Journey through the Book of Romans

Paul declares Israel’s Rejection is not Final Part 7

Romans 11:28-32 From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. NKJV

Paul now continues on to make it even clearer for us to see where Israel stands in the Heart of God and before Him in truth and reality. The Nation Israel’s leaders rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah and so agreed the majority of the Jewish people which made them enemies of God’s only way of reconciliation to Himself and salvation from sin which is only by way of the gospel of grace. Paul uses the English word enemies and it comes from the Greek word echthros which means to be hateful and actively hostile or an adversary to God and His gospel. This is what God the Father allowed His Elect people in part to be blinded in because of the elect Gentiles that were to be gathered in and harvested for eternal salvation. This truth is where God’s Mercy toward the Gentiles is made visible because He has personally commissioned the small minority of Jews who believed Christ (the first disciples in the upper room before Pentecost Acts 2) to be the Messiah and were born again as we pointed out in the last study as Prophesied by Ezekiel 36:24-28 & by Zacharias in Luke 1:67-79. These 120 Jewish believers or Christians in Acts 2 first began their proclamation of the gospel of grace to their fellow Jews. The fact that the early Church or believers in Christ were all Jewish converts again as detailed for us by Dr. Luke in Acts Chapter 2 is testimony to what the Apostle Paul is declaring to us in Romans 11:28.

Paul declares that God’s Heart yearns and longs for His people Israel because of His Everlasting Covenant He made with Abraham. God cannot lie and because of His Own Character He has been and continues now to be and will be continually in the future gracious to Israel for the sake of their Fathers as so documented by these words in Deuteronomy 10:15 “Yet on your fathers did the LORD set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day.” NKJV This is why the early Christian Church (though small compared to the entire Nation Israel’s population) was entirely made up of individual Jews convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment by the proclamation of the gospel and the Power of the Holy Spirit. God the Father sent the early disciples initially in the way of lost Jews and many were converted because the Jewish people have always been beloved by God for He chose them and made them a great Nation in this world. It was not until Philip was sent by God the Holy Spirit to Samaria to proclaim the gospel among the Samaritans that some of them received Christ and were saved. This did not happen until almost 10 years roughly after the day of Pentecost. The city of Samaria itself was 42 miles north of the city of Jerusalem where the day of Pentecost occurred and the Samaritans were half Jewish and half Gentile as a result of the intermarriage between Assyrians who took some 27,000 Jews captive. The pure blooded Jews despised these Samaritans and considered them as pagans just as they did all the other Gentile people.

Paul wants to confirm to the hearts of every listening Gentile believer how God the Father feels about the Jew for they are His Elect People over all other people on the earth, as we said in a previous study that God the Father only sees 2 races of human beings on the earth and that is Jew and Gentile. Paul now declares one of, if not, the greatest truths of our God and that is His giving of grace to the Nation Israel by covenanting with Abraham is never ever in His Heart or Nature to retract or turn His back on His Promises. Every promise God made to Abraham He has made good with 100% completeness and perfection. For example when He came to Abraham and the following conversation took place, Genesis 17:16-21 “I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before You!” But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.” NKJV

This was the promise He made to Abraham at 100 years of age and Sarah at 90 years of age and the documentation of the promise being fulfilled exactly as it was declared, and described, so was it done as it is written, Genesis 21:1-3 Then the LORD took note of Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. NKJV Everything promised to Abraham God the Father never was sorry afterward, even during the many centuries He endured and suffered heartache as He watch Israel go into disobedience and rebellion over and over and over again, yet His Covenant Gifts to the Nation stood and still stands even to this very day in 2013. When God the Father called Abraham out of his family to establish this new nation from his loins, it was not because Abraham was a good man above all the other men on the earth at that time, but purely by God’s choice to take this sinful man and make him into the Father of a great Nation and His Covenant People. Paul now wants the Gentile believers to recall their own time of ignorance and unbelief as they were worshiping dumb idols until the kindness and goodness of God reached them by way of the gospel of grace and their hearts were regenerated and changed forever by nothing they did or deserved (1 Corinthians 12:2-3 &  1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 & Titus 3:1-7).

Paul writes these words to these Gentiles to remind them that they have been given the opportunity to hear the gospel of grace solely because of the Jews disobedience to the gospel of grace and this great gift of salvation they have received is all of God’s grace and mercy to them. Likewise this will be the avenue or method by which God’s Elect Nation and His Covenant People will be redeemed also, as they had to be left in a state of disobedience just as all Gentiles were under before their reconciliation was wrought by the gospel of grace through the Holy Spirit’s Power. As we declared in the previous study, God the Father only has One Way of reconciling sinful humanity back to Himself and that is through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, even God’s Elect and Beloved People were allowed or given blindness and hardness of heart to the gospel of grace (Romans 11:25) that their disobedience might work their recovery just as the Gentiles disobedience did for many of them. For this is the truth for every human being as Paul has already declared earlier in this epistle or letter by these words, Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” NKJV and this means even God’s Elect Beloved Jewish People and this is why they too must be shut up or handed over to disobedience and stripped individually of their protection under the Nation’s Covenant, so that every individual Jew might be made to see themselves in the light of Romans 3:23. Until a person sees themselves as a sinner, there is no possibility for them to believe the gospel of grace that Christ died and rose from the dead to pay for their sins against Holy God.  

“Repentance is sometimes taken for a change of mind, and so God never repents, for He is in One Mind and who can turn Him? Sometimes for a change of way, and that is here understood, intimating the constancy and unchangeableness of that love of God which is founded in election. Those gifts and callings are immutable; whom He so loves, He loves to the end.” Matthew Henry

“It is by this great mystery of God the Father allowing Christ Own Brethren (Jews) to receive Him not, that has allowed you and me as Gentiles to hear the greatest message ever proclaimed to humanity and have sins grip, grasp, and gnawing on our souls removed by the Blood of the Lamb.” Clifford D. Tate, Sr.

If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...


Sincerely in Christ,


Clifford D. Tate, Sr.

Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reade, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…