26-0802sc - Detailed Summary

Steve opens by stating his intention to remain in Romans chapter 11 in order to make several important points. He explains that he also wants to keep the discussion within the broader context of chapters 9, 10, and especially 11. Before beginning the study proper, he leads the class in prayer. He thanks God for the privilege of gathering to study the Spirit-inspired Scriptures and asks for understanding and insight into Paul’s sometimes difficult writing. He prays that the group would receive the blessings God intends through their fellowship and study, closing the prayer in Jesus’ name.

Steve notes that he is using the New American Standard Version on a computerized Bible. He emphasizes that God has a clear purpose for every human life and for everything that has happened from Genesis 1:1 onward. That purpose is disclosed for the first time in Ephesians 1. Paul declares that God has blessed believers with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. God chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world so that they would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined them to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.

The purpose of this predestination is that people would not be lost but would live with God in heaven. Scripture repeatedly affirms that God does not desire any to perish. Everything is done so that believers will praise the glory of His grace, the grace He freely bestowed in the Beloved, Jesus Christ. In Christ they have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on them. God made known the mystery of His will: in the fullness of the times He will gather all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ. Believers have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His will. Those who first hoped in Christ, and later Gentile believers who heard and believed the gospel, were sealed with the Holy Spirit as a down payment of that inheritance, all to the praise of His glory.

God’s purpose is also seen in His dealings with Abraham. He developed Abraham’s faith through the land promise, the seed promise, and the promise that all nations would be blessed. When Abraham still had no child by Sarah, he believed God’s word that the promised heir would come through her, not through Ishmael. Steve asks the class what God is ultimately looking for in mankind. Answers such as belief that God exists and obedience are offered, but Steve presses further: God wants people to live the way He intended them to live. He is less concerned with outward sacrifices than with a life that glorifies Him by matching His expectations.

Steve turns to Job as the clearest illustration. In Job 1 God asks Satan whether he has considered His servant Job, a man who is blameless, upright, fears God, and turns away from evil. Job lived according to the moral standard God had placed in the human heart long before the written Law or the Gospels. That is the lifestyle God seeks. Steve then shifts to Romans 10 to show Israel’s failure to live the same way.

Paul’s heart’s desire and prayer for Israel is their salvation. He testifies that they have a zeal for God, yet it is not according to knowledge. Not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. They were not living like Job; they were inventing their own values and morals rather than seeking the righteousness God requires. The result is that they failed to glorify God by living according to His standards.

Steve compares God’s desire to a parent’s pride when children live up to the family’s values. He illustrates with his own son’s choices. The young man was an excellent trombonist and eligible for a coveted Peterson Prize that required perfect attendance at band practices. He chose instead to attend an activity at Michigan Christian College and thereby disqualified himself. Steve was proud because his son placed higher values above personal recognition. Later, the coach of a traveling baseball team invited the son to join, but the team played and traveled on Sundays. The young man declined. Again Steve was proud that his son upheld the family’s Christian convictions. He asks whether God does not feel the same pleasure when His children live according to His righteousness.

Returning to Job, Steve recalls Satan’s challenge: Job is faithful only because God has protected and prospered him. God permits Satan to strip Job of family and possessions but not of his life. Job loses everything yet refuses to curse God, declaring that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Satan returns and is allowed to afflict Job’s body with boils, still sparing his life. Even when Job’s wife urges him to curse God and die, Job remains steadfast. Steve concludes that this is the kind of faithful, God-honoring life the Lord desires from mankind and from Israel—yet Israel was not seeking it. Instead they relied on their own strength and their own self-made righteousness.

Steve concludes that God is looking for people to seek and follow His will, and that is precisely the complaint He has against the Israelites at this point. After inviting questions and remarking that he has finished his “rant,” Steve turns back to Romans 10, beginning at verse 5. Moses writes of the righteousness that is based on the law, stating that the person who performs the commandments will live by them. In contrast, the righteousness based on faith speaks differently. It warns, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will go up into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” Instead, faith declares that the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart—the very word of faith that is being preached. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

Steve notes that he only recently recognized that Paul is quoting Moses from Deuteronomy 30. In that chapter Moses tells Israel that the commandment he is giving is not too difficult or far away. It is not in heaven so that they must ask who will go up and bring it down for them, nor is it beyond the sea so that they must ask who will cross over and bring it to them. On the contrary, the word is very near them, in their mouth and in their heart, so that they may obey it. Moses is telling the people they have no excuse. God has already provided everything they need through the word that has been spoken and written. They do not need someone to descend from heaven or arrive from across the sea to explain what God requires. Everything necessary is already present; they simply need to ask God for understanding and insight so they can live by it.

