Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter
10 as we continue our study through Paul’s letter to the
church in
In this chapter we will be looking at the issue of salvation, of bringing the Gospel message to people and the patience, the longsuffering of God towards the Jewish people who have rejected Him and for that matter, for Jews and Gentiles rejecting Him. God is very patient; He is very longsuffering because He does not want any to perish but that all would come to that saving faith, but it is a choice on each individual’s part. Let me share this story with you to show you how stubborn man can be. We are told:
The pastor of a church decides that God is calling the church to a new vision of what it is to be and do. So at the elders meeting, he presents the new vision with as much energy, conviction and passion as he can muster. When he had finished and sat down, the senior elder called for a vote. All 12 elders voted against the new vision, with only the clergyman voting for it. “Well, pastor, it looks like you will have to think again,” says the senior elder. “Would you like to close the meeting in prayer?”
So the pastor stands up, raises his hand to heaven, and prays, “LOOOOOOORD!
. . . will you not show these people that this is not MY vision but it is YOUR vision!” At that moment, the clouds darken, the thunder rolls, and a streak of lightning bursts through the window and strikes in two the table at which they are sitting, throwing the pastor and all the elders to the ground. After a moment’s silence, as they all get up and dust themselves off, the senior elder speaks again. “Well, that’s twelve votes to two then.”
- Source Unknown
Praise the Lord that He is patient with us. With that said, let’s begin reading in Romans chapter 10, staring in verse 11 as we continue our study through this letter that Paul wrote to the church in Rome.
In our last study we saw how the Jews have a zeal for God but it is without knowledge. The Jews tried to obtain their own righteousness through the Law and were ignorant of the righteous standard of God, which is perfection. Thus, God reached out to the Gentiles who were not looking for a righteousness of their own and they were saved by faith, something the Jews missed! You see, it is Christ who is the end of the Law because He fulfilled the righteous requirements of the Law for us; He paid in full the penalty for our sins and bore the judgment of God that was due us. Yes, you can try to live by the Law but you will die by the Law because you can never keep the Law to perfection, which is what God requires.
You must come to Jesus by faith, believe in your heart which then leads to a confession of this faith upon your lips as you share your faith with others. So with the remainder of our time this morning, we are going to finish up this chapter that deals with ISRAEL’S PRESENT REJECTION of God, their rejection of Jesus, their Messiah. So let’s break these verses down and see what the Lord has for us this morning.
Paul quotes out of Isaiah 28:16, which says, “Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily.’” Paul is telling us that this invitation to salvation was not exclusively to the Jews as some thought. It was open to all who would come to Him as the word, “Whoever” indicates for us! Yes, the Jews, the nation of Israel was to have been His witness to the world, they were to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex 19:6), to preach salvation in the true God to the rest of the world, to the Gentiles.
And please understand that Paul is not saying that everyone is saved, a universal salvation and it does not matter what you believe, all roads lead to God. Not at all! Even in his quoting of Isaiah 28:16 he is pointing to the foundation stone, Jesus Christ and that apart from Him there is no salvation. That is what Peter tells us in Acts 4:11-12, “This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” You see, apart from Christ, there is no salvation but “Whoever” comes to Him, believes in Him, will be saved!
The other point here is that some feel that salvation is only for those whom God has predestined to be saved and if you have not been predestined to be saved you have been predestined to go to Hell! That is not what Paul is saying. Yes, we see God’s election and man’s free will to choose to enter in. That is what Paul is saying because again, he tells us that “Whoever” believes will be saved! The invitation is to all but not all will receive it and that goes for both Jews and Gentiles!
Now for the Jews, this was a difficult one to take in. They saw the bloodline of Abraham alone, that being his descendants showed that they were saved and the rest were not, they were lost. But again, Paul quotes out of the Old Testament to show that this invitation for salvation is open to all who come to God. A great example in the Old Testament to prove this point is the city of Nineveh and the Assyrians who were living there.
