The Early Church · c. AD 57
Chapter 24
All Israel
Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
For parents
This chapter has no violence of its own. Paul quotes Elijah’s words to God that the Lord’s prophets had been killed and that people were trying to kill him too (Romans 11:3).
’s letter to the in went on.
“I am telling the truth in ,” he wrote. “I am not lying. My conscience, in the , is a witness with me: I have great sorrow and pain that never stops in my heart. I could wish to be under a curse myself, separated from Christ, for the sake of my brothers and sisters, my own relatives by human birth.
“They are . The adoption is theirs, and the glory, and the . The law was given to them, and the worship of God and the promises are theirs. The ancestors are theirs, and from them comes Christ by human birth, who is over all, God, blessed forever. .
“But it isn’t as though God’s word has come to nothing. Not everyone descended from Israel is Israel. And they are not all children just because they are ’s offspring. Instead, ‘Your offspring will be counted through .’
“That is, it isn’t the children of natural birth who are children of God. The children of the promise are the ones counted as heirs. This is what the promise said: ‘At the set time I will come, and will have a son.’
“Not only so, but also conceived by one, by our father Isaac. For being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The elder will serve the younger.’ Even as it is written, ‘ I loved, but I hated.’
“What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! For he said to , ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to , ‘For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.
“You will say then to me, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?’ But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?
“What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory—us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the ?”
Paul went on: “As he also says in ,
‘I will call them “my people,”those who were not my people;and her “loved one,”who was not loved.’‘In the place where it was said to them,“You are not my people,”there they will be called“children of the living God.”’
“ cries out about Israel:
‘If the children of Israel are as many as the sand of the sea,it is the who will be saved;for he will finish the work and cut it short in ,because the Lord will do a short work on the earth.’
“And as Isaiah said before:
‘Unless the Lord of Armies had left us descendants,we would have turned out like ,and would have been made like .’
“What should we say, then? The Gentiles, who weren’t chasing after righteousness, have reached righteousness, the righteousness that comes by faith. But Israel, chasing after a law of righteousness, didn’t reach the law of righteousness. Why? Because they didn’t look for it by faith. They looked for it as if it came by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written:
‘Look, I am laying in a stumbling stone and a rock that trips people up;and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.’”
“Brothers and sisters,” Paul wrote, “my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved. I can tell you this about them: they are eager for God, but without knowledge. They didn’t know God’s righteousness. They tried to set up a righteousness of their own, and they didn’t put themselves under God’s righteousness. Christ is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
“Moses writes about the righteousness that comes from the law: ‘The one who does them will live by them.’ The righteousness that comes from faith, though, says this: ‘Don’t say in your heart, “Who will climb into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down); or, “Who will climb down to the ?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).’
“But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.’ That is the word of faith we preach: that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. A person believes with the heart, and that leads to righteousness. And a person confesses with the mouth, and that leads to salvation.
“The Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.’”
“There is no difference between Jew and Greek,” Paul wrote. “The same Lord is Lord of all, and he gives richly to all who call on him, because ‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
“But how will they call on someone they haven’t believed in? How will they believe in someone they haven’t heard? How will they hear without someone to preach? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written,
‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News of peace,who bring glad news of good things!’
“But they didn’t all listen to the glad news. As Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes through the word of God.
“But I ask, didn’t they hear? Yes, they surely did:
‘Their sound went out into all the earth,their words to the ends of the world.’
“But I ask, didn’t Israel know? First Moses says,
‘I will make you jealous with a people that is not a nation.I will make you angry with a nation without understanding.’
“Isaiah is very bold and says,
‘I was found by those who didn’t look for me.I was revealed to those who didn’t ask for me.’
“But about Israel he says, ‘All day long I stretched out my hands to a people who disobey and argue back.’”
“So I ask,” Paul wrote, “did God reject his people? Never! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of . God didn’t reject his people, whom he knew beforehand. Or don’t you know what the Scripture says about , how he pleads with God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed your . They have broken down your . I am left alone, and they want to kill me.’
“But what is God’s answer to him? ‘I have kept back for myself seven thousand men who have not knelt to .’ In the same way, there is a remnant now too, chosen by . Now if it is by grace, it no longer comes from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it comes from works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
“What then? Israel didn’t get what it is looking for. The chosen ones got it, and the rest were hardened, just as it is written: ‘God gave them a spirit of numbness, eyes so they would not see and ears so they would not hear, to this very day.’
“And says,
‘Let their table be turned into a snare, a trap,a stumbling block, and a repayment to them.Let their eyes be darkened, so they will not see.Always keep their backs bent.’”
“So I ask, did they stumble so that they would fall?” Paul wrote. “Never! But by their fall, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so that Israel would be jealous. Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
“Now I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Since I am an to Gentiles, I honor my ministry, to see if somehow I can make my own people jealous and can save some of them. If their rejection is the of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead?
“If the is holy, so is the lump of dough. If the root is holy, so are the branches.
“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were in among them and came to share with them in the root and the richness of the olive tree, don’t brag over the branches. But if you do brag, remember: you don’t hold up the root; the root holds you up.
“You will say, then, ‘Branches were broken off so I could be grafted in.’ True. By their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be proud; be afraid. If God didn’t spare the natural branches, he won’t spare you either.
“See, then, God’s goodness and his sternness: sternness toward those who fell, but goodness toward you, if you stay in his goodness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
“And if they don’t stay in their unbelief, they too will be grafted in, because God is able to graft them in again. If you were cut out of a tree that is by nature a wild olive, and were grafted against nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
“For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written,
‘There will come out of Zion the Deliverer,and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.This is my covenant with them,when I will take away their sins.’
“As far as the Good News goes, they are enemies for your sake. Yet as for God’s choosing, they are loved for the sake of their ancestors. God’s gifts and his calling can’t be taken back.
“In the past you disobeyed God, but now you have been shown mercy through their disobedience. In the same way, these too have now been disobedient, so that by the mercy shown to you they may also be shown mercy. God has bound all to disobedience, so that he might have mercy on all.
“Oh, the depth of the riches of God’s wisdom and knowledge! His judgments are beyond searching out, and his ways past tracing!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord?Or who has been his counselor?’‘Or who has first given to him,and will be paid back?’
“For everything is from him, through him, and to him. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”