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Commentary on "The Election of Grace"

COLLEEN TINKER

 

Day 5: Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - A Mystery Revealed

 

Overview

This lesson examines Romans 11:24-27 and admits theologians have struggles with this passage for centuries. The lesson discusses the possibility that it means the gospel will be preached everywhere, and thus Gentiles and Jews will come to faith. Another concern is that the text says, “All Israel shall be saved.” The lesson then says this can’t mean every Jew will be saved, that Paul said he was hoping to save “some of them”, and it ends with two Ellen White quotes about many Jews coming to faith eventually “who will proclaim the immutability of the law of God with wonderful power.”

The lesson ends with the suggestion that the reader think about the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and asks how a selective study of the Jewish religion could help one understand his Christian faith better.

 

Observations

Adventism does not teach that there is a future for Israel. It teaches that they are “spiritual Israel”, that God’s promises to Israel were either transferred to them or made null and void by Israel’s rejection of Jesus. Yet Paul is extremely clear, if one reads the words of Romans 11 and accepts their plain, ordinary meanings, that God will save Israel and banish their ungodliness and take away their sin when He makes His new covenant with them. This is Paul’s quotation in verses 26-27 from Isaiah Isaiah 50:20,21; Psalm 14:7; 53:6, and Isaiah 27:9:

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.

These verses clearly refer to Old Testament promises God made to Israel. When God makes promises, they have to come true. Adventism teaches that God’s promises are conditional upon obedience; however, only the Mosaic covenant was conditional upon Israel’s promise to do everything God said.

Human promises cannot be trusted. They will always ultimately be broken. God’s promises, however, are as certain as the sunrise—and more so, because even the sun is going to be darkened. God promised to make a new covenant with Israel and to take away their sin. Paul reiterates, quoting from the Old Testament, that God will still do this—but this fulfillment will be at the end of the age. Only after the full number of Gentiles has come in will the Jews be unhardened (v. 25).

Another thing that is seriously troublesome in the lesson is that last sentence of the last paragraph, where Ellen White is quoted as saying these converted Jews will be among the people proclaiming the unchangeableness of God’s law.

The Bible NEVER says Christians will proclaim the immutability of God’s law. Never. Rather, Christians proclaim one “thing”: Jesus the Christ who died, was buried, and rose on the third day as a Sacrifice for sin. Jesus didn’t die for the law; He died for us. He didn’t die to uphold the law—He is above and beyond the law. He died and rose so we can be restored to intimacy with Him.

Finally, contemplating Judaism does not give us understanding of our Christian faith except to show us the shadows and the ways God has faithfully revealed Himself successively. We learn about our Christian faith by immersing ourselves in Scripture and by placing our faith in the Lord Jesus and thus being born again. The Holy Spirit makes Scripture come alive, and reality becomes accessible.

1 Corinthians 2:12, 14 says,

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God, The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Intellectual comparisons of Judaism with Christianity will not yield truth or reality. Only as the Holy Spirit reveals God’s truth and God’s will through Scripture will anything make sense. The church is not Israel; Israel was pre-cross, and they had to live in shadows and promises. The church lives in the reality of Jesus’ finished work and their own new birth by the Holy Spirit. The church has the life of God restored to them even though still in physical bodies, and they are the body of the Lord Jesus. The Church literally brings the presence of God into the world.

This passage in Romans says that God will yet remove sin from Israel and save Israel, and this mystery (v. 25) will occur after the full number of Gentiles has come in. We must read the words and accept their plain, ordinary meanings. God is not saying He will save every individual Jew, but He is saying that He will keep His promises to the nation of Israel, and He will bring many if not most of them to faith in His own time in faithfulness to Himself.

 

Summary

  1. Adventist teaches there’s no future for Israel, and Adventists are spiritual Israel.
  2. God’s promises are faithful because He made them. Adventists teach that God’s promises are conditional upon human obedience. Yet only the Mosaic Covenant contains promises from God that are conditional upon obedience—and that was deliberately made between God and Israel.
  3. Apart from the Mosaic covenant, God’s promises are unilateral and depend upon God Himself.
  4. Christians never proclaim the unchangeableness of God’s law. Rather, they proclaim the Lord Jesus and the faithfulness of God. God’s law even proclaims Jesus—Jesus is the center of reality. He did not die to vindicate the law. The law pointed to Him.
  5. Contemplating Judaism does not make one understand Christianity better. Judaism was shaped by a now-obsolete covenant. Christianity operates under the New Covenant.
  6. The reality of the Holy Spirit indwelling humans while they still are in mortal flesh is shocking. It is this reality that gives Christians the ability to understand reality and to know what is true.

 

GO TO DAY 6

 

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