What about the Rest of the Jews?
RO142-01

Going to Heaven

Salvation by Grace – Not by Works

The Jewish People

So, we begin today in Romans 11:7, where the apostle Paul deals, first of all, in verses 7-8, with the testimony of the prophets. Verse 7 deals with the victory of the elect. Paul begins with the words, "What then?" The words "what then" is an expression in the Greek Bible which is asking simply: "What conclusion shall we draw from what has been said?" What is the conclusion that we may arrive at in view of what has been said in Romans 11:1-6?"

"Israel has not obtained that which he seeks for." Then Paul expresses what the conclusion is that is to be drawn. He says, "Israel has not obtained something." The Greek word for "obtain" looks like this: "epitugchano." "Epitugchano" really means to grab hold of something. The Jews, in time past, have been trying to grab hold of something, and they have done everything they could to grab hold of this thing that they were pursuing. It was a national obsession. And Paul says, "The thing they were trying to grab hold of, they did not obtain.

They were seeking it, and the word for "seeking" is this Greek word "epizeteo." The first part of this word is really a preposition, which is added to this verb. And when the Greek language does that, it's a way of intensifying what the verb is saying. The Jews were just speaking indifferently. They were doggedly, persistently seeking something. They were intently looking for something.

So, we translate the first part of verse 7: "That which Israel is constantly and earnestly seeking for, it has not obtained." Now what the Jews, as a whole, are seeking to this day, with a dogged persistency, is the righteousness that they need to go into heaven. And that's what Paul is talking about. The Jews have been trying, in one way or another, to get righteous with God so that He will let them into His heaven.

The Jews, as a whole, Paul says (and he has already pointed this out previously in this book of Romans) – "The Jews have not been successful in this pursuit. For example, in Romans 9:31-32, he has pointed this out, when he said, "But Israel, who followed after the Law of righteousness, had not obtained to the Law." Israel, which is pursuing finding the Law by which one gets righteousness, hasn't found it. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by works. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. The reason they didn't find this principle of righteousness that they were looking for is because they thought they could secure it by how they lived, and how they acted, and how they treated other people, and how they treated God – their good works.

Romans 10:2-4 pointed out the same thing to us: "For I bear them witness that they (the Jews) have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness (God's standard of absolute righteousness), and going about to establish their own, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." They tried to meet God's absolute standard with their relative righteousness.

Verse 4 says, "For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that believes." They were trying to get righteousness by the human doing of the rituals and the works of the Law. Paul says, "It doesn't work. They've not found the principle. Jesus Christ has terminated all that human effort stuff.

So, the picture here for the Jews is very sad indeed. They're trying to secure a righteousness which is acceptable to God. And the whole nation was pursuing this goal. This righteousness was exemplified for them, of course, in the Mosaic Law. It had spiritual, civil, and social guidelines for their conduct in relationships. It was exemplified in the religious rituals (the ceremonial righteousness) that they maintained – the washing of hands and the washing of pots, all of this, which were pictures of cleanliness before God. This righteousness they needed to get into heaven was portrayed by the religious feasts and the holidays which commemorated this absolute righteousness. But all of their works of religion and morality secured no acceptance with God for eternal life in heaven.

Works and Faith

So, the divine order is always this: grace; and, out of grace comes faith in Christ; and out of faith in Christ comes salvation; and out of salvation comes divine good works for which God rewards. Most of the human race is following the same misguided path that the Jewish people have followed for centuries.

So, the apostle Paul says, "What shall we conclude in view of what we have just said?" And what he concludes is that what Israel is constantly and earnestly seeking for, it has not obtained."

Election

This word is illustrated, for example, in Acts 9:15: "But the Lord said to him, 'Go your way. For he (that is, the apostle Paul) is a chosen vessel (an "ekloge") unto Me – to bear My Name before the gentiles, the kings, and the children of Israel. So, this word refers here to a group of Jews who are specifically chosen by God for salvation.

This elect group in verse 7 is the same group which was described in Romans 11:5 as a remnant. In verse 5 we read, "Even so then (at this present time), there is a remnant, according to the election of grace;" that is, a small number of Jews who are going to heaven, because God has elected them for that purpose – these individual Jews out of the whole nation. This word, of course, again reminds us of the sovereignty of God in this matter of election. He says, "Now, these people – they did obtain it. They did secure that something that they were looking for. They did secure the righteousness they needed for salvation.

