OUTLOOK STANDARD LESSONS
UNIFORM LESSON FOR AUGUST 21, 2016
Scripture passage and lesson focus: Romans 11:11-25
The apostle Paul must have been an optimist. Despite his deep concern about the failure of most of his fellow Jews to accept the gospel, Paul was hopeful that God would find a way so that “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26). How that would happen was a divine mystery, but Paul was convinced that God’s gifts and promises to the chosen people were irrevocable. And Paul was determined to do his part as an evangelist to spread the message of God’s grace for all.
Romans 11:11-12 — An opportunity for Gentiles
Paul was optimistic that the rejection of the gospel by most Jews was only temporary. He was confident that when gentiles accepted the gospel, God’s chosen people would be moved by jealousy to follow
suit. It certainly sounds like wishful thinking on Paul’s part. Using a typically rabbinic style of reasoning, Paul argues that as important as the gentiles’ acceptance of the gospel was, how much more significant acceptance of the gospel by the Jews would be.
Romans 11:13-16 — Jews are a holy people
At this point in his discourse on the place of Israel in God’s redemptive plan, Paul explicitly turns to his gentile readers (or hearers) to make sure that they do not conclude that there is no hope for the salvation of the Jews. Paul was optimistic that his successful ministry to gentiles would ultimately provoke his fellow Jews to accept the gospel.
Again using a rabbinic style of reasoning, Paul argues that just as the first part of what is offered to God is set aside for a sacred purpose, so too the whole is sacred. Applying that logic to the situation in Rome, Paul holds up the Jewish Christians there as a down payment toward the full inclusion of the Jewish people in God’s salvation. Gentile Christians must never forget that the Jews are God’s holy people.
Romans 11:17-18 — Jewish roots sustain gentile branches
Although Paul had not yet extended his ministry to Rome, he anticipated that there could be tension between Jewish and gentile Christians there. Some gentiles might have been inclined to write off the Jews just as Marcion, a leader of gentile Christians in Rome actually did some years later.
To prevent that development, Paul describes the relationship between Jewish and gentile Christians in terms of a commonly understood agricultural principle. According to that rule, attempts to graft branches of wild olive trees by attaching them to cultivated olive trees will not be successful. He acknowledges that God’s inclusion of the gentiles (wild olives) grafted onto the tree of Israel (cultivated olives) violated that horticultural principle. That is the miracle of God’s outrageously extravagant grace. There is no basis for gentiles to be proud and boastful over against the Jewish people. The Jewish root is what sustains the tree that now by God’s grace includes gentile branches.
Gentile Christians should remember that God is in charge. God’s grace grafted gentiles onto Israel, and Paul was convinced that God’s grace could also restore Jews who had rejected the gospel if they repented and accepted the gospel. That would be an even more remarkable example of God’s grace than the inclusion of gentiles in the redeemed people of God.
Romans 11:25 — All Israel will be saved
Paul’s optimism was based on his confidence that God’s mysterious ways would prevail in the end. Paul did not deny that most Jews in his day had experienced what he called “a hardening” of heart. This difficult reality had to be put into a broader context, however. For Paul that context was his belief that God was in control of human history. Paul believed that, in God’s plan for humanity, the hardness of heart that had befallen part of the chosen people would end when the “full number of gentiles” had accepted the gospel so that “all of Israel will be saved.” Israel in his context refers to God’s chosen and redeemed people whose faith was rooted in God’s grace. Neither Jewish Christians not gentile Christians had any grounds for feeling superior, because God’s grace, and not their own accomplishments, had brought them into the redeemed people
of God.
For discussion
Now that nearly 2,000 years of history have passed since Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans, are you able to embrace Paul’s optimistic hope that “all Israel will be saved”? Why or why not? Do you think Christians should make a special effort to convert Jews? How do you and/or your congregation relate to Jewish people as God’s holy people?
