. Many will readily explain, well, yeah, Jews killed Christ or that the Jews rejected Jesus so God rejected them. And that's usually followed up by explaining that the reason that the Old Testament is no longer relevant is because it concerns Israel. And Israel is God's people of the past. The New Testament elects the church and that's God's new people of the present and the future. Bottom line all Christians don't hate Israel but Israel's lost their place in salvation history. They're just worthy of scorn and suspicion. And God has turned his special favor to Gentile Christians in this era. Among some they believe that Israel has also lost its right to the promised land. Now anyone hearing this that holds such a world view needs to listen very carefully to Romans chapter 11. And I hope it leads to repentance. But I want to be clear the entire New Testament supports Israel as God's continuing chosen people. So even if Romans 11 didn't exist any bigotry against the Jewish people or any notion that election as God's own has been transferred to some other people is still refuted within the various books of the New Testament. What makes Romans 11 so important for Judeo-Christianity is that Paul sums up and explains the how and the why of God's plan of redemption. Which uses the Jews as mightily in their disobedience as God does in their obedience. It's an amazing thing. Thus the overriding message of the book of Romans at least up through chapter 12 is stated forcefully and without ambiguity in verse two of chapter 11. God has not repudiated his people whom he chose in advance. Our proper understanding of this principle of Israel's central role in salvation history is crucial to our faith. It's crucial to our personal destiny on two levels. First of all, because God continues to keep Israel and the Jewish people as his set-apart people and land. If we as believers then set ourselves against them we set ourselves into direct confrontation with the God of Israel. And it's unthinkable that a Christian should do such a thing. And second, if the Lord's character is that he can categorically deny numerous times that he would ever cast aside his people Israel but then do it anyway then as a Christian all of our hope and security just went down the drain right along with the Jews. It means that we can trust Christ for the moment but clearly God can change his mind and pull the rug out from underneath us, the rug of salvation, any time in the future. Why wouldn't he? According to Christianity he's done it before. What prevents him from doing it again? Fortunately, none of this is the case. I mean such a slanderous contention is but the result of wrong-minded Christian dogma and Gentile bigotry against Jews. Somehow or another Paul saw this coming. And he tried to warn the Gentiles involved, stop and think. Stop and think about this. He says, examine your motives, examine your rationale. Well, let's reread the first several verses of Romans chapter 11 to start our study today. Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 11. If you have a complete Jewish Bible it's page 1414. We're going to read the first 12 verses. In that case I say isn't it that God has repudiated his people? Heaven forbid. I myself am a son of Israel from the seed of Avraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God's not repudiated his people whom he chooses in his whom he chose in advance. Or don't you know what the Tanakh says about Eliyahu, Elijah? He pleads with God against Israel. Adonai, they have killed your prophets, they've torn down your altars. I'm the only one left. Now they want to kill me, too. But what is God's answer to him? I've kept for myself 7,000 men who have not dealt not knelt down to Baal. It's the same way in the present age. There is a remnant chosen by grace. Now if it's by grace it is accordingly not based on legalistic works. If it were otherwise grace would no longer be grace. What follows is that Israel has not attained the goal for which she's striving. The ones chosen have obtained it but the rest have been made stone-like just as the Tanakh says. God has given them a spirit of dullness, eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear right down to this present day. And David says, let their dining table become for them a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a punishment. Let their eyes be darkened so that they can't see with their backs bent continually. Well, in that case I say isn't it that they have stumbled with the result that they have permanently fallen away? Heaven forbid. Quite the contrary. It is by means of their stumbling that deliverance has come to the Gentiles in order to provoke them to jealousy. And moreover if their stumbling is bringing riches to the world that is if Israel's being placed temporarily in a condition less favored than that of the Gentiles to bring in bringing riches to the latter how much greater the riches will how much greater riches will Israel in its fullness bring them? Now, while in a few minutes we're going to back up to the beginning of this chapter, I want to take you first of all to verse 11. I want you to take special notice of that verse because it explains the why behind God allowing the Jews to stumble over the rock, Yeshua. The why of what God chooses is only rarely addressed in the Bible. It was by means of the Jews stumbling that the Gentiles were delivered. Saved. Ironically, however, the why for delivering the