Cy – The Jealousy of the Gentile Believers 11: 11-15

The Jealousy of the Gentile Believers
11: 11-15

The jealousy of the Gentile believers DIG: How is Isra’el stumbling a good thing? Why does Paul persist in using his energy to make his ministry known among people whom he expects to be unreceptive? Is there anything about Gentile Christians that would make non-Messianic Jews jealous of them? In what way is this the Gentile “Great Commission?”

REFLECT: To what extent are you living out these verses? Are you making non-Messianic Jews jealous? If so, how? If not, why? Does your church have an outreach ministry to Jews? How is that going? Again. If not, why not? In what ways would God’s grace toward Gentiles break through the walls of presumption which the Jews had built toward God?

The purpose of Gentile salvation is to provoke Jews to jealousy. The very unbelief of Isra’el now is somehow part of God’s program to bring Isra’el to national salvation in the future.

Paul’s imaginary non-Messianic Jewish opponent makes a fifth and final attempt to overturn his reasoning. “In that case, that is, if, as you claim, Paul, it is Isra’el’s own fault that they do not trust in Yeshua Messiah, and if, as you claim, this rejection does not signify that God has abandoned His people, then I say, isn’t it that the majority of Jews have stumbled with the result that they have permanently fallen away” (11:11a)? This is not, as some think, a repetition of the question in 11:1. There, it was whether YHVH had acted to abandon Isra’el; here, it is whether Isra’el’s rejection of Yeshua has as its necessary consequence the permanent self-exclusion of the Jewish people from the promises of ADONAI.

Shocked, Paul responds: Heaven forbid (Hebrew: chalilah, meaning that’s a contradiction, it makes no sense)! In light of God’s faithfulness, this is unthinkable that the Jewish people might not receive what God had promised them (11:11b). That would be bad, but the reality is quite the contrary, good, in four ways:²⁹⁰

1. It is by means of Isra’el’s stumbling that deliverance has come to the Gentiles (11:11c). This is a good thing in itself. The passage recalls 9:32-33 and portrays Isra’el tripping over a stone that makes people stumble, Yeshua, and falling alongside the path of the Torah (which has trust in their Messiah as its goal and fulfilment), off to the side, where the light of God’s Sh’khinah glory does not shine (Psalm 119:105).

That the deliverance: What deliverance? That which had been promised in the TaNaKh to Isra’el, nothing less than salvation (see the commentary on Jeremiah, to see link click Eo – I Will Make a New Covenant with the People of Isra’el) from sin and its consequences, including all the evils of this world. Has come, meaning the deliverance has begun and will certainly be completed, but not meaning that its full implications (such as world peace) have already happened in history. To the Gentiles, the Goyim, or the nations (Matthew 5:47). The deliverance was meant for Isra’el (Matthew 10:6, 15:24); but as a nation, she failed to receive it. Individual Jews did receive salvation, but the majority, including the religious leaders in Jerusalem, did not. This led to its being offered to the Gentiles, as the book of Acts documents, although ADONAI has never stopped holding out His hands to His disobeying and contradicting people (10:21).

The traditional non-Messianic Jewish counterclaim is that the righteous of all the nations have always had a place in the world to come, and therefore Christianity is essentially unnecessary, although it deserves credit for helping to lead Gentiles out of idolatry toward monotheism. However, they believe that it does not lead them to true monotheism because “it teaches that a man is God.” Moreover, in their view, Christianity is not only unnecessary for Jews but a positive evil, since it leads them away from their more perfect monotheism. It is pointless to speculate how YHVH might have brought Gentiles that deliverance, had Pharisaic Judaism obeyed the Gospel when it was first offered. What we do know is that God did in fact use Isra’el’s disobedience as a means, causing Messianic Jews, most notably Paul, to evangelize Gentiles as well as Jews, and that many Gentiles responded positively.²⁹¹

Dear Heavenly Father, Praise how great Your love is! About Isra’el He says: All day long I stretched forth My hands to a disobedient and contrary people (Romans 10:21). Your love for Isra’el is so great even though they disobey. You did not give up for You so long for Isra’el to obey and to love You; but You give each one in Isra’el a choice to follow You or to follow their own desires. No one is made to enter into Your Kingdom. You entice with your great mercy and awesome love, but each person must decide his destiny for himself.

