CHAPTER TWENTY
DECIDING WHO GOD INTENDS TO SAVE
Every Christian is quick to say, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." At the same time we say those words, most of us are firmly convinced that there are people out there who cannot be saved. Once I believed that too. No longer. I now believe that God might save everybody. Unless you are absolutely certain that you understand precisely what God intends for this world, I suggest you would be unwise to presume I am wrong. Read what follows and decide from the evidence.
The root of the problem we face today grows out of our misunderstanding of the distinction Paul drew between the world and the Jews. In order to understand Paul, we must grasp the fact that Paul perceived humanity to be divided into two distinct categories: Jews and Gentiles. In a broad sense, Jews were the descendants of Abraham, Gentiles were everybody else. When Paul used the concept "the world", he always referred to gentile unbelievers, never the Jews. Our failure to grasp this fact has led us to assume that when Paul says, "the god of this world has blinded the eyes of the unbelievers" he means that the god of this world has blinded the eyes of the Jews.
But Paul knew that Satan has not blinded the eyes of the Jews. Paul knew God had hardened their hearts. If we want to understand Paul, much less explain his message to the world, we must see what he saw.
Paul understood that the Jews had never wanted to follow the god of this world. He tells us, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge." Paul knew that Israel had earnestly sought a right relationship with the God revealed in Holy Scripture. But they had failed. Why? "What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain but the elect did. The others were hardened, as it is written: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day.' And David says, 'May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution to them. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.'"
Why did God do this to the Jews? "Again I ask, Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgressions, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!"
Paul is telling us that God used the Jews as an example of how not to please God. Throughout the letter to the Romans, Paul gives us example after example of how God used the Jews misunderstanding of the message in the Old Testament as the means through which we would be led to understand exactly what God expects from the followers of Jesus Christ.
We will fail to grasp the meaning of the message to the Romans unless we grasp the fact that Paul intended for us to understand that God used the Jews. They were still his chosen people. It's just that God had chosen them as vessels of wrath, rather than mercy. "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory--even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea: 'I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one.'"
It does not take much insight into the mind of Paul to know how much he suffered that he had to say these things. "I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit--I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel." Paul knew how hard what he had to say made God look. He knew how unfeeling, how manipulative, how callous an image of God was being presented. So Paul hastened to add, "I ask then, Did God reject his people? By no means, I am an Israelite myself, a descendent of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah--how he appealed to God against Israel: 'Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me.' And what was God's answer to him? 'I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.' So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace."
Now please pay close attention. If a remnant was all God intended to save from the children of Israel, God could still be accused of having hardened the hearts of his chosen people so that most were to be condemned to hell. Paul did everything in his power to dispel this idea from the mind of man. "Again I ask, Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!"
In order to understand Paul, we must realize that Paul had a vision about God's plan to save everybody. A great part of the tension we encounter in Paul's writings was created because Paul knew the only thing that could prevent everyone from coming to believe in Jesus Christ was if God had planned to refuse his grace to certain people. Paul never had a doubt about the sufficiency of the power of the gospel to destroy Satan's hold on the world. The only power in the universe that could prevent the light of the glory of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ from being shined all across the universe was God's power. Paul knew that God had hardened the hearts of the Jews. Was it God's plan to harden their heart forever? If so, it was impossible for everyone to be saved. Even if Satan's hold on the world was broken, God's hardening could never be overcome.
In answer to this question, Paul tells us, "I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?"
The preceding statement makes this much clear: Paul understood that some of the Jews could be saved. But even more important he understood this: if the rejection of the Jews brought reconciliation between God and the world, the acceptance by God of those whose hearts He is presently hardening will bring about the end of death through making eternal life available to all.
But is this possible? Could God have a plan to return all the Jews to Himself through giving them faith in Jesus Christ?
Listen to what Paul tells us. First, he explains that the Jews are a Holy people and their holiness is not altered by the fact that God has hardened their hearts. "If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy, if the root is holy, so are the branches.
"If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.
"You will say then, 'Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.' Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
"Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!"
So far, all Paul has said is that it is possible for God to save the Jews if He wants to. But Paul understands something else about God's plan, something that, when understood, will make it very difficult to deny that God has a plan that could include the salvation of everyone on earth. Listen to Paul: "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. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins."
Now Paul explains what he means, "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. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now* (some manuscripts do not have "now") receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all."
Anybody who believes that Paul speaks the word of God would have a very difficult time denying that Paul believed God intended to save all the Jews somewhere, sometime. If this is true, then Paul understood that the problem created by God's hardening the hearts of the Jews was a temporary problem that would be remedied by God Himself when "the full number of the Gentiles has come in."
Which left the problem of the Gentiles. Paul understood clearly that God had not hardened the hearts of the Gentiles, Satan had blinded them. When Paul considered his ministry to the Gentiles, the only power he had to contend with was Satan's power, the only problem he had to overcome was the blindness that Satan had cast over the world. And Paul understood that the Spirit of God was actively striving within each of the Gentiles in the world to overcome the blindness created by Satan and replace their blind eyes with eyes that could see the glorious light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. With full knowledge that God intended to bring salvation to the Jews when the full number of the Gentiles had been brought in, and with the knowledge that God had made it possible for every Gentile to come to saving faith, Paul pursued his ministry.
In his ministry to the Gentiles--the world, Paul never had a moments hesitation communicating to the Gentiles that God had done everything necessary for all of them to receive saving faith. Paul knew God's Spirit had been extended to the Gentiles so that all who accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ could come boldly into the presence of God to live forever.
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