Salvation has come to the Gentiles, Pt 2

So I was thinking we either got to outlaw people dying or having memorial services, one of the two. I will say that that was a spectacular day. I guess a little cold isn't too much of a price to pay. Hopefully my voice will hold up. I have remedies from half of you, warm water, lozenges, cold water. And I think I'll probably sit on my stool because it's more comfortable. With the lower monitors it works better. So, You know, this section we've been working through, Romans 9, 10, 11, it's kind of interesting, but it also is one of those sections that takes some study, I think, to kind of get it where you can understand what Paul is talking about.

Last time we talked in verse 11, I say then, did they stumble so as to fall? In other words, did they stumble and fall permanently? The answer is no way, no way. And then it says, by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles. So the idea, oh interesting, does my voice sound that weird? It sounds really weird to me. So the idea is not so much the purpose here as the result. What's the result of Israel's fall? And what you'll learn from this is kind of interesting. Paul strongly rejects the idea that the stumbling of Israel and their rejection of the Messiah resulted in a final downfall.

If you know anything about the Old Testament, it's all about how they just were never cutting it. and always having to, you know, God was sending them into exile and all this, and they weren't what God intended for them to be. So what changed now that Jesus has come? Well, one of the big changes we learned last week is that Israel's relationship to Jehovah never did change until Christ came. And now, God has ordained that there's no difference between a Jew and a Gentile.

Well, that's good news for us, not so good for the Jews. Because now, they are under the same requirements that we are. Their acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as their Savior, and that they're all under sin, and the sacrifices are not to their benefit anymore. What the benefit is, is their faith, which has actually been the benefit all along. So now the individual Jew, like the Gentile, may be saved alone through faith in Christ. That's it. That's the only option he has. All the Jews are now subject to divine judgment.

He also says in the second half of this verse, by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them jealous. Now if you look at the Old Testament scriptures, we've read a couple of them. that God prophesied that I'm going to do some things that are going to make them jealous. In other words, you Gentiles are going to have something that they think they should have had. Salvation. And because they don't have it, it will make them jealous, and they'll come to the saving knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, and it'll save them. So God in his wisdom has used this occasion to bring salvation to the Gentiles.

Have you ever entertained that thought? That if the Jews were a perfect, perfect group of people, God's chosen people, where would you and I be? Where would we be? We certainly wouldn't be where we are today. We'd have to go and become Jews to get saved.

Sorry for the squeak. So God in his program is gonna make the Jews jealous. And if you look at Paul's ministry in Acts and in some of the epistles, he follows this pattern. He goes to the Jews when they reject the gospel. So when he goes into a town, he always goes to the synagogue. He always goes to the Jews, and you would think, well, he goes there to try to persuade them, and he does persuade a few. But then he ended up finally going to the Gentiles exclusively after his first imprisonment in Rome. He set aside the Israels and turned to the Gentiles. But we're gonna see in these verses that he didn't abandon his original purpose.

God's blessing to Gentiles caused self-satisfied Jews to wake up. First to ridicule God, a Gentile testimony. You know, my neighborhood with my ascetic Jews, they ridicule what I believe. Seeing the reality of divine blessing to despise Gentile, it aroused them to deep, deep jealousy.

So, verse 12 says, now if their transgression Remember last week we talked about this verse, there aren't any verbs in it. So I should read now, if there are transgression, riches for the world, and there are failure, riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fulfillment be. The point is, between the word transgression and riches, and between the word failure and riches, really lies the doctrine, excuse me, of the sovereignty of God.

Because you have to ask yourself, what, I mean, God takes a failure of Israel and he uses it to bless the whole world. Only God would do that. And we've talked last time about what sovereignty really is. It's God's ability to control all events so that the net result brings glory to Him. And I think you need to look at that. I have a cold today, somehow it's gonna bring glory to God.

I don't know how, but it will, because He said so. Romans 8, 28 is the best example of that, that God works all things together for good. to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose. He does that. We don't do it, He does it.