Moses and Joshua both urged the Israelites to choose to follow God with all their hearts. I call the heavens and the earth to witness about you today, that I have set before you, life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life so that you and your descendants may live, by loving ADONAI your God, listening to His voice, and clinging to Him. For He is your life (Deut. 30:19-20b). Joshua encouraged the people to make a wise individual choice on who they would worship as God – a choice that was not to follow the same gods that others, including their fathers, had chosen. Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve – whether the gods that your fathers worshipped that were beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will worship ADONAI” (Joshua 24:15b-c)!

Isra’el, being in a national covenant with God, meant God would bless Isra’el with land (Genesis 15:12-21). Abraham, the Father of the Jewish nation, would be blessed with offspring as many as the stars of the sky (Genesis 15:5). God so desires to forever be the God of each one in Isra’el, but the choice is left up to each individual to choose to love and serve You as their God. Yes, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, in order to be your God and your seed’s God after you. I will give to you and to your seed after you the land where you are an outsider – the whole land of Canaan – as an everlasting possession, and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:7-8). Heaven’s blessing is offered to all, but given only to those who choose to love and serve YHVH as their Savior and Lord (John 5:24).

Praise You dear Heavenly Father for loving all and opening your arms wide to all who will choose to love and to follow you. Praise You for being so patient and continuing to work in people’s lives to draw them to Yourself. Please open the eyes of family and friends so they choose to move beyond mere knowledge about you to a relationship where they choose to love and serve You while they are living – for death seals whatever decision they have made. And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this judgment (Hebrews 9:27). You are Awesome beyond words! In Yeshua’s holy name and power of resurrection. Amen

2. This deliverance for Gentiles is intended to fulfill the prophecy of Deuteronomy 32:21, that God will provoke Isra’el to jealousy (11:11d) over a non-nation, that is, a nation void of understanding (11:11). It is good when God fulfills one of His prophecies, for it vindicates God’s name and His character. So, on the one hand, the unbelief of Isra’el is to promote Gentile salvation; which in turn, is to promote Jewish salvation. It is no accident that the majority of Jewish believers have been led to the Lord by Gentile believers. As YHVH has said: My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways (Isaiah 55:8).²⁹²

To provoke them to jealousy. Is there anything about Gentile Christians that would make non-Messianic Jews jealous of them? Throughout most of the last two thousand years, the Church, much to its great shame, not only has not provoked to Jews to jealousy but has provoked bitterness and fear; so that Jewish people, instead of being drawn to love the Jewish Messiah Yeshua, have usually come to hate or ignore Him, remaining convinced that their non-Messianic Judaism, or secularism, or agnosticism, is superior to Christianity. The truth is that Isra’el has failed to be a light to the Gentiles (see the commentary on Isaiah In – He Made My Mouth like a Sharpened Sword), and the Gentiles have failed to provoke the Jews to jealousy (see the commentary on Romans Cy – The Jealousy of the Gentile Believers). This will only be set right when the Lord returns (see the commentary on Isaiah Kg – The Second Coming of Jesus Christ to Bozrah).

