“By no means!” (2)

[Romans 11:11-24]

As we have already meditated on Romans 11:1-10, we have seen the apostle Paul write a letter to the saints in Rome 'Will God forsake His chosen people?  By no means!’ [(v. 1) “Did God reject his people?  By no means!”] and euphemistically denying it.  Then, in today's text, Romans 11:11, he again says, “Not a all!”  Look at verse 11: “Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery?  Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.”  What Paul euphemistically denies here is that God did not cause the Israelites to stumble until they fall.  In other words, the Israelites fell because they rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ, but God did not allow them to fall beyond recovery.  Rather, God uses their mistakes [mistakes that could be corrected through repentance (Park)] to restore the Israelites who disobey the gospel and disbelieve in Jesus Christ.

How does Paul say in Romans 11:11-24 that God uses the Israelites' stumbling?  Paul says that God will save His chosen people among the Israelites because the Israelites' stumble made the gospel (salvation) reach the Gentiles and made the Israelites jealous (v. 11).  This was Paul's heart.  As the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul is telling the Gentiles among the saints in Rome his intention as follows: “in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them” (v. 14).  D

Paul honored his duty as the apostle of the Gentiles (v. 13) and was fulfilling his duty while preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles because of the salvation of the Gentiles, he made his own flesh, the Jews, jealous and saved some of them (v. 14).  He longed for the Jews, his flesh, to live from the dead (v. 15), that is, the spiritual restoration of the future Israelites.  Therefore, he expressed his earnest heart toward the people of Israel, his own flesh, to the Gentile believers in Rome, and at the same time expressed their pride and arrogance in the fact that salvation came to the Gentiles through the Israelites' stumbling by rejecting Jesus Christ. (MacArthur).  Look at Romans 11:18-20: “do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.  You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.’  Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith.  Do not be arrogant, but be afraid.”  Here, the “root” is the root of “the olive tree,” and “the olive tree” refers to the “Church of God,” and the root of the olive tree refers to Jesus, who is the head of the Church of God.  And the broken branches refer to the Jews who do not believe in Jesus and seek salvation by keeping the law, which is human effort (Park).  Perhaps the Gentile believers in Rome knew that they were grafted into the olive tree, the Church of God, through the unbelieving Jews who were broken branches.  So, Paul said, “Branches were broken off (Jews) so that I (Gentiles) could be grafted in” (v. 19).  At the same time, Paul tells the Gentile saints in Rome, ‘The Jews were broken off because of unbelief, but the Gentile stand by faith’ (v. 20).  In other words, the broken branches, the Jews, were originally God's people, but they were excluded from the chosen people because they did not believe in Jesus Christ.  On the contrary, the Gentiles accepted Jesus Christ with faith and became the people of God (Park).  Therefore, Paul is warning the Gentile believers in Rome, “Do not be arrogant, but be afraid” (v. 20).

Now Paul is warning the Gentile believers in Rome not to boast to the Jews who do not believe in Jesus.  Why?  The reason is that because the Jews, the descendants of Abraham by blood, did not believe in Jesus, the gospel was directed to the Gentiles.  As a result, the Gentiles were saved through faith in Jesus and became the spiritual descendants of Abraham and were included in God's covenant people.  In a word, Paul told the Gentiles not to be arrogant, but rather to be afraid, because they received faith as a gift by grace through the merits of the cross of Jesus Christ, the root of the olive tree, and were saved by believing in Jesus.  Isn't that interesting?  Just imagine what this must have been like just if the Jewish believers in a church condemn the Gentiles with a sense of superiority that they are descendants of Abraham physically or by lineage, and the Gentiles have a sense of spiritual superiority and are guilty of this sin of boasting against the Jews.  What would the Roman church look like if, on the one hand, the Jewish believers still condemn and despise the Gentile believers, proudly boasting, 'We are still the descendants of Abraham, circumcised, and have received the law of Moses, so we are the true people of God', as was the custom of the old people and on the other hand, the Gentiles believe in the Jewish believers with arrogant hearts, saying, ‘Because you Jews rejected the gospel, the gospel came to us, and because we heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and believed in Jesus, we are the true spiritual descendants of Abraham’?  That's why Paul, writing a letter to the saints in Rome, is telling the Gentile saints, "Do not be arrogant, but be afraid” (v. 20).  Then he says why they should be afraid: “For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.  Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness.  Otherwise, you also will be cut off” (vv. 21-22).  What does it mean?  If God did not spare and cut off “the natural branches”, the Israelites, who disobeyed the gospel and showed unbelief in Jesus, even though they were God’s covenant people, then how much more, will God not spare the Gentiles who are strangers to God's covenant if they do not believe in Jesus and commit sins by disobeying the truth of the gospel? (MacArthur)  If the Gentile saints do not continue to abide in God's lovingkindness, they are warned that they too will be cut off (v. 22).  In other words, Paul warns the Gentile saints in Rome that if they do not abide in God's lovingkindness and become unbelievers like the unbelieving Jews, they too will be eliminated (Park).  The branch must remain in the olive tree to be preserved through the tree's roots.  But if the branch is separated from the olive tree, it cannot be preserved any longer.  But if the Israelites do not persist in unbelief and if they no longer abide in unbelief and believe in Jesus, then they will be grafted in (v. 23).  How can this be?  Look at verse 23b: “…  for God is able to graft them in again.”

