God The Inscrutable

Two Ways News is a weekly collaboration between Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen – a newsletter and podcast on a topic to encourage gospel thinking for today (subscribe at twoways.news).

---

In this discussion on Romans 11, Phillip and Tony get to one of the deep mysteries of Romans 9-11—how God’s plans for Israel and the nations involve the hardening of Israel, the grafting in of the Gentiles, and the salvation of Israel through jealousy.

Two expositions of Romans 11 can be found at 21. Israel’s Future (Romans 11:1-32) and 22. The Mind of God (Romans 11:33-12:2).

The next episode is Wear It Purple. The previous episode is Ascending to Heaven.

---

GOD THE INSCRUTABLE

Exploring the mystery of God’s plans for Jews and Gentiles in Romans 11

Phillip Jensen: I’ve got a question for you. What am I thinking?

Tony Payne: Well, just by the look of you, you’re thinking, “When will this be over so I can have a nap?”

PJ: Now I’m thinking I might be rude to you, too. But you’re wrong. You see, it’s very hard to know what a person is thinking.

TP: I think sometimes my wife knows what I’m thinking. And she’s very disappointed that I haven’t figured out what she’s thinking. Well, we won’t go there, though. But yes, it’s impossible, in fact, to know another person’s thinking. 

PJ: I can know all kinds of things through empiricism, through scientific investigation. I can know all kinds of things through rational reflection, like two plus two equals four. But I can’t know really what another person is thinking by any exercise of my brain or by my work or by my empiricism. You can tie me down and torture me and I might tell you what I want you to hear. But you can’t be sure.

You can’t actually ever know what the other person is thinking unless they tell you. That’s the only way you can. Our society thinks there are different ways of knowledge: empiricism, intuition, rationalism. But they have excluded one other way of knowledge which we use all the time: revelation of the other person who owns their thought, through their expressing and revealing what their thoughts are. And so that’s what’s important in chapter 11 of Romans that we’re looking at.

TP: Yes, as Romans 11:25 says,

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers …

PJ: Yes. There is a mystery in the mind of God. Mystery is a funny word in translation, because the Greek word is ‘mystery’ but the English word that means the same thing is ‘secret’. God has his secrets, and you do not know God’s secrets unless God cares to share them with you. So if you look at the end of the chapter, I know we’re going back to front, but this is one of those chapters where I think if you know where the end is, you’ll understand the chapter better. So could you read for us verses 33-36? 

TP: This is a well known flourish at the end. 

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

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,

    or who has been his counsellor?”

“Or who has given a gift to him

    that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

PJ: You’re a great wordsmith. What does this word ‘inscrutable’ mean?

TP: It’s unable to be ‘scruted’. Completely and totally unable to be scrutinized, penetrated, understood, to get beyond the veil and see what’s there.

PJ: If you can’t get behind the veil of my little mind, why would you ever think you could get behind the mind of God unless God revealed it to us? There is this incredible arrogance that humans have that we think we can tell God what he can, should, and does think.

In the beginning was the Word, the Word was God, the Word was with God. One of the fundamentals of Christian understanding is that God speaks. ‘Thus says the Lord’ is what we find in prophet after prophet, the speaking of the very oracles of God. The Bible is all about the God who speaks, not just the God who acts. So in Romans 8:28, we know that God is at work in everything with a particular purpose of mind of making us like Christ so that Christ will be the firstborn amongst many brothers. But that’s the passage that kicks off this whole discussion in Romans 9-11. Because if God is at work in everything for those who love him and are called according to his purpose, then we are totally assured of our glorification. We’re totally assured that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. But what about Israel? Israel had the promises of God. And Israel has rejected the Messiah. So has God’s word failed? That’s the kickoff of chapter nine.

We’ve seen not all Israel is Israel in chapter 9. And then in chapter 10, we’ve seen that Israel has been disobeying God by seeking salvation and righteousness through their own efforts of law keeping, instead of having faith in God’s provision of his Son. And as it came towards the end of chapter 10, as we saw last time, God was actually hardening Israel for the salvation of the Gentiles. But there’s more to it than that. It’s an extraordinary thing about what he was doing for Israel. I mean, what place does Israel now have in the purposes of God? Has God given up on Israel? Do the Israelites have no place in God’s great plan of salvation at all and it’s just all about the Gentiles? That’s the kind of question that comes in chapter 11.