So, now, verse 12 says, if their transgression riches for the world, how much more their fulfillment. So we talked last time, if we were in the normal course of business, which means that If things were running like God intended them to be run with the Jews being the favored nation and God visiting them, the Jews would be blessing all the nations of the world because they're God's people and have his favor.

Problem is that in the present ways of God, their fall has been the world's wealth. And the Jews lost the wealth of the nations. So the blessing is so great for the world. Will Israel fall in now much more when they're restored? There's an imitation here to think, how much will that fullness be? In other words, when God restores Israel, that's gonna be quite a day, quite a day. Their fall and loss is the richest of the world. How much more their fullness. And Israel's gonna have their fullness.

They're just, I wish I could control that. They've just been set aside temporarily, and there will be a fulfillment. And the reason is that in the Old Testament, God made promises to them. He has covenants with them, and He told them, this is what I'm gonna do. In spite of how you guys mess up, there'll be a day when all of Israel will be saved, all of you, and you'll be manifesting my glory. So, but before that day of Israel's wealth and glory described in the Old Testament, there comes in a kind of way to say it, a peculiar interview, mark, interview, interval marked by the fall, loss, and setting aside of Israel nationally and the salvation and wealth of God in grace going to the nations.

And that brings up another point. This verse says, but I am speaking to you Gentiles. And I want you to, when you read Romans 9, 10, and 11, you have to get it in your mind that he's not talking to Christians. He's not talking to save Jews. He's talking to Gentiles, just Gentiles, saved or otherwise. So he says, I'm speaking to you Gentiles.

In as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry. So you wouldn't think, well gee, would Paul in Romans, a book written, a basic Course 101 in Christianity, would he just speak to the Gentiles? Sure he would, because that's who he's the apostle for. He's the apostle to the Gentiles. I speak to you Gentiles. The moment Paul says this, we know that he's not addressing either Jewish believers or Gentile Christians. Those in Christ, for in Christ, there's neither Jew or Greek. Am I right about that? Yeah, I am.

So he's speaking to Gentiles as having at present, not the church, but the Gentiles, as over against the Jews, come into God's great favor. All of the nations of the world are now subject to God's great favor, and they never were before, which the Jews had, but of which they are at present deprived. They don't get the favor, but all the Gentile nations in the world do. That's what Christianity does with missionary work. They're taking this message to all the world. God's favorable towards you, because they weren't before.

I'm speaking to Gentiles. There were many Jewish saints in Rome. But these three chapters are particularly fitted to Gentile instruction, so he's instructing Gentiles. That's what he's doing. Inasmuch as I'm an apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my mystery. We'll talk about the magnification of his ministry in a second. He says, I'm bragging. before the Jews, how God works among the Gentiles. He wants the Jews to see what he's doing.

He wants them to understand that he's, with this message, has gone to the Gentiles. The Gentiles, not the Jews at present, are the field of God's operations on the earth. The message of the gospel goes out only through Gentiles. It doesn't go out through Jews. Again, the Hasidic Jews in my neighborhood, they do no evangelization at all. They do the first five books of the Talmud, and the message of Christ and salvation isn't in there. That's pointed towards Judaism. By the way, as an aside, some of you have been praying for...

Donna and I, we had this dinner with a man and his wife that we've known, I've known, 60 years. And this guy, 48 years ago, or 47 years ago yesterday, that was my birthday, by the way, my spiritual birthday, This man said to me back then, you need to go see this other college friend of ours. He's got the answer for you. So I went and saw that guy and he led me to Christ. But the guy who told me go see him has never come to Christ.

So we had dinner with him last night for the first time in 40 years. And in the middle of dinner, his wife says, hey, maybe you can answer a question for me. Why did Jesus have to die? Bingo. You know, I got really excited, but I tempered my enthusiasm, because I can't answer all that in one night at dinner. But I look at it as an opening now. If I can explain to her, and I have a lot of information on that subject, why did he have to die? So anyway, I'm pretty excited. So keep praying for them, because maybe the Lord will save them. of his saving them, filled with the Spirit and with peace.