Gentiles was to provoke Israel to jealousy so that they would be saved. So, the entire endeavor is rather circular. It starts out as for Israel's benefit, and when Israel shunned it, God used another people who would benefit but who would also bring that benefit of a saving righteousness and Messiah right back to Israel and thus achieves God's goal of saving all Israel. As I was contemplating this mind-numbing reality in its many facets, one thing kept eating at me. The connection between Christians and making Jews jealous escapes me. What exactly have Christians done over the centuries since Paul wrote this letter that would make Jews jealous of our faith? What would make Christianity an attractive choice for Jews? Recently, I stumbled across something that David Stern wrote in his New Testament commentary that addressed this exact issue. It's as close to a rant as it is to a level-headed examination, I think, of the issue but it struck a chord deep within me. So, I want to share parts of it with you because I can't possibly match the eloquence or I think the passion since David Stern is himself a Messianic Jew. A Jew who against all odds accepted his Messiah. I'm going to be quoting so as not to do violence to what he has to say. Here we go. Is there anything about Gentile Christians that would make non-Messianic Jews jealous of them? Throughout most of the last 2,000 years, the church, to its great shame, not only has not provoked the Jews to jealousy but it has in engendered repugnance and fear. So that the Jewish people, instead of being drawn to love their Jewish Messiah, Yeshua, have usually come to hate or ignore him remaining convinced that their non-Messianic Judaism or secularism or agnosticism is superior to Christianity. If this seems like a harsh judgment then let us hear of which Christians Jews are expected to be jealous. Is it the Christians who trapped Jews in their synagogues and burned them alive? How about of the Christians who forced Jews to hear conversionary sermons against their will and then expelled them from the country, those who didn't respond? Or of the Christians who invented the blood libel that Jews murder a Christian child and use his blood in their Passover matzah? Or of the Christians who remained silent while 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust? Of the Christians that support Palestinian organizations whose terrorists kill and maim Israeli Jewish children? Of Greek Orthodox Archbishop Capucci convicted of gunrunning for those same Palestinian terrorist organizations? But the church's shame is not only in not having taken a stand consistently repudiating every one of these and other horrors committed against the Jews but it actually having authorized and encouraged some of them. There is no way of silencing every individual who misuses the name of Messiah falsely claiming his authority for their evil deeds. But there is a way for a community to withdraw its approval and fellowship from such people and to condemn them publicly. Instead through much of its history, the church has done the exact opposite. Of this Jews are to be jealous? Nevertheless, there is another side. See, the point is not to cite merciful deeds done for the Jews in Christ's name to balance the ledger. That's no consolation at all. Rather, it is that Gentile Christians should understand Paul's words to provoke them to jealousy as a command or at least as a challenge. Non-Messianic Jews ought to be able to look at saved Gentiles in the church and see them see in them such a wonderful change from their former selves. See such holy lives. Such dignified, godly, peaceful, peace-bringing, honorable, ethical, joyful, and humble people that they become jealous and want for themselves, too, whatever it is that makes these Gentiles different and special. That's pretty good, isn't it? But boy, what an indictment. Dr. Stern said a lot more. But I think this captures the essence and the intent of it quite well. See, handing Jews a Christian tract this is not peace-loving. Nor does it make them jealous. Treating Israel and their enemies evenhandedly does not make them jealous for Christ. This highlights the great importance of us whom the Holy Spirit has graciously given the truth and an unexplainable love and concern for the Jewish people standing up against wrong doctrine in the church especially as it concerns Israel and the Jews. Sadly, there are many hearing my voice that have because of the many wrongs done by the church that Dr. Stern Dr. Stern spoke of given up even calling themselves Christians because of what that name has come to represent. But they have in no way given up on Christ. Only the organizations that purport to speak for him. And in so doing do great harm to the true body of Messiah and to God's purpose to save all Israel. So, so what should we do? Folks silence is the great enemy. Silence. It's one thing to be silent as was Yeshua when we are being personally persecuted or wronged. It is quite another to be silent at the pain and injustice being done to others. And while it's impossible to speak or act against all the injustice and pain in this world because the expanse of it is just overwhelming we can stand up. We can stand up to what is happening before our very eyes. That which is in our own backyards and that which God says to pay special attention. What happens in our own backyards varies greatly community by community but that which God says to pay special