TP: And it’s a pressing question for Christians and one that there have been many different positions on. There’s the idea that God has basically dispensed with Israel, and now the church has totally replaced the functions of Israel, that the church has superseded Israel and Israel has no further plans. And then there are the prophecies that the formation of Israel as a nation has a part in the plans of God. Or there are a number of views out there as to what part Israel has in God’s historic plans, ranging all the way from no further part to a very major part, a geopolitical part.

PJ: There’s another one too, which is terrible, that is anti-semitism, where they believe that actually these are the people who crucified Jesus and therefore we must hate and persecute. And so, sadly, anti-semitism has even been in Christian circles. I say sadly, because of all the options that are available, I’m sure that’s the absolutely wrong one. It’s indefensible.

It’s interesting as to why the world has so hated Israel. It’s to be expected in one sense because they stand for something. I think it’s got to do with standing for God. Here are a people who claim that the special choice of God falls upon them. That makes people feel like Israel is superior. They claim to have the words of God and the morality of God that is universal, and under which we all fail. There are reasons why people would hate them. But it’s often the fact of their success in money or their success in business as well. There’s something profoundly irrational in the pogroms and hatred that have been levelled against Israel, which now with this Palestinian Gaza war is being revealed in all kinds of places around the world where people have just got this hatred of Israel.

TP: And they don’t need much encouragement or don’t need much excuse, it seems, for that hatred to come bubbling to the surface and to be expressed in quite stark terms. In many respects, we don’t want to get into a discussion of this whole question of how to think about that insoluble, terrible war. But it’s interesting how, in a sense, I’m sure one of the dynamics in how the war is being played out is the fact that Hamas could rely on a large section of the Western world reflexively turning against Israel—that there’s a deep, bubbling, anti-Jewish sentiment in Western society that’s always been there. And it’s been astonishing how quickly it’s bubbled to the surface in this circumstance.

PJ: But the Christians can never be that because Jesus is Jewish. You can’t be anti-Jew when your saviour is a Jew. 

TP: Well, that raises the whole question that we’re going to look at in Romans 11. What continuing place does Israel have within the purposes of God? 

PJ: Let’s kick it off. Romans 11:1-6:

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

That’s the question. Has God rejected Israel? And the answer is very strong: by no means. That can’t be the case. It will not be the case. It has not been the case.

TP: When he speaks of the remnant, like in the time of Elijah that God has reserved for himself those who are his, he’s talking there about how at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. There are Jews who have come to believe in the Christ. The 3000 who came to believe on the day of Pentecost.

PJ: The apostle Paul himself was Jewish. He couldn’t be more Jewish. 

TP: Yes.

PJ: But the Jewish community today does not like the phrase Jewish Christians because they think that if you’re a Jew, you’re not a Christian. If you’re a Christian, you’re not a Jew. And given centuries of persecution, I can understand why they feel that way. But of course, the early Christians were all Jewish. The 12 apostles are all Jewish, the 120 on the day of Pentecost, the 5000, they were devout Jews. In fact, the strangeness that they had to deal with in their time was whether a Gentile could be a Christian.

But by the time you come to Romans 11, the question has become: has God rejected Israel? The first obvious answer is no. Some have obtained the promise. It looks like, though, that everybody else has been rejected. 

TP: Yes. Picking up from Romans 11:7-10:

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

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,

    eyes that would not see

    and ears that would not hear,

down to this very day.”

And David says,

“Let their table become a snare and a trap,

    a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,

    and bend their backs forever.”

PJ: Again, in each of these chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, we see that God is not just the one who makes people happy. God works in all things. And in his judgment upon sinful people, he is at work as well. He gives them a spirit of stupor. Again, we’re quoting Old Testament all the time, Isaiah 29 and Psalm 69. I encourage you to read commentaries or on phillipjensen.com download the sermon I preached on this kind of passage. But it’s not just Pharaoh whose heart is hardened. It’s Israel, or members of Israel that have had their hearts hardened. You think of Isaiah 6 where he’s called to preach, but the message he’s called upon to preach is one that will not be listened to, lest people’s eyes be opened and ears be opened, and they turn back and repent. And of course, Jesus quotes that in the parable of the sower in Mark 4. John talks about it as an explanation of the rejection of Jesus in John 12, that God was so blinding the minds and hearts of the wilful rebellious Israel, that Jesus was to be rejected and crucified because that was the plan of God all along, that Jesus would be rejected and crucified by his own people.

