Romans 9 11 (nkjv)

A Brief Look at Paul’s Teaching
in Romans 9-11

Bridges for Peace ... Your Israel Connection 1

Replacement theology and
Christian arrogance

Paul’s teaching clearly opposes the heresy of
replacement theology, which arrogantly
declares that the church is the “new Israel”
and has replaced Israel in the plans of God

We are each one of us called to be a worker
“rightly dividing the word of truth”
2 Timothy 2:15

Paul’s strong language
 “I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying”
Romans 9:1

 "Do not boast against the branches”
[“broken off” - v 17- i.e. unbelieving Jews]
Romans 11: 18

 “Do not be haughty ... Your Israel Connection fear"
Bridges for Peace [arrogant], but 3

Paul’s strong language
 "I do not desire, brethren, that you should be
ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be
wise in your own opinion…”
Romans 11:25a

 Regarding any thought that God has finished
with the Jews - “Certainly not!” “No way!”
“By no means!”
Romans 11:1,11

The importance of context
 Christianity didn’t just appear in a vacuum

 It sprang from the highly developed religious
tradition and culture of ancient Israel - its
roots are deep in Jewish soil

 We need to understand also the historical
context of the book of Romans

The early church

 The leaders and teachers in the earliest
Christian communities were Jewish

 But as elsewhere and at other times,
persecution wasn’t far around the corner -
something that in various ways has haunted
the Jewish people for two millennia


Change in the church

 In AD 49, following a disturbance involving
Jews, the emperor Claudius (as described in
Acts 18:2) expelled Jews from Rome

 As a result, Gentiles took over leadership of
the Roman church


Paul’s plans
 Jews were later invited by the emperor Nero
to return to Italy

 Paul writes to the Roman church and lays
out the fundamentals of the Christian faith,
and also brings some clear teaching
regarding the way Gentile believers needed
to relate to Jewish believers


What is the key New Testament
teaching on how Christians should
relate to Jews?

In Romans, Chapters 9 through 11, Paul
builds on his case of justification by faith
by answering the next logical question:
“So then, what about Israel? Hadn’t the
unbelief of Jewish people cut them off
from God?”

Romans 9:3-5
“For I could wish that I myself were accursed
from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen
according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to
whom pertain [belong] the adoption, the
glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the
service of God, and the promises; of whom
are the fathers and from whom, according to
the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the
eternally blessed God. Amen.”


God’s covenant people still

 The Jewish people are God’s covenant
people, bound to Him then as now through
an everlasting covenant - Genesis 17:7-8

 To Israel were given wonderful gifts and
blessings and promises, and they still apply


Key chapter - Romans 11
“I say then, has God cast away
[literally, push or thrust away] His people?
Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite,
of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of
Benjamin. God has not cast away
[disowned /utterly rejected] His people
whom He foreknew.”
Romans 11:1-2a


Israel’s temporary stumble
“I say then, have they stumbled that they
should fall [i.e. beyond recovery]? Certainly
not! But through their fall, to provoke them to
jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.”
Romans 11:11

Israel's rejection of Jesus as the Messiah did
not result in a permanent fall from grace


Riches for the Gentiles
“Now if their fall is riches for the world, and
their failure riches for the Gentiles, how
much more their fullness!”
Romans 11:12

The Gentiles - you and I - really do owe a
tremendous debt to Israel


Called to make Israel jealous
But through their fall, to provoke them to
jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.”
Romans 11:11

“For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am
an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my
ministry, if by any means I may provoke to
jealousy those who are my flesh and save
some of them.”
Romans 11:13-14

Christian anti-Semitism
Centuries of anti-Semitism in the church has
often been a huge stumbling block that has
driven a huge wedge between Jewish people
and Christians

Edward Flannery (1964) - “The pages Jews
have memorized have been torn from our
histories of the Christian era….”


 Justin Martyr (c. AD 160) in speaking to a Jew
said: “The Scriptures are not yours, but ours.”

 Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon (c. AD 177) declared:
“Jews are disinherited from the grace of God.”

 Tertullian (AD 160-230), in his treatise,
“Against the Jews,” announced that God had
rejected the Jews in favour of the Christians.


 In the early 4th century, Eusebius wrote that
the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures were
for Christians; the curses were for the Jews.

 In AD 313 Constantine issued the Edict of
Milan, favouring Christianity while outlawing
synagogues. Another edict in AD 315
allowed the burning of Jews if they broke the
laws. With Christianity becoming the state
religion, more anti-Jewish laws were passed.


 Hilary of Poitiers (AD 291-371) wrote: “Jews
are a perverse people accursed by God
forever.”
 Gregory of Nyssa (died AD 394), Bishop of
Cappadocia: “the Jews are a brood of vipers,
haters of goodness...”
 St. Jerome (AD 347-407) describes the Jews
as “... serpents, wearing the image of Judas,
their psalms and prayers are the braying of
donkeys.”

At the end of the 4th century, the Bishop of
Antioch, John Chrysostom, wrote: “The
synagogue is not only a brothel and a theatre;
it is also a den of robbers and a lodging for
wild beasts. No Jew adores God... Jews are
inveterate murderers, possessed by the devil,
their debauchery and drunkenness gives them
the manners of the pig. They kill and maim
one another...”


These anti-Jewish teachings gave rise to:
 the killing of many Jews in the Crusades;
 the accusations of deicide and blood libel;
 the forced wearing of distinguishing marks;
 the horrors of the Inquisition;
 the displacement of whole Jewish communities
by exile or separate ghettoes;
 the destruction of synagogues/Jewish books;
 physical persecution and execution;
 the Pogroms….
 culminating in the Holocaust, which occurred
in “Christian” Europe.

