(Romans 11: 25-29) Vs.25 “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. Vs.26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. Vs.27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” Vs.28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, Vs.29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.”
Replacement theology was around in the time when Paul wrote his epistle to the Assembly of New Covenant believers in Rome. Replacement theology is that unbiblical doctrine which says the Church has replaced Israel and that God has no further purpose for the nation of Israel and that He now favours the Church. This is an insidious lie of Satan to keep up the dividing wall of partition between Jew and Gentile which the Messiah removed by His shed blood to atone for sin once and for all time by the sacrifice of Himself, a sacrifice never to be repeated! (Hebrews 1:3; 7:24; 8:1-2; 9:12, 26-28; 10:11-12).
Paul wrote the Assembly at Rome when Claudius was the emperor and the time came when he expelled all of the Jews from Rome and this would have included the Jewish New Covenant believers in the assembly at Rome (Acts 18:2). For 13 years the Jews did not live in Rome until the death of Claudius in 54 AD and the crowning of Nero as the new emperor who came to power in Rome and he brought the Jews back to Rome. It has been said most likely because the Jews were known for their prowess in business and it was good for the economy of Rome.
In the interim period between Claudius and Nero the Gentile believers started to think they were somehow superior spiritually than their Jewish brothers and sisters and had possibly started to entertain the notion that God favoured the Gentile believers over Jewish believers in the Messiah.
Of course Paul put an end to this kind of thinking and this comes through in his epistle to the assembly at Rome in Romans chapters 1-4 and in chapters 9-11. Of course the Jewish believers also had started to drift in their relationship with their Gentile brothers and sisters in the Messiah because of this separation. When the Jewish believers returned to Rome there was some conflict. Even then Satan was trying to raise up again the middle wall of partition between Jew and gentile that the Messiah had removed by His atoning blood to make one new man out of the two (Ephesians 2:11-122).
In fact Paul clearly writes that believing Gentiles have been spiritually grafted into Israel and that God has not done away with Israel at all but spiritually revived Israel on the Day of Pentecost, a partial spiritual restoration which will be fully accomplished when the Messiah our Lord Jesus comes back. God never intended or sanctioned denominations but allowed them within his wise proposes for the salvation of men; neither did He ever plan a body of believers separate from the Commonwealth of Israel.
In the New Testament the apostles never saw New Covenant believing Gentiles as a separate entity or group from Israel. We see this clearly in Acts chapter 15 which we will briefly discuss as we look at the text in Romans 11:25-29.
Let’s now briefly look at our text…
(Vs.25-26) “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.”
The mystery that the Gentile believers were not fully aware of was revealed to Paul that from all eternity God had planned to spiritually graft those who believed in the Messiah from the Gentile nations into the Olive tree being the Commonwealth of Israel, and the Gentile believers in Rome needed to realise this. Paul was in fact dealing with an early form of replacement theology.
As Paul wrote; “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in the Messiah Jesus. I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of the Messiah, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things” (Ephesians 3:6-9).
This mystery was also known by James and the other apostles at Jerusalem who recognised from the prophecy of Amos that God had always intended the Gentiles to be spiritually grafted into Israel (Acts 15:12-18) (Amos 9:11-12).
Paul also tells us that the hardness of heart that the people of Israel by and large are experiencing towards the Messiah and the salvation He brings is a partial hardness which we know will be removed at the very end of the time of Jacob’s Trouble when they see the Messiah our Lord Jesus coming in the clouds in great power and awesome splendour (Zechariah 12:10-14; 13:1). There is only one body of the Messiah, not two, and its roots are Jewish, not Gentile. This is a subject in itself. The Messiah has only one bride!
When the full number of Gentiles who are to believe in the Messiah have been spiritually grafted into the Olive Tree, being Israel, then the Jews who have survived the time of Jacob’s Trouble and who are still alive on earth will be spiritually grafted in again to their own Olive Tree (Romans 11:15-24). In that day the fountain that was opened in Jerusalem, being the cleansing blood of the Messiah, is still open as it has always been to the remnant of Jews who believe in the Messiah. In that day all Israel will be saved and their wickedness and ungodliness eradicated and their lives cleansed by the Messiah’s redeeming blood! To this the prophets testify! For every Jew still living this revelation of the Messiah will be for them “Life from the dead!” (Romans 11:15).
And then we read…
(Vs.27-29) “And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.”
Israel’s sin of rejecting the Messiah has already been atoned for by His shed blood. This was the New Covenant cut with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah and not with a Gentile ‘Church’ as such, the covenant being the everlasting covenant cut in the blood of the Messiah! (Jeremiah 31:31-37). Gentile believers are spiritually grafted into Israel and become partakers of the New Covenant blessings but the covenant itself was cut with the decedents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and God always remembers His blood covenants (Psalm 105:8-11). God’s forgiveness of sin is based on the shed blood of the Messiah (Ephesians 1:7).
At present in Israel for the most part the orthodox religious Jews are hostile to Messianic believers and persecute them. These religious Jews like all unsaved Jews are broken off from their own Olive Tree because of their unbelief in the Messiah (Romans 11:17-21). However, because of the covenant God cut with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and cut in the blood of the Messiah the Jewish people are loved by God and at the end a remnant will come forth redeemed by faith in the Messiah as their Passover Lamb and in His blood to atone for their sins.
In that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great! We see this in the account in the Torah where Joseph has His reconciliation with his wayward brothers who betrayed him and sold him into slavery. What a reunion that will be! Joseph wept over his lost brothers whom he had found once again. The whole world will take notice! They will see how much God loves the Jewish people and that He always keeps his covenant promises!
God’s gifts and call are irrevocable! He never goes back on His word. He has sworn the oath of the New Covenant in the Messiah’s blood and it is forever! So then if God cannot be depended upon to keep his covenants with Israel then how can we be sure that He will keep his covenant promises to the Church? If God is finished with Israel then He most certainly has finished with the Church!
We have the New Testament and what God requires of us as followers of the Messiah so we are without any excuse at all! As it has been said of the two Testaments “the New is in the Old concealed, and the Old is in the New revealed!” Has the Church been more faithful than Israel? Who has had the greater light?
So then the Church has both Testaments (covenants) and understood in their Jewish context and in light of God’s covenants with the Jews, there is no excuse for replacement theology! It really came to the fore when the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire and with Augustine and the Greek and Latin Church ‘fathers’ who started to Hellenise the scriptures and distancing them from their Jewish roots!
The reformers who modelled their theology on Augustine started to see the Church as “the New Israel” or as “spiritual Israel” and by this they meant that the Church (primarily made up of Gentiles) had actually replaced the Jews as a nation! Let them deny this! They continued to interpret scripture through the lenses of western logic and thought and to systematize the scriptures with a Greco-western mindset instead of with a Jewish one!
When the last Gentile believers in the Messiah have been spiritually grafted into the Olive Tree Israel, the Jewish remnant chosen by grace will also be grafted back into their own olive tree. In that day all Israel will be saved! The Messiah will then have His bride fully clothed in white and ready for the wedding feast when He comes for her! (Revelation 19:6-9).
As Isaiah the prophet writes; “I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom wears a priestly headdress, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Isaiah 61:10).