Paul applies the same truth in Romans. The word of faith is already near. All that remains is to believe the message of the gospel—the plan of salvation that is the product of God’s mercy and grace. What must be believed is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the long-standing promise God made to Israel. This is how God accomplishes His purpose of making people righteous in His sight and providing the justification they need. Israel, however, refuses to accept that Jesus is that promised fulfillment. A class member observes that one does not have to bring Christ down from heaven or up from the dead because Christ has already come down of His own accord and, because of His sinless life, has already been raised. Steve affirms the observation: faith must believe that Jesus is the Christ, the fulfillment of the promise—the very truth the Jewish people reject.

Righteousness therefore does not come from how carefully one keeps the law. It comes because Christ came to earth, lived a sinless life, died, and was raised. Through that death and resurrection those who believe receive His righteousness. Paul is contrasting two approaches: those who insist that their own law-keeping produces righteousness, and the gospel message that righteousness is given through Christ. The word of faith being preached is that one must confess with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in the heart that God raised Him from the dead. With the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness; with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. Scripture promises that whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is rich to all who call on Him. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Israel, however, refuses to accept Jesus on these terms.

Steve moves into Romans 11 and asks what Israel’s trespass actually is. He first reminds the class that God has a fail-safe plan that must be carried out: Jesus has to go to the cross and die. The people who have a complaint against Jesus are not the righteous; they are those who sense that their own positions are being displaced. God has already established Jesus as high priest after the order of Melchizedek, and Jesus has come to establish His own church. Consequently the entire Mosaic system of worship is becoming obsolete and will no longer be recognized by God. Israel’s leaders understand that they are about to lose their status and privileges. Their trespass, therefore, is the misuse and perversion of the law. Jesus is the end of the law, which means He deals with the law in such a way that God can now exercise mercy and grace. Up to this point the law itself contains neither mercy nor grace. The law can only declare a person righteous or declare a person sinful and subject to death. When God established the law of sin and death, every sinner stood under its condemnation; God could not simply set the law aside.

Jesus must therefore die by virtue of the law. The law itself places Him on the cross. The charge is blasphemy, even though He is in fact the Son of God. The Jews pervert the law and the gospel, and on that erroneous basis the law condemns Him. The law does not justify Him; it condemns Him. Who then reverses the verdict? God does. By raising Jesus from the dead, God publicly testifies that Jesus is His Son (as Paul has already stated in Romans 1). Because Jesus is a righteous man who dies for no personal sin of His own, the law is overridden. God is now free to extend mercy, grace, and justification through His Son. Israel’s trespass is that they rejected Jesus as the Christ even though God had already proved Him by signs, wonders, and miracles (Acts 2). They had no excuse, yet they refused to believe.

Because of Israel’s rejection, God is no longer limited to condemning the Gentiles as well. He can now include in the gospel every person who has sinned and fallen short of His will. Turning to Romans 11:11, Paul asks whether Israel stumbled so as to fall beyond recovery. Far from it. By their wrongdoing, salvation has come to the Gentiles in order to make Israel jealous. If their failure means riches for the world and for the Gentiles, how much more will their eventual fulfillment mean? Paul, as apostle to the Gentiles, magnifies his ministry in the hope of moving his own people to jealousy and saving some of them. If their rejection brought the reconciliation of the world, their acceptance will be nothing less than life from the dead. If the first piece of dough is holy, the whole lump is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches. Steve stops at this point, explaining that they will pick up the rest of the chapter the following week. He notes that Israel, like the rest of the world, stands under condemnation because of failure, yet the whole world is now in a position to be saved. He expresses eagerness for the continued study of chapter 11 and hopes he has not overburdened the class with his enthusiasm.