So, Israel, as a whole, did not secure the blessings of salvation, but a divinely chosen portion of the nation did: "They have obtained it." Well, that leaves the question: what about the rest of the Jews? It is very clear to us today, and it has been true over the centuries, that, compared to the number of Jews in the world today, we would describe those who are saved as a mere handful. A mere handful of Jews are saved. Those are going to heaven. The Bible's very clear about that, because they're following God's grace plan of trusting in Christ. But now what is going to happen about the rest?

What about the Rest of the Jews?

Calloused

Calloused by God

The Jews or harden against Jesus Christ by their own sin natures. Ephesians 2:3 and 2 Corinthians 3:12-16 indicate that hardness of the sin nature. So, what God has done is that He has abandoned the Jews in their calloused condition. And when God abandons you in your calloused condition, that ensures that you are going to be hardened.

We are all born with indifference toward Jesus Christ. The Bible says, "There's none that seek after God; no, not one." We are indifferent; we are calloused to or God; and we are hardened against Him. That is our natural inclination as we grow up. And if you have found that you have a sensitivity that brought you to accept the Savior, you may count on the fact that that did not come from within yourself. You may count on the fact that it came to you just like it came to this remnant of Jews – that God raised you up to make that response.

Now, that, folks, is the meaning of grace. Do you see why I've been hammering away at the fact that grace comes first: not your faith; and, not your faith in Christ, so that God, in grace, sees you? That's very bad to think that way. You must appreciate grace – how absolutely we have nothing. We come out of nothing. We have nothing to offer. A person must understand that it's God's grace that comes into his life, and, suddenly, he finds that he's got faith in Christ. It's grace, and then faith.

So, the Jews are in a terrible condition. Their hardening against God's salvation, by grace through Christ, has caused them then to create their own means of justification, apart from Jesus Christ. And what they created makes sure that they're going to go into the lake of fire. They were bad enough before they resisted Christ, and when they came up with their own works system, it was the last nail in the coffin. It sealed their doom.

So, election leads to salvation, while hardening leads to eternal condemnation. Paul's point is that most Jews have been left hardened against Jesus Christ. They go into hell, while a small number is chosen by God to trust in Christ, and God enables them to trust in Christ. So, they go to heaven. The Jews, in their history, have often been hardened toward God's Word, but they have never been hardened so disastrously as they were in Paul's day, when they rejected the Messiah Savior Jesus Christ.

So, Paul says, "What shall we conclude?" Well, we'll conclude this: Israel has not obtained what it was seeking for – absolute righteousness. But there's a small group of Jews, called the election – they did get it. The rest of the Jews were left hardened against the truth.

In verse 8, Paul spells out the nature of spiritual hardening. If you have a King James translation, you have parentheses, beginning there at verse 8, and that parentheses in verse 8 should just be scratched out. It doesn't belong in there. He discontinues now, saying, "According as it is written." He's going to introduce an Old Testament Scripture to prove his statement about the Jews being hardened. The word "written" refers to the Old Testament Scriptures which have been written in the past, and the truth remains recorded to this day.

What he is referring to is actually two passages of Scripture. He's quoting now, in this verse 8, from Isaiah 29:10 and from Deuteronomy 29:3-4. I remind you that God the Holy Spirit was the author of the book of Isaiah. God the Holy Spirit was the author of the book of Deuteronomy. And now, it is his privilege and his right to lead the apostle Paul, his latest human author, to take ideas from Isaiah and from Moses in Deuteronomy, and to weave those ideas together into a new statement of truth in the New Testament. So, I don't want you to be disturbed when you read Isaiah 29:10 and Deuteronomy 29:3-4, and you discover that Paul is not quoting exactly word-for-word down the line. That was not his intention. Paul is remembering spiritual principles as the Holy Spirit guides him, which are drawn from these passages, and he restates them under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as a new statement of Scripture in the New Testament. So, we have no problem with the Holy Spirit using His own material to express an idea, so that it is relevant, at some point in time, where He is applying it.

These Old Testament passages describe the hardening which happened to the Jews in the time of the prophets, which was prophetic of the same thing that was going to happen in the time of Paul. And that's why Paul uses it. Paul says, "This is an old story with you guys. I can go back to Isaiah, and I can go back to Moses, and I can show you that this attitude of hardening was there, and it was there consequent to your own sin. So, God has delivered you repeatedly to your own attitudes, and your own hardening through the centuries, and you haven't learned the lesson.