That's what the Gentiles had, the Jews didn't have it. So notice the focus on the Gentiles and not the church. The Gentiles are favored, like Israel once was and aren't now. They have therefore like responsibilities, the Gentiles do. If Israel was cut off through unbelief, the Gentiles must be aware, not abiding in the goodness in which God has set the Gentiles. That is, they're in direct favor now. Without law and without religion in which God has put Gentiles, all shall be cut off. You ever notice that? If you don't know or appreciate what God has done, offered us as Gentiles, you can grow very stagnant. You get like those Jews that really now their minds are darkened.

So God did not give the Gentiles the law, which was, as we know, was a great thing, with its 10,000 things, but he did give us the gospel and grace. That's a whole new thing. He gave them Paul, who was the messenger of grace. Paul is the man that God chose to bring the understanding of grace to all humanity.

So now, verse 14 says, but if, or but somehow, I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. The word in the New American Standard is if, but it really should be but. It's a really stronger word than just if. It makes the transition from a statement of divine plan in verse 12 to a statement of Paul's own course of working in the line of that plan. And until I got to this verse, I didn't... Just go off? Oh, it came back on. Understand what Paul's message really was, that he had this ministry to the Gentiles, and yes, he wanted to save the Gentiles, but he also had a secondary motive.

And the motive is to make those Jews jealous. And by explaining to the Jews, or they could observe how much grace had been expended to the Gentiles, and it would make them jealous. And that wasn't an original idea of his. He was a Pharisee, and he'd read the Old Testament, and God had said that a bunch of times. So why does Paul magnify or glorify his Gentile ministry in the sense that it honors the faithful discharge of his duties and go to the Gentiles to provoke the Jews to jealousy? So he's working on saving Gentiles, but he also recognizes that in that process, he's gonna make Jews jealous, because they're gonna see this blessing that God has bestowed on the Gentiles, like inward peace that they didn't have anymore, and they desired it, they'd love to have it, but they don't have it.

He holds on to, with affectionate desire to Israel, there is an intense yearning in his soul and some from among them should be saved. He wanted more and more Jews. He wanted every one of them to be saved. So he labors more earnestly for the Gentiles with a view to salvation of his own race. He works tirelessly because he knows that if he's successful, the loved Jews will be jealous.

And that's not a jealousy and a negative thing, it's a positive thing. He knows that if the grace of God that is extended on the Gentiles is observed by the Jews, they're gonna say, wait a minute, you know, maybe they're angry at first. But they will become jealous because they know We had that at one time, but we don't have it now. I might make provoke them to imitation is a word that translated provoke them to jealousy.

This is not a new class of readers. He has been speaking all along to Gentiles and speaking to it in the character and he feels necessary to show the relevance of such circumstances besowing so much attention on the condition and the prospects of the Jews. He never forgot the Jews, that he was one of them. His mission to the Gentiles was indirect bearing on his own countrymen. The more successful he can make it, the greater is the prospect that some of the Jews may be provoked to jealousy and therefore be saved. It's a pretty good motivation.

Verse 15, for since their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, What will their acceptance be but life from the dead? Again, this word if is not a, well, maybe it will, maybe it won't. It's the if of certainty, and it should be translated since. So you would read it since their rejection is the reconciliation of the world. That's a true, that's true. What will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

So what he's talking about here is that at some point, It's not a hypothetical. It's a fulfilled condition. He's not arguing upon the basis of a hypothesis, but on the basis of fact, that God is going to bring the Jews back. And it's interesting, the setting aside of Israel, the nation, refers to the act of God setting aside Israel temporarily as a channel through which to bring good news of salvation to the world and the substitution of the Gentile nations.