attention to, it does not. We are to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We are to stand with Israel and his people because we're commanded [clears throat] to do so. They are and they remain God's people. But we're not to only stand with we're to stand against. We are to stand against those who support Israel's enemies even if they sincerely believe they are doing the Christian thing when they do so. One of the best examples of this in our day is the Christ at the Checkpoint Ministry in Israel. It is pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist. It's a Christian ministry supported by some of America's best-known pastors. And chief among these is the highly regarded John Piper of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. God gives me no choice but to stand against the charter of Christ at the checkpoint and against John Piper's agenda and the agendas of all those who identify with this ministry that dares to misuse Christ's name in order to defame, slander, and harm Yeshua's own people for the sake of a politically correct human concept of fairness and mercy for Israel's enemies. At the foundation of this ministry is a common belief that God is done with Israel. And that the church is God's new chosen people. And since Palestinians are Gentiles, some of them Christians, they have at least as much right to the land of Israel as the Jews. Well, now that we've discussed the seriousness of just what is at stake in our understanding of the place of Israel in modern times, let's return to the top of chapter 11. Take a look at the top of chapter 11. Paul in verse two leans on the prophet Elijah to help him prove his point that God did not reject Israel due to their unfaithfulness to him. Paul picks a passage from 1 Kings 19 that speaks of a time when Elijah was on the run from wicked Queen Jezebel. Now, this happens after the Mount Carmel incident. When Elijah had a confrontation with the Baal worshipers and many of the Baal worshipers who were loyal to Jezebel were killed. Well, he fled all the way to Horeb, the mountain of God, the same mountain where Moses had the burning bush experience. Now, in reality, however, he was running from God and from the mission that God had given to him as his prophet. Not surprisingly, God finds him. And Elijah proceeds to complain how unfaithful, how rebellious these Israelites are. So rebellious that they now want to kill Elijah. But God counters that despite the bulk of Israel being unfaithful, he has kept for himself several thousand loyal worshipers. Let's read some of the passage Paul is using. In 1 Kings 19:8-10, he got up and ate and drank and on the strength of that meal he traveled 40 days and nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. And there he went into a cave and he spent the night. And then the word of Adonai came to him and he said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" And he answered, "Well, I've been very zealous for Adonai, the God of armies, because the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, they've broken down your altars, killed your prophets with the sword. Now, I'm the only one left and they're coming after me to kill me, too." 1 Kings 19:13-14, when Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his cloak and he stepped out and he stood at the entrance to the cave and then a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" And he answered, "I've been very zealous for Adonai, the God of armies, because the people of Israel abandoned your covenant, broken down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. Now, I'm the only one left and they're after me to kill me, too." 1 Kings 19:18, God says to him, "Still, I will spare 7,000 in Israel, every knee that hasn't bent down before Baal, every mouth that has not kissed him." See, Paul's words are not an exact quote from this passage in 1 Kings. But it's close enough that we know where it came from. The point of it is that Elijah had pretty well decided he was the only faithful person to God left in Israel. But God responds by saying he is going to maintain a remnant of Israel who remains properly loyal to him. And when God speaks of 7,000 as the size of the remnant, clearly this is a round number. And and and the number seven is meant as symbolic of being complete and perfect. Now, in the Bible, when a multiplier like 10 or 100 or 1,000 is added to the number seven, it means that God is indicating something of of uh divine influence and purpose. Here it means that despite the defection of most of Israel to the pagan worship sponsored by Queen Jezebel, God still has a number, substantial number, of Israelites who remain faithful to him. Now, the bottom line for Paul is yes, as the straw man alleges, Israel has been unfaithful to God, especially by rejecting his Messiah. But just as with Elijah, that that doesn't mean God is rejecting his chosen people as a result. God doesn't base his decisions upon the actions of humans. He bases it on his own sovereign will and grace. In fact, the maintaining of a remnant is a sort of sign from God's contin- for his continuing faithfulness to Israel. Thus, the remnant of faithful from out of Israel that God saved for himself during the time of Elijah is to be compared to the remnant of Christ believers that God has saved for himself from among Israel about 68 AD. Paul's time. The number 7,000 is not to indicate that 7,000 is an exact number or really even an