This passage in Isaiah is used about four times in the New Testament, to prove this point of the Jews; attitude of hardened resistance toward what God is bringing them. One of those is Matthew 13:14-15, where we read, "And in them is fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, 'By hearing, you shall hear, and shall not understand; and, seeing, you shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people's heart has become gross; their ears are dull of hearing; their eyes they have closed, lest that, anytime, they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." And what that passage is saying is that the Jews cannot get the message. They are not receptive to it. So, they're on a self-destructive course.

Slumber

Have you not been aware of occasions that I'm sure you've had, someplace along the line, when you talk to people about something relative to the Word of God, and something that may be the gospel itself, and seeing how there was a kind of a sleepy, dull, drowsy indifference. Almost as you spoke, their mental yawn was expressed on an external yawn on their mouth, conveying their own indifference, and lack of being impressed with what you are telling them about how to go to heaven as being of any great value. Sleepy people do not think; they do not learn; and, they do not understand the truth.

The Hebrew word that is used here, "tenumah," which "katanuxis," the Greek word, translates, gives us an idea of what this Greek word is saying. The Hebrew word means "a deep sleep." It means an unconscious lethargy. It is the word that you will find used in Genesis 2:21, when it describes what God did to Adam when He took out the rib to make Eve. It's this same Hebrew word: "tenumah." Adam was out. He wasn't sitting there watching the operation. He was put into a deep sleep, and he didn't know what was going on until he came back to consciousness.

This was the same thing that happened to Abraham when God gave him a vision about what He was going to do in the future for him, presenting the details of the Abrahamic covenant. It says that: "God put Abraham into a deep sleep." It's the same Hebrew word.

It is also used in 1 Samuel 26:12, where it's describing King Saul, who has stopped for the night. He is surrounded by his attendants, and they're all in this deep sleep, so that David can sneak in with his associate. And if he wanted to, he could have killed Saul. But the attendants were in this deep sleep.

So, here we have something that carries the idea of stupefaction. You have to have your mind in gear mentally if you're going to be able to think about the things of God, and to understand how God works.

So, the first result of this hardness upon the Jews is that they have a mind that is spiritually dull toward Bible doctrine. It can't pick it up.

Then he goes further, and he says (quoting from those Old Testament passages) something about their eyes: "Their eyes" is referring here to the organs of sight. He says, "They cannot see." This word "see" is the Greek word "blepo," which is the Greek word for seeing as a focus; seeing to a point; or, seeing in detail in perspective. This is not just an overall panoramic view. What he says is, "God has done something to their eyes so they cannot focus on the truth." They see something in a general way, but they can't grasp the specific details. There are a lot of people like that. They cannot grasp specific details of the Word of God. Therefore, they can never function upon them.

God has Dulled their Seeing and Hearing

So, if you're going to get hard toward God, and if you're going to get calloused toward spiritual things, you're going to find this about yourself as we find it about the Jews. You're not going to be able to think straight about spiritual things or about your life. Secondly, you will not be able to see things in their true perspective. Your physical eyes will work, but you don't know how to interpret what you're seeing. You'll hear things with your physical ears, but you won't know how to interpret what you're hearing with your physical ears. You will not have the perspective to put it in order.

This statement about eyes and ears comes from Deuteronomy 29:4, where Moses is referring to the spiritual blindness and deafness of the Jews. I remind you that Moses is talking about the very people who saw the tremendous miracles of God caring for them from Egypt to their arrival in the Promised Land. 40 years later, after seeing these miracles and hearing the consequences of those miracles, they still can't connect. Now, that is spiritual dullness. They still are not trusting God. They're still leaning upon their own capacities. They have not grasped the spiritual message.

So, what the Bible is saying is, when your soul is hardened toward God, the physical eyes and ears may function, but the spiritual message is not grasped. God delivers those who resist His Word to a spiritual hardness of the mind, so that the resister then punishes himself. And the grimness of this is further reiterated by the final words. This condition upon the Jews of spiritual incapacity toward receptivity to God's thinking, and the truth about salvation is true: "Unto this day." And the Greek there is literally saying: "The today day." The words are saying literally: "That today day," which is the Greek way of saying "this very day." It was true in Paul day. After all the centuries, they were still dull of hearing, and incapable of seeing what God was really doing, and it is still true of our day today. The Jews in New Testament Times saw Jesus Christ. They heard Him speaking. They heard His true message. But they would not respond with positive volition, and they still don't.

