“For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.”— Romans 11

Historian Tom Holland writes, “Not even the gift of the Promised Land had been able to keep Israel from idolatry. ‘They chose new gods.’ In book after book the same cycle was repeated: apostasy, punishment, repentance. Jews, reading of how their forebears had been seduced by the gods of neighbouring peoples—the Canaanites, the Syrians, the Phoenicians—knew as well what the ultimate, the crowning, chastisements had been: Israel enslaved; Jerusalem sacked; the Temple destroyed.

These were the traumas that haunted every Jew. Why had God permitted them to happen? Such was the question, in the wake of the Babylonian exile, that had done more than anything to inspire the compilation of the Jewish scriptures.

Jews who read the scrolls that told of their people’s history could be in no doubt as to the retribution that might again be visited on them were they ever to abandon the worship of God;

…but there was hope in their scriptures as well as warning. Even if ruin were to be visited on Jerusalem again, and the Jews dispersed to the ends of the earth, and salt and brimstone rained down upon their fields, God’s love would endure. Repentance, as it ever did, would see them forgiven.

‘And the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.’

— from Tom Holland’s Masterwork Dominion. How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

Romans 11

St. Paul writes, “I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. ² God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Eli′jah, how he pleads with God against Israel? ³ “Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have demolished thy altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” ⁴ But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Ba′al.” ⁵ So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. ⁶ But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

⁷ What then? Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, ⁸ as it is written,

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,
eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear, down to this very day.”

⁹ And David says,

“Let their table become a snare and a trap,
a pitfall and a retribution for them;
¹⁰ let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs for ever.”

The Salvation of the Gentiles

¹¹ So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. ¹² Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

¹³ Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry ¹⁴ in order to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. ¹⁵ For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? ¹⁶ If the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

²² Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off. ²³ And even the others, if they do not persist in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. ²⁴ For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.

¹⁷ But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree, ¹⁸ do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. 

¹⁹ You will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” ²⁰ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. ²¹ For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 

The Mystery Yet Unfolded

²⁵ Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, ²⁶ and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written,

“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
²⁷ “and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”

²⁸ As regards the gospel they are enemies of God, for your sake; but as regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. ²⁹ For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. ³⁰ Just as you were once disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, ³¹ so they have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may receive mercy. ³² For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.

³³ O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

³⁴ “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
³⁵ “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen.”.

________

Emphasis supplied

+ Jimmy Akin on Judaism, the True Israel and the End Times