approximation. It's an open number. It's a representative number. The actual number of those who bow down before Messiah Yeshua will be the result not of human merit, but of God's mercy and grace. Therefore, since it is not merit, but grace, that determines who is and who is not a true seed of Abraham, then self-effort plays no role in who is chosen and who's not. Now, interestingly, we see Paul try to weave his complex and and challenging teaching together by essentially using the same question in verse seven that he asked back in Romans 9:30. In 9 Romans 9:30 and 31, we read, "So, what are we to say? This, that Gentiles, even though they weren't striving for righteousness, have obtained righteousness, but it is a righteousness grounded in trusting. However, Israel, even though they kept pursuing a Torah that offers righteousness, didn't reach what the Torah offers." Here in verse seven, Paul turns the question of 9:30 and 31 into a statement. The statement is, "What follows then is that Israel has not attained the goal for which she's striving. The ones chosen have attained it, but the rest have been made stone-like." What we can't get around is that once again we have this mysterious paradigm appear, which declares that those who don't decide for Christ do so because on the one hand, because of their own decisions, they have missed the goal of the law of Moses, that's to obtain a righteousness based on trust. But on the other hand, God has caused a divine hardening to occur in them. Once again, the principles of free will and predestination collide because they seemingly are opposite. You know, and it feels as though we must decide on which one of them we're going to accept and which one we're going to reject as a proper doctrine for us. Now, I'm going to comment just briefly that this rather standard Christian characterization of free will set in opposition to predestination is an error. I think to turn this issue into a debate over whether it is either human free will or divine predestination that determines humans' decisions and outcomes is akin to the analogy I drew a few lessons ago that asked us to choose which is more important and impactful to our lives, food to eat or air to breathe. The reality is life cannot be sustained without both. Each has their critical role to play. And depending on the situation, certainly one may play a more dominant role than the other for a time. Yet in the end, both are indispensable. And both food and air have definite impacts on life, usually simultaneously. In the end, the Bible shows us that the human experience is a joint venture between God's predestination and man's free will. It's not an either/or proposition. Where that line is drawn between the two, I do not know. How much influence one has at any given time over the other one varies. We do not have to choose between predestination and free will. We just have to be aware of the existence of both and know we have control over the one, but not the other. Now, if that concept bothers you a bit, good. That means you're paying attention. Evangelical Christianity as it exists in modern times is the result of Western cultural influence that values democracy and individuality above all else. So, it can seem unfair to Westerners that God could offer us a choice and then harden us such that our choice is essentially channeled towards sin and therefore we fail. And then at some point we pay a penalty for it. In other words, in a certain sense choice could be seen as somewhat of an illusion. But there is good news in all this. However the hardening occurred, even for the hardened, that's not God's final word on the matter. Change and redemption are still possible. Why is that? Because according to Paul, whether we are part of the chosen or we're part of the hardened, we all come from a place of meriting eternal death. We all come from that same point of sin in need. Paul said in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." See, the chosen were not better people, not less sinful than the hardened. The only way out of this dilemma for anyone is God's grace. No attempt, no action in trying to balance the ledger on our part matters. God doesn't grade on a curve. So, his grace is available to all. From the worst of us to the best of us. But the other side of this coin is that since Paul is specifically talking about the Jewish people at this time, the chosen versus the hardened, then we must come to grips that with this reality that it is because of the hardened Jews that salvation was even offered to the pagan Gentiles. I mean, the undeniable inference all throughout Romans is that if, hypothetically, the majority of Jews had accepted Christ instead of rejecting him, then under what circumstances or when or even if salvation would come to Gentiles, it would have been a very different scenario. So, Christians even owe the Jews who refused to accept Messiah a debt of gratitude. It is because of their being hardened that God turned to the Gentiles in the first place. Now, I know what I just told you about what Paul just said might be pretty hard to swallow. You know, Paul was quite aware about difficult a concept he is asked the Jewish people and us to accept. I mean, after all, he is a Jew as well. So, of course, what does he do? He backs it all up with Holy Scripture. And before we read these scripture passage, I want you to notice something quite interesting. The Jews structure the Bible, the Tanakh, we call