Romans 11.28a-From The Standpoint Of The Gospel Israel Corporately Is God's Enemy For The Sake Of Evangelizing The Gentiles
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday August 26, 2009
Romans: Romans 11:28a-From The Standpoint Of The Gospel Israel Is God’s Enemy For The Sake Of Evangelizing The Gentiles
Lesson # 383
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 11:28.
This evening we will study Romans 11:28 in which the apostle Paul summarizes God’s dealings with the nation of Israel and the Gentiles.
We will note the first part of the verse this evening where Paul teaches that from the standpoint of the gospel, the nation of Israel corporately is God’s enemy for the sake of evangelizing the Gentiles.
Tomorrow evening we will note the second half of the verse in which the apostle teaches that from the standpoint of God electing them in a national sense, the nation of Israel is the object of God’s love because of the unconditional promises to the patriarchs.
Romans 11:28, “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.”
Paul employs the figure of “asyndeton” in Romans 11:28 by not using a connective between the previous statement in Romans 11:27 and the one to follow in Romans 11:28.
He does this in order to emphasize the implication of his statement in Romans 11:28 that God has by no means rejected Israel forever but rather God has a plan for the future of the nation.
This implication provides support for Paul’s statements in Romans 11:25-27.
In Romans 11:25, to protect his Gentile Christian readers from arrogance, the apostle Paul informs them of a mystery, namely that a partial hardening has occurred in Israel until the full number of Gentiles who will be saved has come to pass.
Romans 11:25, “In fact, I by no means want each and every one of you spiritual brothers and sisters to be ignorant of this mystery in order that you will not be arrogant concerning yourselves, namely that a partial hardness is taking place in Israel until and during which time the full number of Gentiles has come into existence.”
Then, in Romans 11:26, Paul cites Isaiah 59:20 to support his assertion that there will be a national regeneration of Israel and to teach that it will take place at Christ’s Second Advent.
Romans 11:26, “And then, in the following way, all Israel will be delivered just as it stands written for all of eternity, ‘The Deliverer will arrive out from Zion. He will remove totally and completely the godless ones from Jacob.’”
Paul in Romans 11:27 cites a combination of Isaiah 59:21 and 27:9 as further support for his prediction in Romans 11:26 that there will be a national regeneration of Israel.
Romans 11:27, “Furthermore, this is, as an eternal spiritual truth, the covenant established by Me for their benefit when I act on My promise and remove their sins.”
So the apostle Paul employs the figure of asyndeton to emphasize the implication of his statement in Romans 11:28.
This implication provides support for his statement in Romans 11:25-27 that Israel’s rejection by God is temporary and that God is using Israel’s rejection of His Son to evangelize the Gentiles and that the nation will experience a national regeneration and restoration at Christ’s Second Advent.
Romans 11:28, “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.”
Romans 11:28 is a correlative clause contrasting the nation of Israel’s relationship to God from two different perspectives.
The first perspective is their present relationship to the gospel in which they are presently enemies of God, which has led to the evangelization and subsequent salvation of innumerable Gentiles
The second is the past relationship with God in the sense of His electing them in a national sense and are the objects of God’s unconditional love for the sake of His promises to the patriarchs.
The latter provides irrefutable evidence that God has by no means rejected the nation of Israel forever for the sake of His unconditional promises to the patriarchs of Israel, which guarantee a future for the nation.
It presents further evidence and support that in the future there will be a national regeneration and restoration of the nation of Israel.
Therefore, this correlative clause teaches that on one hand with respect to the gospel, Israel corporately is God’s enemy for the sake of evangelizing the Gentiles.
While on the other hand, they were elected in a national sense making them the objects of God’s unconditional love for the sake of the unconditional promises God made to the patriarchs of the nation with the obvious implication that God has not rejected Israel forever but rather that she has a future in the plan of God.
“From the standpoint of the gospel” is composed of the preposition kata (katav) (kat-ah), “from the standpoint” and the articular accusative neuter singular form of the noun euangelion (eu)aggevlion), “of the gospel.”
In Romans 11:28, the noun euangelion means “good news” and refers to the gospel in relation to the unsaved since Paul is speaking in the context of the nation of Israel’s rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah.
It refers to the gospel in the sense of the good news message to sinners that they can receive divine righteousness as a gift through imputation as a result of faith alone in Christ alone, which in turn results in the Father declaring them justified.
The noun is in the accusative case and functions as the object of the preposition kata, which itself functions as a marker of a specific element bearing a relation to something else.
Here the preposition denotes the relationship between the nation of Israel and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Romans 11:28, “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.”
“Enemies” is the nominative masculine plural form of the adjective echthros (e)xqrov$) (ech-thros), which is used in the passive sense to describe unregenerate Israel as being regarded by God as His enemy.
This is indicated by the fact that the word stands in contrast with the adjective agapetos, “beloved,” which refers to Israel being the objects of God’s unconditional love for the sake of His unconditional promises to the patriarchs.
Further indicating the passive sense is that Paul is speaking of Israel’s relationship to the gospel.
Therefore, the adjective echthros is used to describe unsaved Israel as being God’s enemies because they rejected His Son Jesus Christ as Savior.
“For your sake” is composed of the preposition dia (diaV) (dee-ah), “for” and the accusative second person plural form of the personal pronoun humeis (u(mei$) (hoo-mice), “you.”
The personal pronoun humeis is a reference to Paul’s Gentile Christian readers because in Romans 11:11 Paul teaches that the Gentiles are experiencing salvation because of Israel’s rejection of Christ, which made Israel God’s enemy.
Romans 11:11, “Therefore, I ask, did they stumble so as to fall down in complete in ruin? Absolutely not! On the contrary because of their transgression salvation is experienced by the Gentiles in order to provoke them to jealousy.”
This is further indicated in that in Romans 11:12 Paul argues that if Israel’s transgression and failure meant riches for the Gentiles, how much more then will Israel’s full restoration bring to the Gentiles.
Romans 11:12, “But, if, and let us assume that it is true for the sake of argument that their transgression, as an eternal spiritual truth does mean infinite wealth possessed by the world’s inhabitants. Specifically, their failure, as an eternal spiritual truth does mean infinite wealth possessed by the Gentiles. And of course, we agree that this is a fact of history! Then how much more will their full restoration bring?”
Lastly, in Romans 11:25 Paul attempts to protect his Gentile Christian readers from arrogance by revealing to them the mystery that a partial hardening has occurred in Israel until the full number of Gentiles who will be saved has come to pass, which further indicates that humeis in Romans 11:28 is referring to Gentile Christians.
Romans 11:25, “In fact, I by no means want each and every one of you spiritual brothers and sisters to be ignorant of this mystery in order that you will not be arrogant concerning yourselves, namely that a partial hardness is taking place in Israel until and during which time the full number of Gentiles has come into existence.”
The personal pronoun humeis functions as the object of the preposition dia, which itself functions as a marker of a participant who is benefited by an event or for whom an event occurs.
This indicates the Gentiles benefited from the fact that the nation of Israel was the enemy of God because of their rejection of His Son Jesus Christ.
Therefore, the declarative statement in this correlative clause that constitutes Romans 11:28 teaches that Gentile Christians benefited from the fact that the nation of Israel at the present time is God’s enemy because the majority of Jews in Israel rejected His Son Jesus Christ as Savior.
Tomorrow we will note the adversative clause which teaches that from the standpoint of God electing them as a nation, Israel is the object of God’s love because of His unconditional promises He made to the patriarchs.