If this seems to be a harsh judgment, then let us hear of which non-Messianic Jews are expected to be jealous. Jealous of the “Christians” who trapped Jews in their synagogues and burned them alive (which happened when the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1099, as well as in several European cities)? Jealous of the “Christians” who forced Jews to hear sermons of conversion against their will and expelled from the country those who did not respond (which took place for centuries in the Middle Ages and the Inquisition)? Jealous of the “Christians” who falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christian children in order to use their blood as part their Passover Seder? Jealous of the cross-carrying “Christian” priests leading murderous mobs in ethnic cleansing? Maybe jealous of the “Christians” who remained silent while six million Jews perished in the Holocaust? Or perhaps jealous of the “Christians” who murdered them – including Hitler himself, who was never excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church? Or maybe jealous of “Christian” members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white “Christian” supremacy gangs and their hooligan demonstrations? Or possibly jealous of “Christians” that support Palestinian organizations whose terrorist kill and maim Israeli Jewish children? Jealous of Greek Orthodox Archbishop Capucci, convicted of gun-running for those same Palestinian terrorist organizations? Which of these “Christians” are Jews supposed to be jealous? After such a list, it’s probably kinder not to dwell on what these people provoke Jews to – but it certainly isn’t jealousy.²⁹³

Gentile Christians need to understand that the words provoke them to jealousy is a command, just like to the Jew especially, but equally to the Gentile (1:16). It is no less a command than: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). But the overwhelming majority of Gentile churches see provoke them to jealousy as an option, or a ministry that they don’t see as their calling. Non-Messianic Jews ought to be able to look at saved Gentiles in the Church and see in them such a wonderful change from their former selves, such holy lives, such dignified, godly, peaceful, honorable, ethical, joyful and humble people, that they become jealous and want for themselves also whatever it is that makes these Gentiles different and special. The rest of Chapter 11 expands on this theme, and Chapters 12-15 are nothing if not a manual on how to provoke Jews – and unbelieving Gentiles – to jealousy.²⁹⁴

3. Isra’el’s eclipse is not permanent, she is only temporarily placed in a position less favored than the Gentiles. Although in itself this may seem bad, in the context of God’s long-range plan it is good; as will be shown, it is part of how YHVH will bring salvation to the Jewish people. Moreover, if their stumbling is bringing riches to the world – that is, if Isra’el’s being placed temporarily in a condition less favored than that of the Gentiles is bringing riches to the latter (11:12a). The word temporarily is important because her fullness (11:12b) will be achieved in her national conversion in 11:26 when all Isra’el will be saved (see the commentary on Revelation Ev – The Basis of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ).

The idea of a temporary eclipse of Isra’el by the Gentiles can be found in rabbinic writings also. In the Talmud the passage: If you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride (Jeremiah 13:17a) is examined. “What is the meaning of the phrase, for the pride? Rabbi Shmu’el ben-Yitzchak said, “For the glory [Hebrew: gaveh, literally pride] has been taken away from them and given to the goyim, [Gentiles] of the world (Chagigah 5b).

Also, in the Talmud, the saying of Rabbi Papa, “When the ox runs and falls, the horse is put in the ox’s stall (Sanhedrin 98b), is explained by the Jewish commentators, such as Rashi, as referring to Isra’el and the Gentile nations. A midrash on this text explains that the horse is allowed to replace the ox, but when the ox recovers it is hard to remove the horse. Likewise, when the Israelites were eclipsed and the Gentiles were given power. But when Isra’el recovers it will be hard to remove the Gentiles from their position of power without inflicting much suffering.

One difference between Paul and the rabbis above is that in Paul’s understanding, it is the spiritual element of glory or power which has passed to the Gentiles from that part of Isra’el which has remained stonelike (11:7 and 25); whereas for the rabbis, the spiritual glory and power remain with Isra’el even during the temporary eclipse.²⁹⁵

4. Isra’el’s future full commitment to Yeshua Messiah, which is what Isra’el in its fullness implies, she will bring even greater riches, even greater good, to humanity than their temporary humiliation has brought (11:12b)! Here Gentiles are offered a “selfish” motive for evangelizing Jews: if Jewish spiritual failure has brought riches to the Gentiles, how will Jewish national salvation bring even greater riches to them. YHVH, who created humanity, knows human nature very well and does not shrink from using self-interest to motivate right behavior. There are numerous examples of this in the TaNaKh; two of the best known are the fifth commandment (Deuteronomy 5:16) and the guarantee of the fertility of the Land of Promise if the Israelites would obey His mitzvot (Deuteronomy 11:13-21).