The Assyrians were a brutal people who would make raids into Israel and because of that the Jews developed a hatred towards the Assyrians and especially Nineveh, its capital. Nineveh was a large city, holding some 600,000 people or more, taking 3 days to transverse it on foot. And as I said, they were a brutal people, so much so that Nahum tells us, “Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. Its victim never departs. The noise of a whip And the noise of rattling wheels, Of galloping horses, Of clattering chariots! Horsemen charge with bright sword and glittering spear. There is a multitude of slain, A great number of bodies, Countless corpses — They stumble over the corpses — Because of the multitude of harlotries of the seductive harlot, The mistress of sorceries, Who sells nations through her harlotries, And families through her sorceries.” Nahum 3:1-4.
Thus, when God calls Jonah to preach to these wicked Gentiles, he heads in the opposite direction, he refuses to go because he does not want to see God’s judgment taking away from them if they repent! How do I know that? Listen to what we are told in Jonah 4:1-3 after Jonah preached to them and they repented of their sin before God, “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. So he prayed to the Lord, and said, ‘Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!’”
Jonah was upset with God because the people of Nineveh turned to God and God did not strike them dead. There is so much we can talk about regarding this, but what I want you to see is that God saved these people of Nineveh, these Gentiles in the Old Testament! And move some 800 years down the road and the Jews, who were to be a light to the world, still had a disdain for Gentiles. As they would travel back to Israel from another country, they would shake the dust from their robes and feet so they would not carry any defiled earth into the land of Israel! They would not even enter a Gentiles house; they would not eat with them or drink from a Gentile vessel. Many of them would not even shake the hand of a Gentile. And in the morning, many of them would pray this prayer, “I thank God that I am not a woman, a slave, or a Gentile.”
How sad, but Paul is trying to show that even in the Old Testament that God desired to save Gentiles through the witness of the Jews but they were hiding their light from them. And now, for the nation of Israel, their light has gone out until they come to Jesus, the Messiah. And the Old Testament is filled with passages that speak of Gentiles being saved. Yes, God was using the Jewish people to bring this light to the world and that world He is speaking of is the Gentile world!
And so Paul has shown us that the way of salvation is to believe or trust in Jesus Christ, as we said last week, in His incarnation and His resurrection and a belief that begins in the heart and is manifested outwardly. Also, that this way of salvation is open to all who come to Him, to both Jew and Gentile! And that is what Paul is going to continue speaking about in the next two verses, that God’s glorious salvation is for all, not just the Jews but also for the Gentiles.
Paul tells us that there is no distinction between Jew and Greek or Gentile and the idea is this. Remember what Paul said in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” You see, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or Gentile, you are a sinner and you fall short of the glory of God, you cannot come before God in that condition! Now since all of mankind is in this condition, the way out of this condition is also universal in that there is one way for both Jew and Gentile to come to God and that is through Christ. That is exactly what Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
And Paul tells us that this one Lord, who is over all, is rich in His grace and mercy to all who call upon Him! That again tells me that man has a free will, human responsibility to come to Jesus and ask Him to be Lord and Savior of their life! And as soon as you do you are a partaker of this rich grace and mercy, no matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, it is there for all who come to Him to receive it!
Paul, in Ephesians chapter 1 makes this powerful point and these blessings that God has are for those that are “in Christ” or those that are saved, those that have come to Jesus. Starting in verse 3 of Ephesians chapter 1, Paul tells us, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth — in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1:3-12. That is what the Lord has for us, the richness of His grace and mercy that He has extended to us.
Here in verse 13 Paul quotes out of Joel 2:32 to show how salvation was not to the Jews alone, but also to the Gentiles, for all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved! How much simpler could the Lord have put it, “For whoever calls upon the name of the LORD shall be saved”? And folks, this is not a New Testament idea, for we are told in Isaiah 60:1-3, “Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising.” Salvation will and has come to the Gentiles, but for the most part, at this time, Israel has rejected the salvation of God!
And that phrase, “the name of the LORD” speaks of coming to God according to the way that God has ascribed in the Scriptures. You cannot call upon the name of God any way that you want, but you must come before Him in Spirit or you must be saved, and in truth, according to the truths of God found in the Word of God. It is the cry of man to the one true God, the creator God, the Lord of all or as Paul put it in Romans 10:8-9, “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” And as I have said, this is for the Jew and the Gentile, to call upon the name of Jesus and you WILL be saved, not might or that there is a good chance, or if you do this or do that, if you walk on a bed of hot coals for a mile or whatever foolishness that is out there.