Then, in verse 9-10, Paul brings another testimony from the Old Testament Scripture to prove his point. This time he goes to King David. In verse 9, he quotes David from Psalm 69:22-23, where David speaks about a table – a table of destruction. David said, "Let their table." The word "table" is the Greek word "trapeza," and this is the Greek word for a piece of furniture. In Psalm 69, their table refers to Jewish prosperity and blessing.

This is like in Psalm 23:5, where the reference is made to personal blessings in the form of a table. Psalm 23:5 says, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." What does that mean? It means you are preparing a feast of good things for me in the very presence of my enemies. In the midst of my troubles, you are prospering me.

An Imprecatory Psalm

However, you must remember that it is a God of justice. These Jews have done something so terrible such that what David calls down upon them as God's judgment is exactly what they deserve. God is not acting in injustice; nor is David in calling for these things.

So, Psalm 69 details the undeserved abuses and sufferings of David at the hands of other Jews. You can read that at your leisure. David is hated. He calls on God to save him from his brutal enemies, and to bring certain judgments upon them. In fact, he says, "Just wipe them out. Remove them from the role of the living." Now that's pretty extreme. But David says, "I've had it. And I call for justice. These people who are trying to take my life – I call upon you, God, to give them that which they are trying to unfairly place upon me.

The picture here is, while David's enemies feasted on good things at their table, we're told in Psalm 69, that they served him gall, which is poison to eat; and, vinegar to drink. Now, immediately that this Psalm is not only David speaking with his condition at that time, but the Holy Spirit is speaking through David about a coming Messiah. That's why we call this a Messianic Psalm. It is describing something that is going to happen down in the future when another righteous godly man, who is the voice of God, comes among the Jewish people, and they give Him the same treatment, and they give Him gall (poison); and, they give Him vinegar to drink. And you remember, of course, that this was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, when he came. The Jews treated Him as a man who did nothing but good; who brought them the truth of the Word of God; and, who brought them enlightenment. But because their mentality was sleepy; because their eyes could not see what was going on; and, because their ears could not grasp what they were hearing, they murdered Him. In the process of putting him on the cross, they gave Him gall to drink. And when the Lord tasted it, He recognized that it was poison, and He spit it out, and refused to have anything more to do with it. Later, when He thirsted, they gave him vinegar. This Psalm is talking about what the enemies of David were doing to him, but it was also talking about what the enemies (the Jews) would do to their own Messiah Savior.

So, the imprecation (the imprecatory demands) was a call for judgment's and curses in David's day, and they are the legitimate calls for curses and judgment upon the Jews who murdered their Messiah. And God, in both cases, came through for his man. What David wants is for his enemies (their luxurious table) to become bitterness, and to find that that luxurious table turns into their own destruction.

A Snare, a Trap, and a Stumbling Block

Where have the Jews come today? What is Jesus Christ to the average Jew today? The Lord Jesus Christ, to the Jew, is a trap. He's a net in which they get entangled. He is a stump on the ground that they trip on, and falls, and sometimes into a pit. All of these are instruments of death. So, the Lord Jesus Christ is the cause of eternal death in hell for the Jews, where He came to be the cause of their eternal life.

So, the table of prosperity, here in terms of the spiritual prosperity of the Jews, has been turned into gold and vinegar. The Jews did have a very prosperous spiritual table. On their table was found the Mosaic Law. On their table was found the Scriptures of the Old Testament, with all of God's divine viewpoint enlightenment to them. But they were negative toward the person of Jesus Christ, and toward His work. So, that very table of divine information was used against them to bring their destruction.

One of the things that the Jews had in their temple, you remember, was the table of shewbread in the holy place. There was this table. And on this table was piled up (two stacks) loaves of bread. They were just piled up. There were 12 loaves. One loaf was representing each tribe of Israel. This table of shewbread indicated that God was Israel's strength, and God was Israel's spiritual nourishment. God was their bread of life. And every time the priest walked into the holy place to minister daily, this bread was there. It was left there for one week. And it was bread which represented Jesus Christ as the bread of life. That's why there was no leaven in it – the symbol of evil. At the end of the week, those 12 loaves were taken out, and the priests would stand around in the precincts of the temple, and they would eat this with their meal. This was a sacred object. Then they would bake 12 more loaves, and pile them up in there for another week. It was God's symbol that He was their source of spiritual nourishment unto their eternal life, and sustaining them daily. He was their true bread of life.