Martin Luther
Martin Luther wrote: “The Jews are brutes.
Their synagogues are pig sties; they ought to
be burned. They live by evil and plunder.
They are evil beasts that ought to be driven
out like mad dogs……”

He also seems to advocate their murder,
writing: "[W]e are at fault in not slaying them.”

On the Jews and Their Lies (1543)

A coming time of blessing
 How sensitively and lovingly - and with much
humility - Christians need to rebuild trust in
relationship with the Jewish people!

 And, says Paul in Romans 11:12-15, there is
wonderful blessing for the Gentiles and also
for the Jewish people in the days ahead - see
especially verses 12 and 15


A coming time of blessing
Romans 11:12,15
“Now if their fall is riches for the world, and
their failure riches for the Gentiles, how
much more their fullness!” (verse 12).
“For if their being cast away is the
reconciling of the world, what will their
acceptance be but life from the dead?”
(verse 15).


What God begins well
He finishes well
“For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also
holy; and if the root is holy, so are the
branches”
Romans 11:16

Numbers 15:18-21, Leviticus 23:10


God will never set Israel aside
God has a special love for the descendants
of the patriarchs and will never set Israel
aside!

Israel, whose origins began with a covenant
with God, will be redeemed and wonderfully
blessed by her God.


Paul’s imagery of the olive tree

Paul uses the imagery of the olive tree to
emphasise our Christian connection with
Israel.

He teaches that God’s plan was to bring Jew
and Gentile together as one olive tree, but
sadly church history teaches us that instead
they were separated.


God hates an arrogant attitude
“And if some of the branches were broken
off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were
grafted in among them, and with them
became a partaker of the root and
fatness of the olive tree, do not boast
against the branches. But if you do boast,
remember that you do not support the
root, but the root supports you.”
Romans 11:17-18

“He may not spare you”

You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off
that I might be grafted in.’ Well said.
Because of unbelief they were broken off,
and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty,
but fear. For if God did not spare the natural
branches, He may not spare you either.”
Romans 11:19-21


Israel is the natural root

“For if you were cut out of the olive tree which
is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary
to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how
much more will these, who are natural
branches, be grafted into their own olive
tree?”
Romans 11:24


Israel is the natural root
 Christians are those who have been
“grafted into” the cultivated (natural) olive
tree (Romans 11:24), which is the place of
God’s blessing and favour
 Israel (in covenant relationship with God) is
the natural root (ever-green, indestructible)
 As Christians grafted in we partake of “the
root and fatness [or richness/sap] of the olive
tree” (Romans 11:17)

Ephesians 2:11-16

Paul’s point in this Ephesians passage is that
the unity between Jew and Gentile as the
“one new man” (verse 15) is accomplished
by God as He grafts branches “cut out of the
olive tree that is wild by nature” (unbelieving
Gentiles) into “the cultivated olive tree”
whose roots are His chosen people the Jews
(Romans 11:24).


The Jews’ blessing to the world

Paul’s reference to the fatness / richness /
sap of the Jewish-rooted olive tree is a
reminder to us of the wonderful blessing
that Israel and the Jewish people have
been and continue to be to the world.


The Jews’ blessing to the world

Our Scriptures, the promises of God, the
revelation of God as the one true God (the
bringing of monotheism to a world of pagan
idol worshippers), the apostles, and Jesus
Himself, all have come to us through the
Jewish people.


Jeremiah 31:35-37
 Gentile believers were never intended to
take the place of the original branches. This
passage opposes "replacement theology",
which says that the church is the “new Israel”
and has replaced Israel in the plans of God.

 The Jewish people have always been and
always will be precious to God - His original
covenant people.

Do we show love and mercy?

 We are to reflect God’s heart of love and
mercy. And to watch our attitude! Do we
show love and mercy (see Romans 11:31)?

 The real issue is - be humble! Love and
learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters.


“The gifts and the calling of God
are irrevocable”
 Our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, is indeed a faithful, promise-
keeping God - for Gentile and Jew alike!
Romans 11:22-29

 Paul declares in verse 29, “the gifts and the
calling of God are irrevocable.” God has
spoken, and He will do it!


Our response as Christians

 “For if the Gentiles have been partakers of
their spiritual things, their duty is also to
minister to them in material things”
Romans 15:27b

 “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have
works, is dead”
James 2:17

Our response as Christians
 “Their [the Jews’] spiritual things” with which
Gentile believers have been blessed are
profoundly significant.

 The promise to the world through Abraham
was that, "in you all the families of the earth
shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The
Jewish people have indeed blessed us all
with many spiritual blessings.

Blessing Israel
 Organisations like Bridges for Peace maintain
their expression of practical love and mercy
because of worldwide Christian support. We
have the privilege of loving His people and
working towards healing past hurts.

 We all were disobedient, but the Lord showed
mercy to us. So we should be showing His
unconditional love to all people, including the
Jewish people.
Romans 11:30-32

What is the motto of Bridges for
Peace?
“WHY JUST READ ABOUT BIBLE
PROPHECY WHEN YOU CAN BE A
PART OF IT?”

These are exciting days in which we live
These are Bible times
Get involved; become a part of God’s
prophetic Word

Romans 9 11 (nkjv)

Romans 9 11 (nkjv)

Editor's Notes

Romans 9 11 (nkjv)

Editor's Notes

Romans 9 11 (nkjv)

Romans 9 11 (nkjv)

Editor's Notes

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