it the Old Testament, as consisting of three sections. The Torah, the writings, and the prophets. So, it's not by accident that Paul chooses scripture passage from each of these three sections to prove his case. The first passage is verse 8 from Romans chapter 11, and the first part of verse 8 is from the prophets, specifically Isaiah 29. While the second part of verse 8 is from the Torah, Deuteronomy 29. The second passage is verse 9 and it is from the writings, Psalm 69. And as has been our been our custom, let's look at those passages as written in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 29 1 through 11, we read this. "Woe to Ariel, the city where David encamped. Celebrate the feast for a few more years, but then I will bring trouble to Ariel. There will be mourning and moaning as she becomes truly an Ariel for me. I will encamp all around you. I will besiege you with towers and mount siege works against you. Prostrate, you will speak from the ground. Your words will be stifled by the dust. Your voice will sound like a ghost in the ground. Your words like squeaks in the dust. But your many foes will become like fine powder, the horde of tyrants like blowing chaff. And it's going to happen very suddenly. You will be visited by Adonai Zevaot with thunder and earthquakes and loud noises and whirlwinds, tempests, flaming firestorms. And then all the nations fighting Ariel, everyone at war with her, the ramparts around her, the people that trouble her will fade like a dream, like a vision in the night. It will be like a hungry man dreaming he's eating. But when he wakes up, his stomach is empty. Or like a thirsty man dreaming he's drinking. But when he wakes up, he is dry and exhausted. It will be like this for the horde of all nations fighting against Mount Zion. If you make yourselves stupid, you'll stay stupid. If you blind yourselves, you'll stay blind. You are drunk, but not from wine. You're staggering, not from strong liquor. For Adonai has poured over you a spirit of lethargy. He has closed your eyes, that is, the prophets. Covered your heads, that is, the seers. For you, this whole prophetic vision has become like the message in a sealed up scroll. When one gives it to someone who can read and says, "Please read this." He answers, "I can't. It's sealed." See, the idea is that what has happened to Israel and not recognized their Messiah is due to them having become spiritually insensitive. God sent his prophets to tell Israel how to recognize their Messiah. Yet God has also given Israel a spirit of spiritual lethargy because of their unfaithfulness. So, even though Messiah is right there before their eyes in the scriptures, they can't see it. They've been blinded to it. Notice that Israel's failures and their inability to recognize their Messiah even from the prophecies of their own prophets and their seers is caused by two things. First, their own free will in their disobedience. And second, God's divine hardening of them by sending them a a stupor that will not allow them to see the truth even if they want to. So here we have that mysterious paradigm show up again. Only this time it's in Isaiah. Human free will versus God's divine intervention that causes us to not be able to choose wisely. And as we see here in Isaiah 29, both causes were involved in Israel becoming blind to God's purposes and to his Messiah. Deuteronomy 29 is essentially more of the same. Deuteronomy 29:1-3, then Moshe summoned all Israel and said to them, "You saw everything Adonai did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to the Pharaoh, to all his servants, to all his land, the great testings which you saw with your own eyes, and the signs and those great wonders. Nevertheless, to this day Adonai has not given you a heart to understand, eyes to see or ears to hear." So on the one hand, by their own free will, Israel chose to ignore everything God did for them that they personally saw and witnessed. On the other hand, part of the reason that this was so is because God didn't give Israel a heart, meaning a mind, to understand or the ability to discern. And then in verse 9, we have King David speaking from the past in Psalm 69 when he says, "Let their table become for them a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a punishment. Let their eyes be darkened so that they can't see with their backs bent continually." Now for the sake of time we're not going to go to Psalms 69 and read the surrounding verses, so I'm just going to fill you in on the important points. First of all, the way Paul has quoted this passage is the way it appears in the Septuagint. That is that's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. So once again, we have validation that Paul preferred the use of the Greek Bible as opposed to the original Hebrew version. This would make sense. He was operating in the diaspora where the most common language even among Jews was Greek. The second point is that Psalm 69 is about is about the oppression that King David found himself under whereby his enemies within and without are trying every way possible to kill him. He admits that most of this is his fault because he's been sinful. And in fact, the mention of the dining table is because literally an attempt to assassinate him by poisoning his food had happened. So who whoever it was who tried to poison him, David hopes their own dining table becomes a place of danger instead of a place of peace and table fellowship. The