Real Solution

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Eleven
THE REAL SOLUTION OF THE
JEWISH PROBLEM

Scripture Reading: verses 29-32

FOR THE GIFTS AND CALLING OF GOD ARE WITHOUT REPENTANCE. FOR AS YE IN TIMES PAST HAVE NOT BELIEVED GOD, YET HAVE NOW OBTAINED MERCY THROUGH THEIR UNBELIEF: EVEN SO HAVE THESE ALSO NOW NOT BELIEVED, THAT THROUGH YOUR MERCY THEY ALSO MAY OBTAIN MERCY. FOR GOD HATH CONCLUDED THEM ALL IN UNBELIEF, THAT HE MIGHT HAVE MERCY UPON ALL.

In these few verses Paul sets forth a kind of summary of his entire argument on the subject discussed in chapters 9, 10, and 11. Addressing the Gentiles, he reminds them that blindness in part has happened to Israel, and that nationally Israel has been set aside in a temporary way. In the meantime God has taken up the Gentile nations and we are living in the times of the Gentiles. We carefully watch the world’s economic map as we observe the fullness of the Gentiles.

However, in verse 29 Paul is asserting that God will never go back on anything He has set out to do. The unbelief of man, the unfaithfulness of those who profess to serve Him, will never make God swerve from His purpose. Therefore, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. If God has offered a gift by divine grace, and if it is accepted on the principle of obedient faith, then it is given without qualifications, and God will never take it back. This verse alone ought to establish all Christians in the assurance that the eternal gift of life God has given will never be lost. “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” and God’s gifts are without repentance. No doubt every Christian who personally and honestly surveys life will confess unworthyness of the gift. But the gift is by grace, not because of our worthiness, but because of the worthiness of Jesus Christ. However, no matter how unworthy we may be, God does not repent of having given the gift, He never takes it back. The eternal life God has given to every true believer is given for all eternity.

ln verse 30, Paul again contrasts the Gentile position with Israel’s:

For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.¹

By Israel’s national defection, the door of mercy was opened to the Gentiles. But, on the other hand, it was not closed to those who are of Israel’s race. If God had been vengeful, He might have closed the door against Israel altogether, allowing them to go their errornous way into perdition. This is not the case. A wider door of divine grace has been opened for Israel than was ever opened for them in the day of their national ascendancy. Accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, the Jew is brought into riches infinitely greater than would have been his in the land of Palestine, if his nation had been obedient and come into its earthly inheritance. The Gospel of God’s grace presents to Jew and Gentile a magnificent profusion of blessing unequalled at any time in the world's history. According to this passage, the Jew need not glory in his racial or national standing, because, along with the Gentile, he has obtained mercy on the principle of grace. “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all.”

How wonderful to know that today God is not closing the door of His dealings with mankind in any fashion. This is particularly significant when one considers the privation and trial through which the Jewish people are going through in their quest for a solution to their national difficulties.

However, remember that the real solution of the Jew’s spiritual problem is not in regaining his national status, but in the opening of his eyes to the realization that the Lord Jesus Christ is his personal Savior. We do not mean to single out the Jew in a detrimental way; this is the only solution of the problems of mankind. In the Lord Jesus Christ man finds his true center of spiritual magnetic force, and until he willingly comes within the orbit of the power of Christ, he will be a wandering star in a vast universe where at any moment he may crash to destruction. God’s dealings with both Jew and Gentile are in mercy, but that mercy can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ – the fountainhead of divine blessing. He has been made both Lord and Christ. As Lord, He is the rightful sovereign of the universe, whose Word must regulate every department of life. As the Christ, He is the anointed of Jehovah, the great Administrator of the bounty of God in this day of matchless grace.

o have an illustration of these two attributes of our Lord, one must look backward across the centuries to Joseph, as he was in exaltation in the land of Egypt. Neither hand nor foot could be raised except at the command of Joseph. Anyone who disobeyed Joseph met with immediate destruction. However, the one who was obedient to him came into the wealth of the administration of his bounteous supply of food in a day of famine. It is when the Jews recognize the antitype of Joseph in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah exalted in the land wherein he is a stranger, the land among the Gentiles. Then, like Joseph’s brethren, they will be brought in to dine in the presence of their Messiah. Thus, the Jew has not been cast aside today any more than the Gentile has been cast aside. “God has concluded all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all.”²