You see, rejecting Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life is not an intellectual decision on your part, but it is based upon pride, not willing to submit to His Lordship in your life! Man would rather live after the flesh than surrender to the Spirit and if you are trying to attain a salvation by works, you are living after the flesh and Paul says that if you are living this way then, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:19-20.
But if you are living after the Spirit, if you have given you life to Jesus then Paul goes on to say, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:21-26. Salvation is open for all but only those who come to Jesus will receive this free gift!
Now for those who believe like the Calvinists do, that if you are going to be saved there is nothing you can do to stop it and if you are not there is nothing you can do to be saved, listen to what Paul now says in the next two verses!
Here’s the thing. If salvation was only of the Jews or if it was only for those whom God predestined to be saved and the rest God predestined to go to Hell, if salvation was not universal or open to all, why send anyone out to preach the good news? That would just be foolish. That is why evangelism is so important to me and to this church. Last year almost 20% of the tithes and offerings went to missions. We are working on getting teams together this spring and summer to go out and share the Gospel with people in Manitowoc!
You see, how can people believe unless they are told about Jesus. And thus, Jesus tells us, “‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.” Matthew 28:19-20. Jesus tells us to go out, not come in! We are to go out into the world and bring the Gospel message to people. We can support those that are ministering the Gospel in other parts of the world. We can partner in the work with them also.
And Paul quotes out of Isaiah 52:7 and Nahum 1:15. In Nahum, written some 150 years after the prophet Jonah came and called for the people of Nineveh to repent, and they did, but now judgment was coming upon the Assyrians for their rebellion against God. In Isaiah it speaks of the good news of the glorious kingdom age, and that of course is great news! But I believe Paul is speaking of the present time we live in, that we are to bring the Gospel message to the people who don’t know Him or else how will they believe if they don’t know about Him, as I have said.
And it truly is beautiful to see people come to know the Lord and as believers walk to the highways and byways to compel people to come in, as they preach to them the Gospel of peace, when one sinner comes to saving faith the angels in heaven rejoice and so do we! And as J. Vernon McGee says:
We are told here that the feet of those who bear glad tidings are beautiful. I believe that my radio program is important, and I am giving the rest of my life to it. I feel it is important to get God’s Word out to needy people. One day I was making tapes for the program in my bare feet. I looked at them and concluded that they are not beautiful. There is nothing about feet that causes them to be an object of beauty. But God calls beautiful the feet of His called–ones and His sent–messengers—beautiful. John Peter Lange has an appropriate word on this: “In their running and hastening, in their scaling obstructing mountains, they are the symbols of the earnestly–desired, winged movement and appearance of the Gospel itself.” That is one of the reasons I love the opportunity provided by radio today. We can scale mountains, go over the plains, reach over the vast expanses of water, and go into the inner recesses of the earth with the gospel. We can go into homes, automobiles, and places of business. We have been even in barrooms with the gospel by radio. It is wonderful to get out the Word of God. It is wonderful to have feet that the Lord calls beautiful!
- J. Vernon McGee, Thru The Bible Vol. IV, p. 719
I feel the same way about our radio station and our ability to have our radio programs live streaming on the Internet. People from all over the world can access it and hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ; they can grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have had people from Poland and China access the station as well as people from all over the country! And the Lord calls our feet, the work we are doing here, beautiful!
Here is the tragedy, not all have obeyed the Gospel, they have not come to the saving faith even though they have all had a choice to enter in, they have rejected it! Look at what is spoken of in Isaiah 53:1-6, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Now Jewish scholars have traditionally believed, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, that this is speaking of the nation of Israel, but that is wrong. When did Israel die for the sins of the world? They didn’t, in fact they were in need of the Savior, of the Messiah just like the rest of the world. The evidence was before them that Jesus is the Messiah, the fulfillment of what the Old Testament prophets spoke of. He healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, caused the lame to walk and-so-on, and yet, because of the hardness of their hearts, the Jewish religious leaders said He did these things by the power of the Devil and not of God. You see, if you don’t want to believe you won’t no matter how much evidence there is before you! It is the hardness of man’s heart and how foolish it is as this story tells us. We are told:
A sailor meets a pirate at Starbucks, and talk turns to their adventures on the sea. The seaman notes that the pirate has a peg-leg, a hook, and an eye patch. The seaman asks, “So, how did you end up with the peg-leg?” The pirate replies, “We were in a storm at sea, and I was swept overboard into a school of sharks. Just as me men were pulling me out, a shark bit me leg off”
“Wow!” said the seaman. “What about your hook”? “Well . . . ” replied the pirate, “We were boarding an enemy ship and were battling the other sailors with swords. One of the enemies cut me hand off.”
