Has God Cast Israel Off

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Ten
HAS THE LORD CAST OFF ISRAEL?

Scripture Reading: 10:19 – 11:1

BUT I SAY, DID NOT ISRAEL KNOW? FIRST MOSES SAITH, I WILL PROVOKE YOU TO JEALOUSY BY THEM THAT ARE NO PEOPLE, AND BY A FOOLISH NOTION I WILL ANGER YOU. BUT ESAIAS IS VERY BOLD, AND SAITH, I WAS FOUND OF THEM THAT SOUGHT ME NOT; I WAS MADE MANIFEST UNTO THEM THAT ASKED NOT AFTER ME. BUT TO ISRAEL HE SAITH, ALL DAY LONG I HAVE STRETCHED FORTH MY HANDS UNTO A DISOBEDIENT AND GAINSAYING PEOPLE. I SAY THEN, HATH GOD CAST AWAY HIS PEOPLE? GOD FORBID. FOR I ALSO AM AN ISRAELITE, OF THE SEED OF ABRAHAM, OF THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN.

The basis of argument presented through this entire passage is that the sunshine of God’s favor is on the heads of both Jew and Gentile. In other words, the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call on Him. It is not a discussion as to whether there is any difference between Jew and Gentile on racial, religious, or traditional lines, but rather that the goodness of God is available to each one on the same principle, namely, the principle of faith.

This is something Christian people often forget. In this day of grace, God has so wonderfully blessed those who are not of Israel’s race that we are likely to leave Israel out, relegating the Jewish people to a separate department in the economy of God’s dealings. Therefore, it is essential that we keep in mind that salvation is offered to Jew and Gentile on the same basis of unmerited favor. In the first chapter of this same epistle, Paul speaks of the Gospel being “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.” It is a tribute to the unchanging and endless love of our God that His first approach in grace is to the people who, on old covenant lines, proved themselves unfaithful. It should remind us that repentance is the key that opens the door into divine favor; not human merit.

In order to substantiate the fact that in the economy of grace there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, and that God makes salvation available to them both alike in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul, in verse 19, once again reaches back into the Hebrew Bible to remind his fleshly kinsmen that Moses, who had led them out of the bondage of Egypt, said to them: “I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.”¹

When Israel of old ceased to value the goodness of God toward them and fell to lusting after carnal things, God allowed His goodness to reach out to other nations who, at the time, were in the darkness of heathendom. Israel became broken and scattered; its people carried captive into Babylonish captivity. The surrounding nations that should have been walking in the reflected light of Israel’s grandeur, became towering citadels of power overshadowing Israel, subjugating the Jews to the cruel bondage of abject slavery. Those nations that had taken them captive became enriched by the wealth of culture, understanding, and knowledge that had been entrusted to the people of Israel. Nebuchadnezzar enriched himself with the wealth of the house of God, and the land of Babylon became great largely by the presence of the Hebrew children. We cannot dissipate the goodness of God without first suffering ourselves, and secondly enriching others by what we have discarded.

This is the great lesson presented to us in Jacob and Esau. Esau was a profane person, selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. Thus the blessing of Isaac was forfeited by the carnal minded son, being passed on to the younger son who by birthright had no claim to it. That has already been cited in this passage. Here Paul draws attention to the jealousy stirred up in the heart of fleshly Israel because of the favor God passed on to others. It is a signal feature of the life of Jacob that his footsteps were constantly dogged by the jealousy of Esau. Now, after the flesh, Israel has taken the place of Esau instead of Jacob because the Jews sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. Their birthright was brought to them in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose genealogy in the New Testament is traced back directly to Abraham. He is undoubtedly the Son of David as well as the Son of Abraham. As Son of David He has every right to the throne of Israel; as Son of Abraham He has the right to the throne of the universe. When the Lord Jesus was born, Israel after the flesh refused to recognize Him. They were literally afraid that in some way they would lose some petty prestige by aligning themselves with the lowly Nazarene. They sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. How miserable their lot was can hardly be estimated, for they were downtrodden by the Gentiles. The long arm of Rome had encircled them, bringing them into abject subjugation, but their scribes and Pharisees, their religious leaders, had a certain prestige to maintain, a certain dignity to uphold. Jesus the Christ did not measure up to their ideas and they were afraid of recognizing Him. They shunned Him because He ate with publicans and sinners.

