The Romance of Romans-Part 72

Romans Chapter 11 cont'd

Do you see the balanced personality of God, both his goodness and his severity? He dispensed severity to those who were unbelieving, but he has shown you his goodness. And he will continue to do so if you persevere in your faith. Otherwise, he will also cut you off. Likewise, if the Jews repent of their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, and God is able to do it. For if God is able to graft wild unnatural branches into a domesticated olive tree, surely he can graft the natural branches back into their own olive tree.
I am laboring this point because I don't want you to be uninformed about this divine mystery and thereby fall prey to spiritual pride. So here it is again: a partial spiritual blindness has befallen the Jews, until the fully appointed number of Gentiles are saved. At that time, the Jews will turn wholesale to Messiah Jesus as it is written, "The Deliverer will come out of Zion and turn Jacob away from his ungodliness. For this is my covenant with them- I will take away their sins." So, in relation to the good news, they are presently your enemies. But in the larger prophetic picture, they are a chosen people who are favored by God because of his unconditional promises to their fathers. And God will not and cannot renege on his sovereignly given gifts and callings.
Just as you, who at one time did not believe God, have now obtained mercy through their unbelief, even so they, who do not yet believe, will receive mercy through the mercy shown to you. For God has allowed all to experience the agonizing desolation of unbelief so that he might reveal his mercy, in no uncertain terms, to all people. So in the end, unbelief in some leads to mercy for others which, in turn, leads to the mercy that finally destroys all unbelief and causes mercy to triumph over all!
O the depth of the richness of both the wisdom and knowledge of God! His judgments are inscrutable and his ways are unfathomable. "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has counseled him into the right way?" Or "who has met God's needs in a way that God now owes him something?" For ultimately, from him, and through him, and back to him are all things. To him be eternal honor. Yes indeed!

Comments:

The Story kind of speaks for itself above. Paul concludes this powerful chapter by again putting the questions surrounding the Jews and gentiles, and their spiritual journeys, into the context of a historic and mysterious meta-narrative that he claims has now been made clear through the coming of Jesus Christ...and how he has fulfilled the OT scriptures.

The Story is significantly about the grandeur of God himself who is the One who has been guiding human history along with his invisible hand. It's an account of his power, justice, holiness and the spiritual weakness of humanity...left to ourselves...and of his kindness and love ultimately sweeping in to rescue us in Messiah from our unbelief in his wisdom, goodness and nearness. Mercy triumphs over justice...not only in our personal lives...but in the narrative of international history.

It's a bit hard for us to air drop into the same level of thought and emotion that swirled around this thorny issue that Paul has been attempting to address in Romans. But, if we immerse ourselves deeply enough in the scriptures, we are able to come to the place that we can identify from the heart with the massive historical/theological dilemma that the apostle is unraveling and the great mystery that he is revealing through the gospel of Jesus.

I can't say it better than my friend, Michael Flowers, has recently stated it...

“From a Pauline perspective (early church), ‘Christianity’ as a new religion did not cross his mind. Paul had come to see that in Jesus the fulfillment of all the promises of God in the OT had been inaugurated in Jesus the Messiah. The walls of ethnic exclusivity had been kicked down by the power of the resurrection, announcing the invasion of the New Age of the Kingdom into the present. His Jewish Eschatology had greeted him in person, on the Damascus road. Therefore, a Christless Judaism would be viewed as a thing of the past, an expression languishing within the pages of the Old Covenant, awaiting a fulfillment that had already occurred in Jesus the Messiah.”

...or the way that Eugene Peterson translates Eph 3:4-6 in the Message:

As you read over what I have written to you, you'll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God's Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I've been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.

And all this leads Paul, and us, to two divinely strategic responses that are captured in the final paragraph: humility and awesome worship. May we simply take our place...on our face.