mention of their eyes being darkened, this means that David hopes that his enemies can't discern and their backs bent continually means that his enemies might become slaves under forced labor. Paul is interpreting Psalm 69 in the Remez method of interpretation. That is it means what it says on the one hand, it also contains a deeper underlying meaning on the other. Christians might call this allegory, but it is not quite the same thing. Now the foundational point Paul is making is that those Jews who were hardened and became stone-like in their inability to recognize the true goal and intent of the Torah and the reality of the advent of Messiah Yeshua, it's partly their own doing and it's partly God's doing. So after making essentially the same point from all three sections of the Bible, Paul now uses his straw man, his imaginary debate opponent, to frame a question in verse 11 that he figures his readers, mostly Jews, since the last few chapters have been aimed directly at them, he figures what what they're bound to be thinking now since he said all this. I mean after all, this scathing indictment that Paul has issued against non-believing Jews, the vast majority of Jews, whether they live in the holy land or out in the diaspora, oh it's been damning. So the straw man says in verse 11, "Well then in this case, I say, isn't it that they have stumbled with the result they've permanently fallen away?" Logical question. Paul has just envisioned his second of two possible outcomes, both bad, for the Jewish non-believers. The first was in the opening verse of this chapter. Verse 1, "In that case, I say, hasn't God repudiated his people?" See, what's being implied here is a direct action of God to reject his people for their lack of faith by rejecting his son Yeshua. Now in verse 11, "In that case, I say, isn't it they have stumbled with with the result that they've permanently fallen away?" It's not God taking any action. Rather, it's the people. It's the people themselves who have fallen away from God's mercy as a natural consequence of their refusal to accept Messiah. So Paul is saying to his straw man, "Heaven forbid." That's his typical rabbinical answer. "Heaven forbid," he says to the straw man on both accounts. So he's saying to the straw man, "Look, just give it up. There is no circumstance that you can think of whereby God's chosen people are going to be rejected and abandoned even if by all human standards they sure deserve to be." Mostly this is because God elected them long before they were ever a people. And since this election is in the form of a divine promise, such such an election is not revocable for any reason. Now we come full circle back to where we started today. Verse 11 in its entirety says this, "In that case, I say, isn't it that they have stumbled with the result that they have permanently fallen away?" Heaven forbid, quite the contrary. It is by means of their stumbling that the deliverance has come to the Gentiles in order to provoke them to jealousy. After refuting in every possible way the notion that those Jews, the hardened ones, the stone-like ones, who have rejected Yeshua have also been rejected by the Father or because they stumbled, they are now permanently spiritually disabled without the possibility of redemption, Paul explains why it all works this way. This is all part of God's plan and it came from his, God's, foreknowledge. It was by means of those Jews who refused God's mercy that God first turned his attention to Gentiles. But God delivered the Gentiles for a purpose. And the purpose for Gentiles, meaning believing Gentiles, is to cause the hardened Jews to become jealous and want what they have, a saving righteousness through Messiah Yeshua. A righteousness not earned, but rather freely given. A righteousness that comes by trust, not by works and deeds. Bottom line, these non-believing Jews are not excluded forever, whether it's God's doing or their own, and God has a plan to get them back in his favor. And that plan is Gentiles. How we doing? Uh quite amazingly, Israel's great sin, I don't just think about this. Israel's great sin is really just the beginning of a great process that began 2,000 years before Paul was born. And in the end, it brings blessing back to Israel. And in the middle of this process lies the Gentiles. Who also get blessed. As unfathomable as it may seem, it is because of Israel's redemption and their unfaithfulness the salvation has come for Gentiles. And it is because of the salvation of Gentiles the God's original target, his chosen people Israel, will be saved. Why this strange convoluted pathway to redemption and restoration? Why take this route? Dangerous, full of detours, just littered with potholes. Because there was a promise made two millennial millennia earlier that God fully intended to fulfill because he always keeps his promises. Genesis 12:1-3. Now Adonai said to Avram, "Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsman, away from your father's house. Go to the land that I'll show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great and you are to be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse those who curse you. And by all by you all the families of the earth will be blessed." We will continue in Romans 11 next time. For more teachings of real Bible study and to rediscover God's word with Tom Bradford, visit Torah Class today on the web, streaming TV, or download the Torah Class mobile app.