Footnotes:
¹ In a word, Paul is saying that the situation had been reversed (as elaborated in preceding verses). In previous times the establishment of Gentile nations were the hardened, and any among them who were saved faced the necessity of forsaking their establishment and uniting with the covenant people, as did Rahab the harlot of Jericho. This was manifestly a harder requirement than was required of the spiritual seed in the co-mingled state of ancient Israel, for in those days the covenant was outwardly identified with their establishment. In the situation that long prevailed thus, it is not hard to see that there was an inevitable partiality, resulting not from God’s partiality (God has always been impartial), but from the human situation. But even that unavoidable “preference” which belonged to Israel has now been wiped out, for now it is they who must forsake their establishment and unite with the “spiritual seed” in Christ, the Christian religion being, in a sense, an establishment belonging to the Gentiles. That relatively greater numbers, in the times before Jesus Christ, were saved from Judaism than were saved from among the Gentiles was due to the hardening of the Gentiles and the residence of the covenant with outward Judaism; that relatively greater numbers since Christ are saved from among the Gentiles than from hardened Jewry is due to that hardening, the covenant lying (outwardly) with the Gentiles. Thus God has equalized His treatment of Jews and Gentiles. “Even so” ... are the big words here. They mean: even as it was once with Gentiles, so now it is with Jews. How about those here said to have obtained salvation from someone’s disobedience? Representatives of this class in the pre-Christian ages were that larger number saved because of the covenant’s resting with Israel, thus making it easier for Jews to be saved than Gentiles. Representatives of this class in the current age are that larger number of Gentiles saved, because it is easier to be saved with the covenant resting in their establishment. It is now harder for Jews to be saved, just as it was once harder for Gentiles to be saved, because it is their establishment which is now hardened. Behold the justice of God. There is still another sense in which some are saved by the disobedience of others. We have already seen that the hardening of Israel was the event which sent the preachers of the Word to the Gentiles. When they rejected Paul, he said, “Lo, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). What did this mean? It meant that whatever remnant of the fleshly Israel were of the “spiritual seed” were totally reliant upon Gentile preaching for their salvation. Certainly, the old fleshly Israel, the establishment intent on destroying the Christian faith, would never have preached it to them in a thousand years. But the disobedience of hardened Israel triggered the extension of the Gospel to Gentiles, whose preaching of it was then available to the “spiritual seed,” making it a fact that it was the disobedience of hardened Israel that brought salvation to the Gentiles, as well as to their own remnant of the “spiritual seed.” “That by the mercy shown to you they also may now obtain mercy” ... this is Paul’s statement of the fact that the mercy shown to Gentiles had its inevitable overtones in the conversion of certain Jews of Israel, who, without the Gentile ministry, could never have known the truth.
² “For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.” This is the summary Paul made of the preceding explanation; and this shows that the subject of God’s intrinsic righteousness was principally in view. “Shut up all unto disobedience” or “concluded them all in unbelief” ... means that with the hardening of Israel, God has thus hardened or “shut up” the whole world unto disobedience, the Gentiles in pre-Christian ages, the Jews now, in order that His mercy might be extended to all, equally, and without partiality, and upon the same terms, namely that of being His “people whom he foreknew,” “the children of the promise,” the true seed of Abraham. It is a gross error to interpret this as meaning that God has made sinners out of everybody so He can save the whole human race. “Mercy upon all” has reference to mercy being extended impartially, and under the same conditions, to all alike. Moreover, it is “mercy upon all” in that it is truly available to all. Everyone on earth “may” receive it, in the sense that he has permission and is invited to receive it. This aspect of meaning is quite clear in Romans 11:31, where it is said, “They may now obtain mercy,” not “will obtain mercy.” Thus, “mercy upon all” has reference to God’s invitation and permission, not to any fiat of arbitrarily saving everybody. The tragic truth, so emphatically stated by the Christ himself that few shall be saved (Matt. 7:13,14) does not compromise the fact that God’s mercy is “upon all.” Attempts to make this verse teach universal salvation are denials of the entire corpus of Christian truth.