“Incredible!” remarked the seaman. “How did you get the eye patch”? “A seagull dropping fell into me eye”, replied the pirate. “You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?” the sailor asked incredulously. “Well . . .” said the pirate, “ . . . it was me first day with the hook.”
- Source Unknown
You think that is foolish, and it is, but so is rejecting the free gift of life that is found in Jesus Christ. It too is foolish and those who reject Jesus will have an eternity to think about the mistake they have made!
People today think, “If only my loved one can see a miracle, they would surely believe!” I am sorry to say, that is not true. “How can you say that Joe?” I am sorry to say, that is not true, it was pretty easy! No, seriously, remember when Jesus fed the 5,000, and that number could have been 10 to 15 thousand or more when you include the women and children and He did this with just five barely loaves or crackers you might say and two small fish, kind of like sardines. That was a miracle right? Absolutely and thus, many must have come to saving faith when they saw this, right? Not exactly!
In John chapter 6, after Jesus fed them, Jesus left and they tracked Him down and in John 6:26-27 we are told, “Jesus answered them and said, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.’”
You see, the miracles did not save them, they were just looking to get their belly’s filled and that is often the case with people who run to and for after miracles, there is no growth, and many times they don’t even know the Lord! Paul tells us that salvation comes as the Word of God is spoken, that is where faith begins and that is how faith grows as we hear and apply the Word of God to our lives! Listen to this example at the power of God’s Word. We are told:
Many years ago in a Moscow theater, matinee idol Alexander Rostovzev was converted while playing the role of Jesus in a sacrilegious play entitled Christ in a Tuxedo. He was supposed to read two verses from the Sermon on the Mount, remove his gown, and cry out, “Give me my tuxedo and top hat!” But as he read the words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” he began to tremble. Instead of following the script, he kept reading from Matthew 5, ignoring the coughs, calls, and foot-stamping of his fellow actors. Finally, recalling a verse he had learned in his childhood in a Russian Orthodox church, he cried, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!” (Luke 23:42). Before the curtain could be lowered, Rostovzev had trusted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.
- Why Christians Sin, J. K. Johnston, p. 121
Yes, people may reject what you say, they may not believe, but don’t let that discourage you. It is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to open their eyes and their eyes will be opened if they will receive the truth into their lives! Continue bringing the Gospel message to those who are in darkness as Paul told Timothy, “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” II Timothy 4:1-5.
We see that today where people don’t want to hear the Word of God and thus, they look for teachers who will tickle their ears and they will find them, tragically. But, just because a child refuses to take their medicine do you stop giving it to them? Of course not, it is what is needed for them to be healed. Just because people don’t want to hear the Word of God do we stop giving it to them? Of course not, it is what they need to be healed spiritually speaking, it is where their faith begins and it ends! And you can agree with me or not, but the reality is, what Paul is saying that unless you hear the Word of God, you cannot be saved! That is why we teach the Word of God verse by verse from Genesis through Revelation so that you have the whole council of God. And as we do some will come to saving faith and all have the opportunity to grow in faith!
Now some may feel that the Jews may not have been given adequate information, adequate opportunity to hear the Gospel message, so it is not their fault. They can’t be held responsible. Paul says that is not true, they did hear it, they had the Scriptures and Paul quotes out of Psalm 19:4 which speaks of God’s general revelation, that nature itself testifies that there is a God and the Psalm goes on to show us that there is the special revelation from God through His Word, but you must be open to receive it! It is as Clarke tells us regarding the Gospel message going forth. He wrote, “There is not a part of the promised land in which these glad tidings have not been preached; and there is scarcely a place in the Roman empire in which the doctrine of Christ crucified has not been heard: if, therefore, the Jews have not believed, the fault is entirely their own; as God has amply furnished them with the means of faith of salvation.” And in regards to this information going forward, Paul is going to expound on this in the next two verses.