For many years the Jewish people have been down trodden and well nigh eclipsed nationally by the grandeur of those called “Christian nations.” Has God abandoned Israel? Paul maintains He has not. To Israel he says: “All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”

God’s hands are still outstretched toward His ancient earthly people, not to bring them into fleshly aggrandizement, but into the greater grandeur of salvation by grace in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And in this first verse of chapter 11, the one outstanding proof that God has not cast away His people Israel is indicated²: Paul himself, an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, is a Christian saved by divine grace. So, on the authority of God’s Word, we can say to every Jew and Gentile throughout the length and breadth of the world that there is something far greater than a mess of pottage, far greater than all the material benefits that one may accrue in this passing world. What is it? It is the riches of divine grace brought to us in Christ Jesus the Lord, “for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him.”

Footnotes:
¹ Just as Romans 10:18 was concerned with whether or not Israel heard, this one addresses itself to the question of whether or not they knew. The answer in both cases is affirmative. The particular truth Paul here credited them with knowing was that God would call the Gentiles into His favor, at last producing jealousy and anger on Israel’s part. Thus, not merely the fact of extending God’s favor to the Gentiles is in view, but also the anger and jealousy of Israel that would result from it. Paul’s quotation of Moses in this place (Deut. 32:21) was the equivalent of appealing to the supreme court of Jewish authority, for the Jews respected no authority as higher than that of the great lawgiver. Paul’s method in this place, as so frequently throughout the epistle, is that of the diatribe, in which theoretical questions are raised, as if from a hearer, and then refuted. The objection dealt with here might be stated thus, “Well, perhaps Israel did not know that the Gentiles were to be called.” But, of course, they did know. Beginning with the great promise of Abraham that in him “all the families of the earth” should be blessed, and coming right on down to the words here spoken by Moses, as well as the warnings of all the prophets, the Scriptures bore ample testimony to the calling of the Gentiles. God had repeatedly apprised Israel of what He would do.
² Chapter 11 is an extremely interesting chapter. It concludes Paul’s burden of revelation concerning the Jews. What is called the Jewish problem dominates the entire epistle, especially in its relation to the master theme of God’s rectitude; but, beginning with Romans 9, Paul began to lay the ground for the revelation of the mystery concerning Israel which was finally stated formally in Romans 11:25. The key facts which Paul had already established regarding Israel are: 1) they are not all Israel who are of Israel (Rom. 9:6), making it clear that there are, and always have been, two Israels: (a) the external Israel, the state, the nation, the visible Jewry on earth, and (b) true Israel, called “his people,” that is God’s people, children of the promise, the seed of Abraham, the people whom He foreknew, etc.; 2) the external Israel God had rejected and hardened, as extensively prophesied by their own prophets, and as just punishment for their rejection of God, climaxed by their stumbling on Christ; and 3) the true Israel are now the redeemed in Christ, but such a fact excludes no one; “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). These three important facts about Israel should be kept in view. For centuries the two Israels had been almost indistinguishable, there being no sharp separation between them, but Paul showed in the beginning of chapter 11 that the separation had been made, with the true Israel continuing as Christianity, and the “rest” (Rom. 11:7) hardened, the latter being the whole of external Judaism. Paul devoted most of the remaining verses to explaining the relationship between the two Israels by the use of several comparisons, and then dramatically stated the mystery in Romans 11:25. “I say then, Did God cast off his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” (Rom. 11:1) “Did God cast off his people” ... this question regards the true Israel, not the nation, which certainly had been cast off, there being then “no distinction” (Rom. 9:12) in the sight of God between either Jews or Gentiles. Paul guarded against confusing the people mentioned here with external Israel by saying immediately that it was “the people whom he foreknew” (Rom. 11:2) who were not cast off. Many make the mistake of supposing this to mean that God had not cast off the nation. Even so perceptive a writer as Charles Hodge (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, p. 353) missed this altogether, saying, “When we consider how many promises were made to the Jewish nation (!), as God’s peculiar people; and how often it is said, as in Ps. 94:14, ‘The Lord will not cast off his people,’ it is not surprising that the doctrine of the rejection of the