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The place of the Jews in God's purposes

Part of a sermon preached by Revd Martin Parsons in St Aldate's, Oxford, in 1976.
Romans 11.33: How rich are the depths of God - how deep is his wisdom and knowledge - and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods! (Jerusalem Bible)

Nearly all the letters in the New Testament were written to meet some immediate need, to warn of danger, to correct a misunderstanding, to put right an abuse.

Romans stands almost alone as a systematic treatment of God's plan to save the world.

One by one the great truths are unfolded: But before going on to outline the lifestyle which will follow if these truths are accepted, there is a problem to be faced. This good news is for all who will receive it, whatever their background. As Paul says in chapter 10 verse 12
There is no distinction between Jew and Greek: all belong to the same Lord who is rich enough, however many ask his help.
What then becomes of the undoubted fact that God chose Israel to be his special people, through whom he would work out his plan for the world?

Now that Jesus Chrish has come, to be a light to lighten the gentiles as well as the glory of his people Israel, is God's call of Abraham and his promise to his descendants no longer relevant?

Are all who share Abraham's faith in God, as revealed in Jesus Christ, to be reckoned as spiritual Israelites, so that the natural Israelites, the Jews, no longer have a place in God's purpose?

This is the problem that St Paul wrestles with in the central chapters of Romans.

1.
First of all St Paul is adamant that God has not rejected his people whom he chose specially long ago. As an Israelite himself he could not agree to that. But he does point out that Israel by no means always behaved like God's chosen people. In fact throughout their history it was always just a remnant who remained faithful - like the 7,000 in Elijah's time, who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

This remnant, he says, is chosen by God's grace. And he identifies the faithful remnant of his day as being those Jews who had accepted Jesus the Messiah as Lord and Saviour. These are the true Israelites.

We do well to recall that all the first believers in Christ were Jews: the Apostles,. the three thousand who were converted at Pentecost - all were Jews. And ever since, right down to the present day, there have been some Jews who have believed in the Lord Jesus.

One of the great privileges of my life has been to know personally many such - from the time I worked among the Jews in Poland in the 1930s down to last August when we met at the CMJ houseparty some who had been Christians only a short time.

God has not rejected his people.

2
All the same, St Paul goes on, the Jews as a people did not accept Christ. To that extent they have stumbled and fallen. But he insists that their rejection is not for ever.

When the Jews refused the gospel the early missionaries turned to the gentiles. Paul, who was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, became the apostle to the heathen. So it was the Jews' refusal of Christ which opened the door for gentiles to come in and acknowledge the one true God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the God of Abraham.

Paul's great hope was that his fellow Jews, seeing gentiles transformed by the power of the Gospel, would be envious and turn to Jesus to share in this wonderful experience of salvation.

Has this happened?

In individual cases, yes. Most Hebrew Christians I have known have been moved to seek Christ by seeing something of his love in the life of a Christian friend. Not by argument, or even by a sermon, or literature - important as that is - but by love in action has the conviction come that Jesus is the Christ.

But what have the Jews, as a whole, seen of Christian love in the Church, as a whole? What of the massacres of Jews in the Crusades? the torturing of Jews in the Inquisition? the killings and evictions and expulsions of the Russian pogroms - made familiar to many by Fiddler on the Roof? What of the Nazi holocaust, and the thinly veiled hostility to Jews even in our own country today?

Have the Jews seen anything in us that would make them envious of our faith?

The marvel is that many Jews today are seeking and finding Christ

One who was converted during our time in Poland has been working for many years in California where there are many Jews, and I get regular reports of his work, telling of Jews being won for Christ.

In Buenos Aires, where CMJ has work, I met quite a number of Jewish Christians at the annual meeting of the Argentina HCA.

But Paul foresees the day when Israel as a people will turn to Christ. And, he says,
If their rejection meant reconciliation for the [gentile] world, do you know what their admission will mean? Nothing less than a resurrection from the dead.
On which Anders Nygren comments:
Her rejection is coupled with the reconciliation of the world, and her acceptance will be the harbinger of the final consummation.
3.
There are many views, some rather fanciful, of how the final consummation will come.

If we stick to what is clear in Scripture, we can say with certainty that Christ will come and his kingdom will be established.

And I believe another certainty is that - however it may come about - Christ's purposes will not be complete until the Jews are included.

Paul sees this as quite obvious.

He pictures Israel as an olive tree. Through their rejection of Christ branches have been cut off. And gentiles, like wild olive branches, have been grafted in.

Paul is warning gentile Christians here, by the example of God's rejection of the Jews, that they too may be cut off.

But God is able to graft the Jews back again, if they give up their unbelief. And, he says, it will be much easier for them, the natural branches, to be grafted back on the tree they came from.

This is exactly what happens when a Jew becomes a Christian [or a Messianic Jew]. He or she is coming home where they belong. They are not embracing an alien faith but returning to the true faith which their ancestors missed. A Messianic Jew (or Jewish Christian) is not so much a converted Jew as a completed Jew. They do not repudiate their Jewishness (as if it had no meaning) but declare that they find it all fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

And even unbelieving Jewry is still part of God's purpose. Paul says:
As the chosen people, they are still loved by God, loved for the sake of their ancestors. God never takes back his gifts or revokes his choice.
Those last are highly important words. God never revokes his choice.

It is his purpose that the Jews should come to know him as he can only be known in Christ. And then, as it seems to me Romans chapter 11 clearly teaches, through a Christian Jewry new life will come to the whole Church, and indeed to the whole world.