Paul lays it all on the line. Yes, Israel heard the truth but they rejected it and God is going to bring to Him a people who were not seeking Him, the Gentiles in order to make the Jews jealous. That is what Paul said in Romans 11:11, “I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.” God is using us, Gentiles to make the Jews jealous of what God is doing in our lives and what He is not doing in their lives because of unbelief! Paul, makes his point by quoting out of Deuteronomy 32:21 and Isaiah 65:1, the Old Testament Scriptures, something that the Jews read and yet, they refused to see.
What a sad and pathetic picture that Paul is painting for us here regarding the Jews and their rejection of Jesus as their Messiah. It is as Paul said in Romans 9:30-33, “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’”
You see, God extended His righteousness not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles but the Jews rejected it and tried to attain a righteousness by their own efforts and that does not work, it will never work because we are starting from the point of being unrighteous and that can only be taken away by the blood of Christ and not by what we do or don’t do!
But notice the love of God as He stretches out His hand to Israel, a stiff-necked, hard-hearted, rebellious people, not at all different from us, and in Matthew 23:37 you can see the heart of Jesus for the Jewish people as we are told, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” How sad, now does that mean that God is done with Israel because of their rejection of Him? Not at all and we will see that next time in Romans chapter 11 as we begin to look at Israel’s future restoration!
But to give you a glimpse of that before we close, listen to what Paul said in Romans 11:25-27, “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.’” God is not done with His people, He is faithful to His Word, and thus, we can trust in Him for what He has promised He is able to bring to pass!
As I begin to close this morning, listen to the words from John MacArthur from his commentary on Romans. He wrote:
The way of salvation has always been offered to all men everywhere. As the Lord graciously promised through Jeremiah, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer 29:13). God’s absolute and universal assurance to all men is that no person who sincerely seeks for Him will fail to find Him. The incarnate Christ “was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:9, emphasis added), and the incarnate Christ Himself declared that “this gospel of [His] kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations” (Matt 24:14). Even in the first century Paul could therefore declare, “the word of truth, the gospel . . . has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing” (Col 1:5-6). Although the apostle was probably speaking here only of the part of “the world” to which the full gospel had been proclaimed, the benefit of the gospel was available to all the earth and the ends of the world.
In Rom 10:11-18, Paul affirms that the gospel is not just one more local invention or one more pagan mystery religion but is the good news of salvation that God always has sought to be proclaimed to every nation and to every person, Jew and Gentile alike.
It is that universal extent of the gospel that caused many Jews to reject Jesus as their Messiah. The Pharisees reprimanded the officers who reported Jesus’ authoritative teaching and work, arrogantly saying, “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he?” (John 7:48). In other words, an ordinary Jew was presumptuous to believe and trust in a Messiah who was not recognized by their religious leaders. Tragically, many Jews today reject Jesus as their Messiah for the same foolish reason.
When Galileo was summoned before the Roman Catholic inquisition for teaching that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the sun around the earth, he was charged with heresy. When he offered to demonstrate the truth of his findings by having them look through his telescope, they refused. Their minds were already made up, and they refused even to consider evidence to the contrary. With that same obstinacy, most of Israel, from New Testament times to the present, have refused even to consider the claims of the gospel. Consequently, they have failed to know God, Jesus Christ, and saving faith.
- John MacArthur, Romans
Let me leave you with this. All the religions of the world have man trying to reach up to God while Christianity has God reaching down to sinful man and rescuing him from the mire of sin that he is in. And if Paul concluded his letter here with Israel rejecting Jesus, that would be tragic. But he doesn’t. Paul does not end with God stretching out His hands to the nation of Israel and Israel turning away from God. You see, in Romans chapter 11 we see that one day that Israel will turn to Jesus. Yes, God is patient, He is longsuffering, He is faithful and one day He will work among this nation and these people, the Jews once again and they will turn to Him! Tragically today, there are many in the church who see God done with the Jews but as we will see, He is not. For if He was, then all the promises of God to the Jews have failed and how can we as Gentiles trust any of the promises He has made to us? We couldn’t.
But as I have read and Paul said, “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.’” Romans 11:25-27. May we not forget that, God is not done with them or us! Yes, right now, as a nation the Jews have rejected God but one day there will be a restoration as God takes away their sins and the only way God takes away anyone sins is by the shed blood of Christ applied to your life and the Jews will come to their Messiah one day! What about you?