Jews, as taught in the preceding chapters, was regarded as inconsistent with the word of God.” Plainly, Hodge failed to distinguish between nation and people. Paul refuted the allegation that God had cast off His people by appealing to his own conversion as proof of the validity of God’s promise; which fact demonstrates what Paul meant. Paul was not saved through his membership in the Jewish nation, but as an individual obedient believer in Christ, such salvation also being available to all who ever lived since Christ came (Jews and Gentiles alike), and upon identical conditions. How could God be supposed to need anything any better than that or any different arrangement? But the mania regarding the Jewish nation persists. Note what Kenneth S. Wuest said (Romans in the Greek New Testament, p. 186): “The covenant of God with Israel, having been national, shall ultimately be fulfilled to them as a nation; not by the gathering in merely of individual Jews, or of all Jews individually, into the Christian Church – but by the restoration of the Jews, not in unbelief, but as a Christian believing nation.” Now Paul alleged his own redemption as the fulfillment of God’s promise not to cast off His people, but Wuest as well as others do not accept Paul’s premise. Why? They have incorporated into their reasoning a major false premise, i.e., the opinion that God’s covenant was with a nation, state, or race of people. That is not true. God’s covenant was with the spiritual seed of Abraham, as Paul showed extensively in Romans 9, where he proved that the promise never was to the fleshly seed of Abraham, but to the people “whom he foreknew,” the spiritual seed. God’s covenant was never with the state, or kingdom, of Israel, nor with any of their kings, as such. Even the Davidic kingdom was not the earthly state but the spiritual kingdom, upon the throne of which, even now, Christ indeed reigns. As noted at the head of chapter 11, the earthly kingdom and the spiritual “people” of the promise were historically indistinguishable for centuries, but Paul here showed the separation as finally precipitated in the first advent of our Lord. The thought that God ever had any covenant with the ancient kingdom of Israel, in the sense of their state, through any of their kings, is repugnant. The very existence of their line of kings was contrary to God’s will, existing with His permission, but not with His approval, as a glance at 1 Samuel 8:7 proves. It was precisely in the events there recorded that Israel “rejected God” from reigning over them; and the great historical rejection of God by the fleshly Israel, in their irrevocable repudiation of God as their King and the elevation of one of themselves to rule over them, was the pivot upon which all their later apostasy turned. The Solomonic empire which they so ardently desired to be restored with its earthly glory was the concept that totally blinded them to the Christ, and which still blinds many as to what is meant by God’s “people.” Think about it. If God should be thought of as owing anything at all to the fleshly descendants of Abraham, as viewed separately from the spiritual seed, why does He not owe it also to the Edomites, the Arabians, and the Ishmaelites? “Race,” in the sense of fleshly descent, means absolutely nothing to God. And as to that southern portion of the divided kingdom, could there be any justice whatever in making them the recipients of any special dispensation of God’s grace, in view of the bitterest denunciations of them pronounced by God through the mouths of their noblest prophets? That southern state, historically identifiable as the present Israel, and also that of Paul's day, could not possibly deserve anything at God’s hands which could be viewed as favoring them over the ten northern tribes who were swallowed up in oblivion, because Ezekiel plainly declared the sins of the southern kingdom to have been “more than” those of the kingdom that disappeared (Ezek. 23:16), even declaring that Judah’s sin exceeded that of both Samaria and Sodom. “Thou wast corrupted more than they all (Samaria and Sodom) in thy ways.” (Ezek. 16:47) If nothing but the flesh is considered, if Israel is to be viewed as any people identified with Abraham merely through fleshly descent, why should God have annihilated Sodom and Samaria and have spared Israel whom God Himself declared to be worse than either of them? The reasons why God did spare fleshly Israel in preference over the ten tribes, until the historical fulfillment of their mission as flesh-bearers of the Messiah, and the reasons why fleshly Israel is still spared, contrary to all apparent righteousness, appears in the revelation of the great mystery of 1:25. But the fantastic notion that the true Israel now has, or ever will have, any identification with that fleshly remnant is contrary to the Scriptures and to all reason. Moses E. Lard (Commentary on Paul’s Letter to Romans, p. 345) observed that “The nation most certainly was cut off, deservedly. As a nation God cast them off; but at the same time, he has retained many individuals in his love, because of their belief in Christ.” The individuals mentioned by Lard are God’s “people” in the sense of this verse.