Israel’s place in election

Sermon for the week of Trinity 20

Isaiah 65:1-2 + Romans 11:25-36

On Sunday, we looked at the doctrine of election on the basis of Jesus’ parable of the Wedding Banquet. Let’s do a quick review.

The king invited certain people, representing the Old Testament Jews, to come to the wedding banquet for His beloved Son. When it was time for the wedding, He sent for all those invited guests and called on them to come to the wedding. They refused and even killed some of the messengers. The king punished those evildoers, but then opened up the invitation to everyone on the streets (referring to the Gentiles) until his banquet hall was full. Those who were there in the end, wearing the provided wedding garment (the robe of faith in Christ), were the ones whom God chose, whom God elected in eternity. We learned how important it is to approach election, not from the beginning, and not from the end, but from the place where God speaks to us in His Word, telling us that it is His will that all men should be saved, that Christ died for all, HihHcalling us to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, to pray, to walk in step with the Spirit, and to use the gifts He provides along the way to keep us on the narrow path that leads to life. In such a doctrine, there is much comfort for the Christian.

Today’s second lesson from Romans 11 is not the key chapter in Romans that talks about election. That was presented more fully at the end of chapter 8. But chapter 11 does mention election, especially in the context of the Jews and how they fit into this doctrine. And, although we don’t have time to fully cover everything in this text, we will at least begin to address one of the burning questions that’s very much on the minds of Christians today: Should we believe that there be a mass conversion of the Jews before the Last Day?

First let’s dispense with a truly blasphemous teaching that has invaded many, many so-called Christian churches around the world: the belief that the Jews are already God’s chosen people in their current state of unbelief and don’t even need to be converted to Christ. Did you know that’s the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church? It is. It’s also the teaching of practically all the mainline churches—liberal Presbyterians, ELCA Lutherans, United Methodists, Anglicans, Episcopalians, and others. They teach that the Jews shouldn’t be targeted for evangelism, since they already have their own covenant with the true God. But I’ll tell you, anyone who teaches that there is salvation for anyone apart from faith in Christ Jesus, is a servant of Satan and shouldn’t even be regarded as Christian.

But now let’s return to Paul’s words and the Jews’ place in election. Paul says in Romans 11, Concerning the gospel they (that is, those who are biological Israelites) are enemies for your sake. At the time of Paul’s writing, the Jews were actually the main enemies Christians had in the world. At that time, Rome wasn’t targeting Christians. The Jews were, because of the Christian belief that Jesus was actually the Son of God—the God of the Old Testament—sent to Israel as their promised Christ. In other words, the Christians weren’t just claiming to believe in a different god, like all the Gentiles did. They were claiming that the God of Israel was actually their God, that they, the Christians, were actually the continuation of the Old Testament Church, and that the Jews who rejected Jesus, who turned down the King’s invitation, to refer back to Jesus’ parable, had broken away from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That caused the Jews to hate the Christians, as Paul knew well from his own experience.

But, Paul says, concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. What does that mean, that the biological Jews are beloved for the sake of the fathers (that is, for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)? Well, let’s go back to Jesus’ parable. Who were the first ones whom the king sent his servants to call to the wedding? It was the Jews. For 2,000 years of world history before Jesus was born, “the elect” were almost exclusively made up of Israelites. Then, of course, Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. They were the primary recipients of His ministry. Then, in practically every city where Paul preached, the Jews got to hear the Gospel first. As Paul had said in Romans 1, the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. And what Paul is saying here is that, because of the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God had favored the Jews in the past, and, even though they had mostly rejected the Gospel, God would never give up calling the Jews to Christ. Yes, they had crucified and mistreated and blasphemed the Son of God. Yes, they were at that time savagely persecuting the Christians. But God would not, for that reason, stop sending preachers to the Jews. He would not issue a decree that the Jews were not permitted to repent and believe in Jesus. He would not refuse them the gift of forgiveness, if they came to Christ for it. God would continue inviting them, generation after generation, to come to the wedding.

That’s not a guarantee that large numbers of them would come. Some, in every generation, have heard the Gospel of Christ and believed it and have been accepted again into the kingdom of God. But never in the mass numbers that occurred in the first century, when the Gospel first went out to them. And yet some still read Paul’s words as prophesying that very thing when he says, For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved. Here Paul calls it a “mystery” that “blindness in part” has happened to Israel “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” What does that mean? Referring back to Jesus’ parable, it simply means that, as a result of the blindness of Israel to the Gospel of Jesus, the king is turning his attention toward those in the streets, toward the Gentiles, until the king’s house is full of guests—guests who are unworthy in themselves, but who have been made worthy by the robe of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, in this way, when the king’s house is full of guests, including some of the Jews and many of the Gentiles, all Israel will be saved, Paul says.

Modern dispensationalists and millennialists generally take this to mean that there will be a mass conversion of the Jews before the Last Day. But Paul doesn’t say “a great mass of Israel or a multitude of Israel” will be saved. He says “all Israel.” But two chapters earlier the same apostle had said that Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved. How can both be true? How can only a remnant of Israel be saved, and all Israel be saved? And what about all the Israelites who have died in unbelief for the last 2,000 years? They certainly weren’t saved.

If we let Scripture interpret Scripture, then the “remnant of Israel” that will be saved must mean a small, leftover bunch of the biological descendants of Israel, while the “all Israel” in our lesson must be a reference, not to the biological descendants of Israel, but to those who are true Israelites, to all spiritual Israel, that is, to all true believers in Christ Jesus, both Jew and Gentile. As it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” Jesus Christ, the Deliverer did come out of Zion, from the people of Israel, and He has been turning away ungodliness from both Jew and Gentile generation after generation, bringing more and more people into the great wedding banquet in the “New Jerusalem.” God has known from the beginning who would be there in the end, in the kingdom of His Son, and how He would get them there, and how He would keep them there. That group of guests whom God foreknew from eternity, comprised of both Jews and Gentiles, are the ones whom God elected in eternity to be eternally saved. They are the ones whom God counts as the true “Israel.” And so “all Israel,” all the elect, will truly be saved.

But as we said on Sunday, we mustn’t try to reach back into eternity to look at that list, nor can we jump ahead to the Last Day to see it, either. There’s much we can’t fathom about the doctrine of election, leaving us in humble awe as we conclude with the apostle Paul, Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. With that same humble awe, we have to simply cling to God’s revealed will in Scripture, that He wants all people to be saved, and that He offers forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all who repent, who believe, and who are baptized. So trust in the forgiveness God promises through Jesus. Keep praying and using the Means of Grace that God provides. And tell everyone you can, both Jew and non-Jew, what the Lord Jesus has done for them, and what good things God promises to all who believe in the Lord Jesus. Amen.