However, to those of you who are Gentiles (11:13a). Paul is writing to the Messianic community in Rome, a body of Messianic Jews and Gentile believers, and he calls the Gentile believers “Gentiles.” Thus, he refutes the theology which claims that when a Gentile becomes a believer, he is no longer a Gentile, but a “Spiritual Jew.” Similarly, Galatians 2:13 shows that a Jewish believer in Yeshua remains a Jew. The passages which say that in Messiah “there is neither Jew nor Gentile” (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11) refer to equality of the status in the Body of Messiah, and not to the obliteration of all distinctions.

I say this. Everything from 11:13 to 11:32 is specifically directed at Gentile believers. Paul shifts his remarks from one audience to another, as he did in 2:17 (see At – The Religious Jew). Since 10:14 he has been debating an imaginary non-Messianic Jew whose first three objections (10:14-14, 18 and 19) would not have interested Gentiles much, but those last two (11:1 and 11) might well provoke in some a prideful antisemitic response, “Yes, indeed, God has abandoned His people the Jews and replaced them with us Christians. Yes, indeed, the Jews have stumbled so as to fall away permanently from ever receiving what God has promised, and we Christians will get those blessings instead.” Curiously, much of the Christian Church through the centuries (and not excluding today) has managed to believe this “Replacement Theology” lie of their own invention, instead of what Paul says to refute it. The irony of this is dwarfed by the tragedy of what its consequences have been for the Jews.

For this very reason it is especially important for both Jews and Gentiles – Messianic and otherwise – to understand these twenty verses well. They demonstrate to Gentiles that Christianity and antisemitism are absolutely incompatible. More than that, they prove that YHVH is not – as some think – “finished with the Jews.” More than that, they prove that any Christian teaching that speaks of the Church as the “New Isra’el” (a phrase found nowhere in the B’rit Chadashah but invented by the theologians) which has replaced the “Old Isra’el” (by which they mean the Jews) is vastly oversimplified and open to abuse (Romans 11:23-24; Galatians 6:16). More than that, these verses demonstrate once again that Paul himself was not an anti-Semite and did not teach that all the promises to Isra’el have now been given to the Church; instead, he had a deep and concerned love for his own Jewish people, warned very severely against antisemitism, and confirmed the promises God made in the TaNaKh with His light-bearing words of hope: All Isra’el will be saved (11:26a).

Since I myself am an emissary sent to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15, 22:17-21, 26:17-20; Galatians 1:16, 2:7-9; Ephesians 3:8), I make a point of letting Jewish people know about the importance of my work. One hears little these days about this principle of evangelism. Most Christians do not have a ministry to Jewish people, so they suppose that they have no particular responsibility toward them. They are rarely encouraged to make their ministry to Gentiles known among the Jews as a means of provoking them to jealousy the way Paul did. Paul is very cautious about what he hopes to accomplish – he has some hope that somehow he may provoke some of his own people to jealous of saved Gentiles, and save some of them also (11:13b-14)! Actually, Paul spent considerable time among Jews (Acts 13:5) and in at least one instance, in Rome, the very city to which this letter was written, he seems to have had, a few years later, a notable evangelistic success with them (Acts 28:24-25).²⁹⁶

Why does Paul persist in using his energy to make his ministry known among the people whom he expects to be unreceptive? For if [the unbelieving Jews] rejecting Yeshua means reconciliation for the world, what will their accepting Him mean, if not life from the dead (11:15)! With the national salvation of Isra’el the Messianic Kingdom will be established. And the blessings of the Kingdom will not be limited to the Jews, they will be available to the Gentiles as well. Therefore, if the Gentiles have benefited this much from Jewish unbelief now, how much more will they benefit from Jewish belief in the future Messianic Kingdom?²⁹⁷