Has God rejected Israel forever?
11
📚✭I say then, Has God cast away his people? Absolutely not! For I myself am an Israelite, of the descendants of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 📚God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah? This is how he pleads with God against Israel and says,3 📚Lord, they have killed your prophets
and torn down your altars,
and I alone am left, and they seek
my life.
4 📚But what does the answer of God
say to him?
I have reserved for myself
seven thousand men who have
not bowed the knee to Baal.
5 📚✭So also at this present time there is a remnant according to the choice of grace. 6 📚And if by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise grace would no longer be grace. But if it is by works, then it is no longer by grace. Otherwise work would no longer be work.
7 📚✭What then? Israel did not obtain what it sought, but the chosen ones obtained it. And the rest were blinded. 8 📚✭As it is written,
God has given them a spirit of apathy,
eyes so that they would not see,
and ears so that they would not hear,
to this day.
9 📚And David says, Let their table
become a snare and a trap and
a stumbling block and a retribution
to them.
10 📚Let their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and permanently bend down their backs.
11 📚✭I say then, Have they stumbled so that they should utterly fall? Absolutely not! Rather, through their failure salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. 12 📚✭Now if their failure means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches their fulness will bring!
13 📚For I am speaking to you Gentiles. Since I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I honour my ministry, 14 📚✭if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are of my flesh✭ and blood, and save some of them. 15 📚✭For if their rejection means reconciliation for the world, what will their reception mean but life from the dead? 16 📚For if what is offered as firstfruits✭ is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
The illustration of the olive tree
17 📚✭And if some of the branches have been broken off, and you, being from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in among the branches, and share with them in the root and fatness of the olive tree, 18 📚do not boast against the branches. But if you boast remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19 📚You will say then, The branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. 20 📚Well yes, but because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but have fear. 21 📚For if God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you either.
22 📚See, therefore, the goodness and severity of God; severity on those who failed, but goodness toward you, if you continue in his goodness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. 23 📚And they, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in also. For God is able to graft them in again. 24 📚For if you were cut from an olive tree which is wild by nature, and, contrary to nature, were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more easily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
The nation of Israel will be saved
25 📚✭For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brethren, so that you may not be wise in your own opinion: Partial blindness has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles comes in. 26 📚And so all Israel✭ will be saved. As it is written,
The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
and will turn ungodliness away from Jacob.
27 📚For this is my covenant with them,
when I take away their sins.
28 📚Concerning the gospel, they are enemies✭ for your sakes, but concerning the choice of God, they are loved✭ for the sake of the fathers. 29 📚✭For the gifts and calling of God are not to be withdrawn. 30 📚✭For just as you in time past were not obedient to God, yet now have obtained mercy because of their disobedience, 31 📚even so now these also have been disobedient, so that through the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. 32 📚✭For God has confined them all in disobedience, so that he might have mercy on all.
God’s unsearchable wisdom
33 📚✭✭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!
34 📚✭For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counsellor?
35 📚✭Or who has first given to him,
that it should be repaid to the giver?
36 📚For of him✭ and through him✭
and to him✭ are all things;
to whom be glory forever. Amen.