The Mysterious Ways of God's Salvation

Introduction

The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation

Paul continues his argument, and brings it to a close. We have seen that God has not rejected Israel, but rather has selected a remnant as he did in the past. Gentiles have no place for ignorance over their fellow brothers who are Jewish because they are the natural branches and God is willing to cut off any branch, natural or wild, that does not abide in Christ and thus produce fruit, and he is willing to reattach the natural branches broken off who come again to repentance. Now, we will watch and see Paul bring this argument to a glorious and worshipful conclusion!

A Warning: Ignorance of the Mystery Leads to Arrogance

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery

Paul is still speaking to the Gentile believers, making sure they understand God’s ultimate plan for Israel, which is not their abandonment but rather their salvation through the Gentiles.

The warning here is fit for every Christian, since we are all prone to arrogance and a sense of self-made wisdom. Paul’s point in this first half of verse 25 is that if our theology brings us to pride or causes us to be smug know-it-alls, or makes us feel superior, than either our theology is wrong or we don’t really understand it.

Notice the connection Paul makes between being “wise in your own sight” and being “unaware” of the mysteries of God’s providence concerning the salvation of Israel. True doctrine is borne in ignorance. In fact, all pride is borne in arrogance, because if we are viewing things from the truth of God’s perspective, there is no room for pride, only humble wonder and awe.

A Difficult Text

Many interpret this text in different ways that continue to separate God’s plans for the ethnic/national entity of Israel from his purposes for the church in this way. They read verses 25-26 in this way. “A partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and after that has happened, all Israel will be saved.” This is interpreted to say that when God is done saving Gentiles, he will turn to the Jews and save all who are ethnically, culturally, or nationalistically Jewish. Either that God will cause a revival before Christ returns in which all, or nearly all, Jews will be saved, or that God will rapture the church, save all of Israel, and establish a national Kingdom in Israel for a thousand years.

Not only does this reading of the text not fit at all with what Paul has been saying up to this point, but the way I just read those verses to you is not correct. I said “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and after that all Israel will be saved.” But look in your Bibles; is that what it says? No, it says and in this way all Israel will be saved, thus fulfilling prophecies that spoke of God’s future mercy on the nation of Israel.

The Greek word translated in this way or in this manner cannot be translated and after this or then all Israel will be saved. Paul is not talking about when God will save all of Israel, he is talking about the way in which that salvation will happen. There is nowhere in this text, or in the NT at all, that speaks about a salvation of Israel that is separate in time from God’s salvation of the gentiles. After the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, Jesus will return and that will be the end of this world and the beginning of the next. Paul is telling us how, in that process of the Gentiles coming in, God is also saving all Israel. So when Paul says and in this way, our question should be: in what way?

Paul’s Argument

The Question remembered: Has God rejected his People? The answer is no, and since then Paul has been explaining why.

Attached to this question is the further question, did Israel stumble in order that they might fall? Again, the answer is: certainly not! In this conclusion of chapter 11, Paul answers both these questions with satisfaction.

The preaching of the Gospel resulted in Israel’s partial hardening.

The hardening, or stumbling, led to God turning his mercy towards the Gentiles. Therefore, the rejection of the Israelites led to mercy for the nations.

The mercy of God among the gentiles produces a holy jealousy in the hearts of the Jewish remnant who long for their God.

Elect Jews are grafted in as they return to God and believe the Gospel because of this jealousy.

“And in this way” not “then”: Paul is not saying that after a time of showing mercy to the Gentiles, God will turn again to the Jews. Rather, he is saying that as the fullness of God’s elect among the Gentiles come to God, the jealousy produced in elect Jews causes them also to return to God. It is not as if there is an age for Israel, followed by an age for gentiles, followed again by an age for Israel. Rather, through Israel’s partial hardening, the age of the Gentiles is the very thing that saves all Israel. In other words, God has not turned away from his people to focus on the Gentiles, he is calling Israel through his mercy on the Gentiles so that through the filling of the elect gentiles, those elect Israelites who are the remnant of true Israel will be saved. In Paul’s words Romans 11:30-32

Romans 11:30–32 NIV

Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

So has God rejected his people Israel by turning his mercies to the gentiles? Absolutely not! Has God let Israel stumble in order that they would all fall away and the people of God would be made purely from the Gentiles? Again, absolutely not. So what has God done in the partial hardening and mass rejection of Christ by his people? He has used that rejection to save his elect among the nations, and in showing that mercy to the nations, he inspires a holy jealousy in the hearts of those Israelites whom he has elected as his remnant among Israel. The result is that God uses the rejection of Israel to save gentiles, the mercy on gentiles to save Jews, and so all are guilty as disobedient to God and yet, by God’s mercy, are saved despite their disobedient past in a most ironic way. The Gentiles are saved as a result of Israel’s rejection of Christ, and the elect Jews are saved as a result of God’s mercy on non-Israelite nations.

A Doxology Regarding God’s Sovereign Plan

So we see that the way in which God saves both Jew and Gentile is faithful to God’s promises in the OT, and yet comes to be in the most unexpected and paradoxical way imaginable. No one could have seen such a plan coming to fruition, and God surprises us with this unforeseen plot twist.