TP: He came to his own, but his own would not receive him, as John says in the opening verses of his Gospel. And so there’s a sense as in Old Testament times and these quotations that the rejection of Jesus by Jews, by Israel, is a result of them being hardened in their resolve, hardened in their choice, and their resistance to the gospel message. And so they become antagonists to the gospel; they become those who reject and persecute the gospel as Paul did.

PJ: And you’ll notice that he talks about retribution in verse 9. It’s not on the basis of justice that I’m forgiven. It’s just mercy. Justice would require me to be be punished because I am sinful and deserving of it. Israel is being justly punished for their rejection and rebellion against God, as it says at the end of chapter 10: “all day long, I’ve held up my hands to a disobedient and stubborn contrary people”. 

But is God’s aim just to punish Israel? Did God raise up a nation just to obliterate it? No. Romans 11:11 says,

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.

It’s an extraordinary verse, isn’t it? Who would have thought of this? Who would have thought of the cross? Who would have thought that God, in order to save mankind, would raise up evil people to crucify his beloved Son? It’s an extraordinary idea. We’re often don’t recognize its extraordinary nature because we’re so used to it. But no-one had ever thought of it beforehand. Nobody would see that as the way, that through the trespass of Israel, salvation comes to the Gentiles, to the nations. This happens in several ways. The persecution of Christians in Acts 8 was a persecution by Israel upon the Christian Jews, who then go out to the Samaritans.

TP: They get scattered throughout Judea and Samaria, and the result is that the Gentiles are getting converted.

PJ: And again, when you look at Paul preaching in Acts 13, he’s preaching in the synagogue, but the synagogue people will not listen. But the Gentile God-fearers who attend the synagogue, they get converted. And so the rejection by Israel of the message of salvation leads to the salvation of the Gentiles.

TP: It is extraordinary. It’s almost as if you’ve got a bunch of Jewish people who come to believe in Jesus. And as is quite apparent from the early chapters in Acts, they haven’t quite twigged to the fact that this is for the whole world, even though Jesus has told them that is. And yet a series of events such as you talk about end up quite extraordinarily driving them out to the nations—especially God’s extraordinary intervention of Paul himself, who’s the chief Jewish persecutor driving the Christians out, who is then miraculously and extraordinarily turned around by a revelation from God. And God says, “You’ll never guess what job I have for you is. Never in a million years. You, the ultra Jew who has been persecuting the church, your job is going to be to go to the nations and preach the gospel.”

PJ: And if that’s not extraordinary enough, the last phrase of verse 11, is even more so. You see, rather than through Israel’s trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. His endpoint is not the salvation of the Gentiles. Instead the salvation of the Gentiles is to be the means of the salvation of the Jews through jealousy. See, verses 12-16:

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! 

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

By his preaching to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles coming to acknowledge Jesus (who is Yahweh) as their God and coming into the forgiveness of the kingdom of God, he hopes the Jews will be jealous. And in their jealousy, they’ll turn back to God. And so the Jews’ trespass leads to the reconciliation of the Gentiles. The reconciliation of the Gentiles may lead to the Jews’ jealousy, which would bring new resurrection life to the Jewish nation. You remember Ezekiel 37, the Jewish nation is dry bones, it’s dead. But they could be brought to life through the resurrection of Jesus as the gospel goes out to the Gentiles to make them jealous. It’s an extraordinary concept, isn’t it?

TP: It is. And I’ve been thinking about how that comes about. Is it that as Jewish people see the promises of God and the Holy Spirit being poured out upon others upon the nations, see Gentiles coming to love the God of Israel, live the moral life that the law pointed to, have a relationship and communion with Yahweh and with one another that—is it that as they see Gentiles participating in everything Israel was supposed to be about but have failed in, that they are provoked to jealousy? Is that what it is?

PJ: Yes I think so. There are Jewish evangelists today who testify that through seeing the Gentiles having the blessings of God which would have been thought to be the blessings of Israel, have turned back to think about their rejection of God and the punishment of God on their failure. That’s a wonderful thing. It’s an incredible thing. I mean, who would have thought? But the Gentiles must be very careful then of not saying, “Oh, well, the Jews are cut off”, because the whole reason is to get the Jews back.

TP: Yes, that’s right. Because he turns now to talk about how the Gentiles should think about this. 

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 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. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were 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, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

PJ: That is a paragraph that is in complete opposition to anti-semitism amongst Christians, isn’t it?

TP: It’s impossible to hold that position or to hold any kind of malice or arrogance or prejudice against Jews. 