The church, this with a view to bringing Israel back into fellowship with himself and service in the millennial kingdom. I don't think we realize what an incredible day it's gonna be. You know, we're gonna get raptured. And then at some point, the Lord's gonna come to rule and reign on the earth with all of us. But the real thing that's gonna be going on is the reconciliation of the nation of Israel back to Him, that they all will believe Him. And so because they do, the environment they're gonna live in for a thousand years is magnificent. So let's talk a little bit about reconciliation. There's a couple of points I want to make. One is, it means that someone or something has thoroughly changed or they're adjusted to something which is a standard.

The thing I thought about was boot camp in the military. You go into boot camp, you're a civilian. You don't know how the military operates. Well, they're going to show you. And they're going to reconcile you. And they're going to teach you so that the doctor may be considered, you know, when you get out, you're either a Marine or whatever you are, and that's how they call you. Like at Parris Island, they never called you a Marine until that last day, because you weren't.

So we have reconciliation. In the Old Testament, the reconciliation speaks of atonement and covering the sins. Of the whole world, in 2 Corinthians 5.19, the need of this adjustment is expressed in Romans 5, verse 6 through 11, where the doctrine with its universal scope appears. Note four expressions used there. Human beings are ungodly, without strength, sinners and enemies.

So how is God going to reconcile those people back to himself? He does it by the death of Christ. And this is the answer to my friend at dinner. He does it by the death of Christ on this behalf. The whole world is thoroughly changed in its relationship to God.

But notice that God is never said to be reconciled to man. That's a really important point. God is not going to be reconciled to you. It's the other way around. He's going to reconcile you back to Him. Well, that makes perfect sense. God is holy, righteous, and good. Okay? The world is so altered and conditioned respecting the holy judgments of God through the cross that God is not now imputing their sin. To them, the world has thus been rendered savable. Before Christ came, guess what? We weren't savable. We weren't.

And then each individual, 2 Corinthians 5.20, distinguishes the three changes connected with reconciliation.

It's positional, wherein the soul is seen to be in Christ. that it's a general relationship on the basis of which salvation may be offered to all mankind, and that which is a mental attitude or a trust of the individual heart when one sees and accepts the value in the death of Christ for him. He's reconciled, he sees it. So, I'm gonna read this, these verses, because this, 2 Corinthians, states it as well as any place. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, are we in Christ? The answer, yes, we are. Here's what's true of you. You are a new creation. Old things have passed away. New things have come.

Now all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So not only are we reconciled, but we've got a ministry. So people that come to me and say, well, I don't know what God wants me to do. Well, here's something cool. You can go around and say, hey, God, be reconciled. God is happy now. namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us. We beg of you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God, we beg you. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Do you remember when we first started into Romans 9 what the issue was? The issue was that Jews, in order to get into the kingdom, had to have the righteousness of God. And they, to this day, they're working to get it, but the trouble is, is that at the end of the day, they're gonna be self-righteous. And the only way that you get God's righteousness is to believe him, is to believe him about his son, from a Jewish standpoint, the Messiah.

So since the position of the world before God's completely changed through the death of Christ, God's own attitude towards man isn't the same, it's different. He's prepared to deal with souls now in light of what Christ has accomplished. This seems to be a change in God, but of course it's not at all. The change is in you.

On the contrary, believers completely completely in the thing which Christ has done and accepts, accepts it so as to continue being just, although he's entirely, he's able thereby to justify any sinner who accepts the Savior of his reconciliation. And that, those two paragraphs come from Salvation Honored Lewis Perry Schaefer. I really like the fact that he's just and justifier. He does both. He, God's never moved away from his justice. So he takes it upon himself to justify the sinner. He does both parts through Christ.

And so he can reconcile all humanity back to him. If men are not personally reconciled to God, it's not because the reconciliation is not available. It's because they will not have it. He does not hear what explanation men make of Christ and his death, but what account God says of it. He says, because of my son, I've reconciled you. But like in everything with God, you have to believe him. That's the okay, I agree.