Paul earnestly desired that his fleshly relatives, the Jews, see God's work of salvation for the Gentiles, repent, turn around, and be grafted into the Church of God by believing in Jesus Christ, even if they were jealous.  And he believed that God, who knew this earnest heart, would not abandon all of the Israelites, but would allow those who were chosen among them to repent and turn to Jesus Christ and engraft them into the Church of God.  In this faith and confidence, Paul said to the Gentile saints in Rome: “After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!” (v. 24)  What does it mean?  If the Gentiles, who are not descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by lineage (“an olive tree that is wild by nature’), repent and turn around and believe in Jesus and are grafted into the Church of God, how much more will the Jews not be grafted into the Church of God, if the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob based on their lineage, repent and turn around and believe in Jesus?  If God saved the Gentiles who repented and grafted them into the Church of God, how could He not graft the Jews who repent and accept Jesus to the Church of God?

Not long ago, I received a magazine called “KIBI News” through a sister in Christ who is an accompanist at our church.  Here, the abbreviation of “KIBI” is “Korea-Israel Bible Institute.”  The ministry of this organization is mainly in charge of various ministries such as intercessory prayer ministry, literature ministry, and compassionate ministry for the restoration of Israel.  In particular, we get a glimpse of how this group handles the ministry of supporting the believing Jews in Israel through photos and articles in magazines.  In the midst of this, I remember reading an article titled ‘Aren’t we Christians ignoring physical Israel by emphasizing spiritual Israel too much?’  I think it makes a lot of sense.  While we say that we live our lives of faith with pride as spiritual Israelites, descendants of spiritual Abraham, we think that the descendants of Abraham through lineage are now neglecting the Israelites and Jews as we preach the gospel.  This is not the proper attitude of an evangelist.  God never abandoned the Jews (11:1).  Therefore, we must not abandon the Jews whom God did not abandon.  Surely God will make His chosen people among the Jews, the remnant, repent and come back.  God is still doing that.  We must at least join in prayer in this work of redemption toward the Jews of God.  From today, I hope and pray that our church will be able to pray for the evangelization of the Jews.  In the midst of this, we, who are not Jews, should not pride ourselves as Gentiles and have boastful hearts (vv. 18, 20).  How can we, who have been engrafted into God's church (God’s kingdom) by God's undivided grace, have boastful hearts and arrogance?  Rather, we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12).  How do we work out our salvation with fear and trembling?  We must see God's lovingkindness and majesty (Rom.11:22).  And we must abide in God's lovingkindness.  God saved Gentiles like you and me by loving and choosing us to believe in Jesus Christ. Because God loved sinners like us, He did not cut us off and instead engrafted us into the Church (Kingdom) of God.  Therefore, I hope and pray that with a heart of gratitude for this grace of God, we strive to spread the gospel to God’s chosen people whom God loves and does not forsake, to save some of them (v. 14).