PJ: Yes, they are the natural ones to come into Christ. The difference between a Jewish Christian and a Gentile Christian is that a Gentile Christian has had to be converted to become a Christian, whereas a Jew has to be fulfilled to become a Christian, because it is of the nature of Israel to acknowledge the Messiah. It is against the nature of a pagan to acknowledge the Messiah.

TP: And the metaphor he uses to express that is the wild and the cultivated tree. You’re a wild unkempt olive branch, and you’re being grafted into something that’s been cultivated, that’s been prepared for centuries, that’s been going in the same direction, that goes all the way back down to the root, to the original promises. So the Jew who comes to acknowledge Jesus is like the final flowering of that tree. It’s them coming to what they were always promised to have and to be. Whereas for the Gentiles to come into it is whoa, you’re grafting something quite different into the olive tree.

PJ: And there’s this warning illustration that what counts is our continued righteousness before God. If we care to be rejecting God, as so much of Christendom has these days, then yes, well will be cut off just as the Jews were cut off. If God was willing to cut off the natural, he will certainly cut off the wild shoots.

TP: Because it’s by faith. If it’s by faith, then you can’t start getting all uppity and thinking you’re something special. Instead, you should fear and be humble, because it’s only by faith that you’ve been grafted in. It’s not because you’re anything special. So don’t look down on anybody else, especially on the natural branches of the tree.

PJ: So when the Bible talks about the Jew first and also the Greek, or the Jew first and also the Gentile, it’s not just giving a historical rundown that the first people converted were Jews. It’s actually more than that, isn’t it? The gospel is of the Jews. That’s where our salvation comes from. And we Gentiles have been added into that which is of the Jews, namely, the Christ. 

TP: So would you say that when Paul said earlier that “not all who are of Israel are Israel”—was he referring to the newcomers, to the Gentile Christians who have come in by faith, like these wild shoots that have been grafted into the main tree of Israel?

PJ: Well, we’ve been grafted in, but we were never Israelites and we’re not Israelites now. I have been saved through the Israelites, especially through the Israelite. But I am a converted Gentile. It’s like, males and females are all one in Christ Jesus, but I don’t cease being a male. My wife doesn’t cease being a female. So I don’t cease being a Gentile and my Jewish Christian friend, for instance, does not cease being Jewish. It’s one in Christ, accepted as we are, Jew or Gentile alike. And so we mustn’t be wise in our own thinking about this, just as it goes on in Romans 11:25-32:

I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

“The Deliverer will come from Zion,

    he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;

“and this will be my covenant with them

    when I take away their sins.”

As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

TP: And there’s that word ‘all’–it’s a tricky word, isn’t it?

PJ: It can mean ‘every’, it can mean ‘all kinds’, it can mean ‘the whole’. It’s about how he is going to save all those whom he’s going to save. The verse without any kind of context can lead to great confusion. What we know is that God is at work. And all of Israel who are to be saved will be saved by this way, by the jealousy they will have from seeing the mercy enjoyed by the Gentiles.

TP: Now, if we start asking—does that mean that God is going to save every single Israelite? That’s one way of taking the word ‘all’ but not a way that makes much sense.

PJ: Not in this context. But you can say he’s going to save every individual Israelite whom he plans to save; none will miss out. But not every Israelite has been saved. Many have died rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. So that can’t be the case. But he hasn’t punished Israel without good reason. They deserved it. And not without good reason, that is, he was seeking to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. So you have to understand the mind of God. But you would never have thought this. And that’s why he winds up with these wonderful verses: 

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

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,

    or who has been his counselor?”

“Or who has given a gift to him

    that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

God’s plans and ways are far beyond ours. But aren’t we glad? For it’s by his plans and ways that he brings salvation to the world.

TP: It’s a helpful way to conclude this passage, especially one that has often prompted a lot of disagreement and theorizing about how exactly this is all going to happen. How exactly and when exactly will all Israel come in? How is it going to relate to geopolitical events? There’s all kinds of attempts to figure out the precise timing and mechanism of how all this works. But I think part of the point of this passage is that God’s plan is extraordinary. We would have never figured it out in the first place, so what makes us think we’re going to be able to work out all the details in a second place? 

PJ: We certainly can’t and we certainly won’t, other than what he tells us, which is not those details.

TP: What he tells us is that the gospel is for the Jew first and then the Gentile, so keep preaching the gospel to the Jews. And as Gentiles who have been converted and grafted in, we must not be arrogant or proud or superior.

---