This brings us to Paul’s doxology, an outburst of praise and worship for God. This praise is motivated by:

The way in which God hides and reveals his plans, having kept all his OT promises in the most unusual and unexpected way imaginable. God is truly the hidden one. Ps 18:11

Psalm 18:11 ESV

He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, thick clouds dark with water.

That is, God is a God who is hidden from us. He is beyond our discovery and prediction. Mysteries like the Trinity or the paradox of God’s sovereignty and our responsibility only if we understand that we cannot understand him. He is hidden, veiled in shadows of darkness and only appears at his own will.

They say that if you see a mountain lion, it is only because it wants you to see it. They are such masters of hiding and stalking that, if they want to stay hidden, you will never see them.

The same is true for God. Only through divine revelation are we able to know him.

The nature of Scripture, our only source of infallible special revelation, is not such that God explains everything about himself, his plans and purposes, or his ways. Instead, it gives us what we need to know in order to participate, by faith, in those plans and see their full outcome in time.

God reveals himself, and when he does it is always in a way unexpected, though in hindsight always the only way all of the OT prophecies could be fulfilled. God often uses paradoxes, such as sending his King, the Son of Man of Daniel 7, in the form of a lowly baby in a stable in Bethlehem. The paradox of Christ declaring the faith of a Roman occupier to be greater than all the zealously religious Jews in all Israel, or of his victory on the cross, or of the Church’s growth through persecution, or of establishing a Kingdom where the least are the greatest and the greatest are the least. The book of Luke emphasizes this a lot, showing Christ upholding the gentiles, the disabled, women, and lowly fishermen over those of high religious standing and power. Nothing is ever as we expect it to be, his plans are hidden from us and, though we have his promises, we can never predict how those promises will come to pass. All we can do is faithfully obey and believe that we will see those good promises fulfilled in a way that will blow our minds.

Paul’s praise springs specifically from how God saves the Gentiles, not through the faithfulness of his people Israel, but rather through their unfaithfulness. Like Joseph and his brothers, what they meant for evil God used for good. Such are his unsearchable plans.

Paul praises God for the way in which he calls his elect among the Jews, the remnant so consistently present in the OT stories and prophecies. He does so, not directly through the personal ministry of Jesus, but through the blessings of the Gospel given to the nations, who were up to this point excluded from God’s covenant. God tells Peter to take and eat what he has now declared clean, and this is not a sign of God’s rejection of Israel, but rather the means by which he saves them.

Paul praises God for his universal display of mercy in the salvation of rebels, leaving all people without any reason to boast. The Jews cannot boast, since they, by and large, rejected the Messiah, and the Gentiles cannot boast because they have been enemies of God’s people throughout history and receive mercy because of the partial hardening of Israel. So both parties are left with nothing to boast in, no honourable role to play in their own salvation. God alone is glorified in the midst of our unfaithfulness. There is no one who does not have a reason to plead for mercy from God, and all who do so from a heart of humility and sincerity do receive such mercy because he is merciful. So Paul paraphrases Job 41:11 by saying in Romans 11:35

Romans 11:35 ESV

“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”

This is the basis of what we call monergism. That is, salvation is by God’s will and work alone, not by our works and cooperation. Although we must cooperate with God to be saved, even that cooperation with God is a gift from him, and he can make for himself vessels of mercy and vessels of destruction as we have already seen in Romans 9:22-24

Romans 9:22–24 (ESV)

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

Finally, Paul praises God for the way in which all his plans and purposes, though mostly hidden from us until they come to pass, serve his way in displaying his glory. Verse 36 tells us that all things exist from God, through God’s work, and to serve his purposes and show his vessels of mercy the majesty of who he is. This is why it is futile to try to piece together exactly what the end times are gonna be like or when Jesus is returning. We know he is, we know it will be in great glory, we know there’s a resurrection and a judgement and eternal life for God’s people, but the book of Revelation is difficult to understand and interpret on purpose. God is hiding his plans from us, and only makes clear what we need to know. The rest will be revealed to us in time, and it will blow our minds.

Conclusion

There is not much more I can say in a sermon on this text. Anything else we might say must be said in song, because this is not so much doctrine to understand as it is praise we must give in the wonder of God’s mysterious wisdom which he has so far revealed to us. So let’s open up to hymn #36 in the Hymns of Grace (black) hymnal and sing Immortal, Invisible.

*Sing Hymn*

If you are having a hard time understanding God’s will, what God is doing and why, think upon this passage. Think upon the way God hides himself and then reveals his glorious plans in ways we could not have seen coming. Putting our faith in God means trusting that day will come when, whatever that thing is we are having a hard time understanding in terms of God will is, we will sing this same song or something similar when the great conclusion is revealed to us.

May we all be led to a greater fear and reverence for God, as well as be fueled with excitement for how we will see his plans take shape. We cannot know how God will bring about his purposes, all we can do is trust in his promises and watch them unfold with praise on our lips and wonder in our hearts. To God alone be all glory forever!