However, when the real bread of life, Jesus Christ, came along, this table was a table of prosperity. It described a marvelous, wonderful thing that God had done to the Jewish people above all the nations of the world. God had taken them; He was feeding them; He was caring for them; and, He was taking them into heaven. When finally the thing that all this stood for, which was Jesus Christ, came on the scene, what should they do but reject the bread of life, and murder him.

John 6:35-51 give us that terrible response on the part of the Jews, and I think we should read it: "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. He that comes to Me shall never hunger. And he that believes on Me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that you also have seen Me, and believe not. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me. And Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." Did you get that? You've heard the truth, but you don't believe it. You're not believing it because you're not elect. You're not believing it because My Father has not drawn you: "Anybody who comes to Me for salvation." Did you get that? Anybody that says, "Hey, I want to be saved" is your first sign that you're elect. It's your first sign that God has chosen you. And I can assure you that you will not be cast out.

"For I came down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father's will who has sent Me – that, of all that He has given Me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day." He's saying, "Once I save you, you will stay saved: "And this is the will of Him that sent Me – that everyone who sees the Son and believes on Him may have everlasting life. And I will raise him up (physically) at the last day." He is saying, "I'll resurrect him too. He'll live forever, spiritually as well as physically."

"The Jews then murdered at Him because He said, 'I am the bread of life that came down from heaven,'" because they were thinking back, "Uh-oh, he's talking about the table of shewbread. He's talking about being those loaves which are God's nourishment to us. That's pretty arrogant. Who is this guy?"

"And they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He said, 'I came down from heaven?' Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, 'Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to Me except the Father who has sent Me draw him. And I will raise him up at the last day." He puts it in there again: "Go ahead. Complain. Be in a furor over what I said. I'll tell you once more that nobody comes to Me unless My Heavenly Father first draws you to Me. And if He does, you're going to live forever, because I'm going to raise you up. No matter how long you're dead, I'm going to put you back together. You will have eternal life. There is no doubt about it.

Verse 45: "It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught of God.' Every man, therefore, that has heard, and has learned of the Father comes unto to Me. Not that any man has seen the Father, except he who is of God, he has seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you: he that believes on Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and they're dead. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, that a man made of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

The Catholic Mass

Now, they have based it upon this Scripture. They says that you get into heaven by taking the Mass. That's why very faithful Catholics – they'll go to the mass every morning. That's the first thing they do, because they keep eating that body of Christ, and drinking His blood, because that takes them into heaven. Of course, the way you eat the body of Christ, and the way you drink his blood is what the Bible says. You trust in Him as personal Savior. It is an act of faith that brings you the benefits of the death of the body and the blood of Christ in sacrifice on the cross.

So, here is the table of shewbread. Here it's representing Jesus Christ. Here is a prosperous table. In effect, David says, "God, make this table, which should have been the source of their eternal life blessing (the source of their eternal life) condemnation in hell. Make it the source of their eternal death." And that's exactly what God has done. That's what it means to be hardened. Rejecting the true bread of eternal life, which is Jesus Christ, caused the ceremonial bread of the Mosaic Law to become poison to them, because they kept putting the loaves up there. They kept eating this bread, and they kept trying, with this ceremony, to get into heaven. And God says, "Now, that's poison." That's what the psalmist called it. He said, "Let it become poison to them. When I went to their mercy, they gave me poison. They gave me vinegar. May that now come upon them, and may they receive the just desserts of what they have done."

Jews, reaching for the promise of salvation on their ceremonial table, was like an animal reaching for a desirable bait in a trap that then destroyed them both. The very Mosaic Law, by which the Jews expected to be saved, became the cause of their eternal doom in hell, Galatians 3:10-14 tell us.

So, Paul's point is that it will be impossible for the Jews to escape destruction in hell when they reject Jesus Christ, who is portrayed in the Mosaic Law. The final result of all this, verse 10 says, is that they will get their just recompense. They will receive what they deserve.

Next time, we will pick it up there, and see what has come as a consequence to the Jewish people over all these centuries, as God indeed has fulfilled the call of David for justice, and how the spiritual blessings that Israel had, instead of being food unto life, became poison to their eternal death, and will be so for all gentiles who choose to follow their example in rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1988

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