The Partial Setting Aside of Israel Part 2
Introduction:
The temporary setting aside of Israel brought Gentile blessing and Jewish jealousy. And when the Gentiles became the people of blessing, it was to provoke the Jews to jealousy so that they would say, “How is it that we are the punished? How is it that we are the chastened? How is it that we are the abused?” And that’s how it’s been through their history since the rejection of Christ, hasn’t it? From the 70 A.D. desolation of Jerusalem by the Romans right up until modern times, they have been a people under tremendous persecution and pressure through all these centuries. And the church of Jesus Christ has been the blessed and Israel has been the chastened. And it is to provoke them to jealousy that they might be drawn back to God and back to Christ to the roots of blessing.
“My heart’s desire and prayer is for Israel that they may be saved,” he said that at the beginning of chapter 9, the beginning of chapter 10. And so he says I’m happy to be the Apostle to the Gentiles and I’m happy to see Gentiles embrace the faith but my greater goal is that in Gentiles’ salvation there will come Jewish jealousy and some of them might be saved who are of my own flesh. And then in verse 15 he says, “For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what will the receiving of them be but life from the dead.” That is the resurrection of the whole world into millennial glory. The deliverance of suffering creation, as he talked about in Romans 8 where the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God, where it longs for the great reversal of the curse that comes in millennial glory.
“Of the first fruits of your dough … d-o-u-g-h, referring to that which they would use to make bread … of the first fruits of your dough you shall give to the Lord and heave offering in your generation.” In other words, the objective was that each time dough was prepared for baking bread among the Jewish people, a little piece of that dough was pulled off the larger portion and that little piece of dough was to be given to the Lord which is to say it was taken to the temple or it was given to the priest. And it became sustenance for the priest.
All the dough then was dedicated in the act of giving a small portion. It was a way of saying, “Thank You, I realize this is Your provision, all of it. I offer it back to You in the sense that as it nourishes my body, I offer myself to You. I want it to nourish me to do Your will and Your purpose and the things that would honor Your holy name.” And each little piece was a symbol of the dedication of the whole. And that’s what he’s saying. If the first fruit is set apart, and “holy” here means set apart, consecrated, devoted to God, separated, if you will, the idea of consecrated from profane use to the use of God, he says if the first fruits is set apart then the whole lump is consecrated. See that? If the first fruits is set apart, it is saying the whole lump is consecrated. That is the sense.
Now what is Paul intending by these analogies? Just this, and it’s just a beautiful thought. If one portion of the Jewish people are consecrated to the Lord, then all the rest must be also. You got it? And who were the firstfruits? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph … the fathers, the patriarchs. And I believe he has, of course, here mainly in mind Abraham. And if God set apart the firstfruits, then He was setting apart the whole lump. And if God set apart the root who was Abraham, then He’s setting apart the branches. In other words, this is Paul’s way of saying, “You Jews know very well that a part of a thing consecrated intends to say that the whole is consecrated. And if God sets apart the root and God sets apart the firstfruit in the case of Abraham and the fathers, it is to say that He has consecrated to Himself the whole.” It’s a beautiful thought.
“There cannot be irremediable rejection of Israel. The holiness of the theocratic consecration is not abolished and will one day be vindicated in Israel’s fullness and restoration,”
And so what would happen would be this. They would cut off the unproductive old branches and in the process of grafting, even as people do today, graft in a scion, s-c-i-o-n, or a shoot from a wild olive tree that would be very productive. And the strength of those old roots and mingled with the strength of that new life at the branch would create a new kind of productivity. And the analogy is lucid. The trunk, if you were, is the trunk of blessing, the trunk of special relationship to the living God. And the branches are Israel. You might compare Jeremiah 11 verses 16 and 17 or Hosea 14:6, and Israel was the original set of branches on the trunk of blessing, the trunk of covenant blessing. But Israel in unbelief became unproductive and so God came along and cut the branches off, right? And grafted in … and who is the wild olive grafted in? Gentiles … very clearly, Gentiles.
We have come to be a people of blessing. We are the spiritual children of Abraham, are we not? We have entered into the blessing of Abraham because we’ve become spiritual children of Abraham. And covenant blessing that flowed through Abraham has flowed to us, as it were, because of the grafting on.
In the parable of Matthew 22, the Lord says, “Since the people who were supposed to come to the wedding won’t come, you go out and get anybody who will come.” And in chapter 21 He says, “The people who should have accepted My prophets and My Son slew them so I’m going to take the Kingdom from them and give it to another people who are worthy of it.” And that’s the grafting in of the church, the grafting in of the Gentiles.