15, for since the rejection is reconciliation of the world, and this is a great question, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If you're gonna talk about the Jews being accepted back, it literally is life from the dead. It's like your salvation. What is it literally? Life from the dead. You and I were dead, and now we're alive.

How could there be permanent rejection of Israel if in the face of innumerable prophecies in the Old Testament of Israel's future exaltation? Couldn't be permanent. So when you compare our wretched Gentile state before the blessed reconciliation news, with our present Gentile blessing under the gospel, one, as to our fruit of the setting aside of the Israelites, and then judging what the blessing will come when God receives them back, it will indeed be life from the dead. I don't know if you sit and think about life from the dead, but dead means total separation. And you'll be, they will be alive for the first time from the dead.

The world has never seen this scene before. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah. How cool will that be? As the waters cover the sea, Imagine, every human being has a full knowledge of Jehovah, every one of us. Not even, it wasn't even, they didn't even do this in Eden before man sinned. And all this wastes the receiving of God's earthly people, the elect Israel.

God must have them back in their land to become a joy to the whole earth. When Jehovah finally speaks everlasting comfort to his people, Israel and Jerusalem, Isaiah 40 says, and the glory of Jehovah will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. So, you know, we are so privileged to behold the glory of the Lord as an emir now. And when we go home to be with the Lord, we'll see him face to face, but no Jew's ever seen the total glory of God like they're gonna.

So Israel at the present time's on the shelf. But the whole world is in reconciliation. Israel will yet receive. definitively and publicly as they are now set aside. In the meantime, every converted Jew is like Paul, a proof that God in his election of grace is mindful of Israel. He said that back in the beginning of 11, securing a remnant of them right through and until the day when all Israel will be saved. The receiving of Israel first to that wonderful moment when the Messiah returns to the Mount of Olives and all Israel. It's hard to imagine that all Israel is going to be saved, but they are.

This will be life from the dead in that the nation will be saved by the sovereign grace of God out from a spiritually dead state and from among those who remain spiritually dead I want to make this point, though. We're getting toward the end. It must ever be remembered that the calling of the church, the body of Christ, is a heavenly one and not an earthly one as Israel's is. Though by God's grace partaker of an ineffable higher place, members of Christ himself, yet we, more than any, should regard Israel's coming blessing, for we have, as they will have, mercy, the sweetest conferment of God on sinners. Again, it's a footnote from Newell's Romans. We can't forget that we're heavenly creatures. We're not earthly ones. the glory that will be manifested in us will be in the realm of heaviliness, and then Jehovah will manifest his glory on the earth through the nation Israel.

So, three dispensational events affirmed in 12 and 15. If the transgression is richest to the world and their failure richest for the Gentiles, how much more their fulfillment 15 says, for their rejection is the reconciliation of the world. What will their acceptance but life from the dead? As you're looking at it, on the left side, verse 12 says, the trespass or blunder of Israel equals the setting aside of them. Two, the riches of the world equals the reconciliation of the world. And the fullness of Israel actually is receiving of them by God. So, in conclusion, the Gentiles in general, they've benefited from Israel's transgression.

We have, a lot. Gentile believers are now the focal point of God's blessing and mercies. And since this is all by his grace, Paul will warn us not to be conceited or arrogant about it. One day, the last Gentile will get saved, and guess what happens next? God's program for the historical process will begin again, and the focus will be totally on Israel.

That's going to be a great day. A great day. So it's close. Father, I'll be thanking you. I guess in these verses, as we study them, we learn so much about how you do things, that even when your favored nation rejects you, you have worked out a plan to restore them, to receive them back, and to glorify yourself through them. When we recognize that you are gracious, merciful, loving God in everything that you do. It puts us in a position to just receive the grace from you and to rest. We thank you for your son, the Lord Jesus, and his word. And we pray in his name, amen.