From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We are still looking at this great statement in the 11th chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans. In particular, we are still concerned about the prophecy made by the great apostle, which he introduces in the 25th verse: "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved." Then you remember he goes on to confirm that by quoting from the Old Testament prophecies in verses 26 and 27.

Then he expands all this in verses 28 to 32. He says, "As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past," you Gentiles in other words, "in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all."

Our great contention has been that the apostle here, as indeed in the whole chapter, is dealing with the case of the Jews as a whole and as a nation. We have been bringing out that point as we have gone through the detailed exposition. Then last time we met together, three weeks ago, we considered the other possible expositions and explanations that have been put forward and tried to show how, in the light of our detailed exposition, neither of them was tenable. That is to say, neither the view that "all Israel" means all the elect or saved Jews and Gentiles, nor the second possibility that it means all the elect Jews, the aggregate of the Jews who become Christians throughout the entire period of the preaching of the gospel.

We gave grounds and reasons for rejecting both those and for asserting again what we've been saying right through the entire epistle, and particularly from verse 11 forwards, that this is a reference to the Jews taken as a whole. We therefore said that the prophecy is to the effect that at some time in the future, God is going to do this marvelous thing: He is going to restore the Jews whom He has temporarily cast aside. Blindness in part, temporarily, has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.

That is the position at which we have arrived. As I say, we can't quite leave it even yet. It is such an important statement and it's such a glorious statement that we must be careful that we don't detract from it in any way whatsoever. There is only one remaining objection that I can think of and that I am aware of with regard to the position that we are taking. That is, there are those who would suggest, I mean authors in the past who suggested, that this interpretation of ours seems to them, at any rate, to be doing a certain amount of violence to what the apostle has been teaching, particularly in chapter 9 at the beginning.

We are all agreed that chapters 9, 10, and 11 constitute a whole. It's a section; it is a part of this great epistle. You remember how there in the early part of chapter 9, the apostle's whole case has rested upon this thing he says in verse 6: that they are not all Israel which are of Israel. That's the key verse. We emphasized it at the time and we have referred to it many times since. They are not all Israel which are of Israel. You remember how he goes on to prove that by using the cases of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, and so on.

The argument runs this way: they say that is the apostle's fundamental answer to this whole problem, that we mustn't think of Israel as a whole, that the real Israel, the true Israel, consists only of the elect Israel. When you come therefore to say, as we have been saying here in chapter 11, that a day is coming when Israel as a whole, as a bulk, is going to be brought in, we seem to be running contrary to this great basic argument of the apostle, especially as it is expounded at the beginning of chapter 9.

What is the answer to that? It doesn't seem to me to provide us with any difficulty whatsoever. I answer it in this way: the apostle in these three chapters is dealing with this whole question of the Jewish nation. That's obviously the question. He starts off by saying, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites."

There's the introduction. You remember how he repeats that at the beginning of chapter 10: "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved." He's considering Israel as a nation. The big problem is this: at that time, as it is still true, the bulk of the people of Israel rejected the gospel and still do so and are outside the Christian church. That is the problem. It is, of course, a tremendous problem, and we can well understand how acute this problem was in the first century at the time when the apostle wrote.

I say we can understand it, but there is a sense in which we find it difficult to do so because we've been so accustomed to thinking of the church in terms of Gentiles and the Jews outside. At the beginning, it was the exact opposite. Here was this great tradition coming down the centuries in this nation. The Lord Himself was a Jew. These first preachers were all Jews. Yet here's the bulk of the nation outside, and it's only a remnant that is to be found inside the church. This is the staggering problem with which the apostle has to deal.

There are different views as to why he dealt with it. There are those who say that he just felt, after having come to the end of chapter 8, that he couldn't stop without dealing with this whole question of the nation of the Jews. It's a possible explanation and I am prepared to accept it, but I don't think it's the real explanation. My contention was, as many of you will recall, that the apostle raises this whole matter for this reason: in that tremendous passage at the end of chapter 8 from verses 28 to the end of the chapter, he has been bringing out the glorious doctrine of assurance, ending off with a triumphant shout.

"I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The purposes of God are sure. But here is a fact which seems to contradict all that: the purposes of God with regard to the nation of Israel. It seems to have gone entirely astray if the gospel is true and if the church is the people of God. That's the problem.

It's such a tremendous problem that he deals with it in a most thorough and systematic manner. It takes the three chapters to do it. Here at the beginning of chapter 9, he starts dealing with the problem. The point is that what he says at the beginning of chapter 9 is not the whole story. It's only a part of it, and it's only the beginning. In other words, we've got to realize that the apostle at the beginning of chapter 9 is, in a sense, introducing the matter, and that there is a very definite progress in his argument.

What he does is this: he starts with the immediate situation. Somebody might come along and say, "Now look here, Israel is the people of God." "Yes." "And you say that the purposes of God are always sure, that they can never fail. You remember that he uses this expression in the first half of verse 6: 'Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect,' which means not as though the word of God had broken down or had fallen down." That is what people were saying, and especially the Jews.

You see, they say, "You can't have it both ways. If you say Israel is the people of God and that the purposes of God are sure, well then look at the Christian church. The bulk of Israel is not in the church. You must be wrong somewhere." The apostle's reply is this, and this is the first part of his answer: "You've got to understand, and it's made quite plain in the Old Testament, that there is an Israel within Israel. Israel is, first of all, to be regarded from the standpoint of the flesh. Abraham is the father of the whole of Israel."

But he goes on to show, as we've seen, that there is another Israel, a spiritual Israel, within the natural Israel. God is interested in both, but his argument there is this: even though the number of the spiritual Israel may be very small indeed, it is still the true Israel. God has never promised that He would save every single Israelite who's ever lived. So he demonstrates in the whole of that argument in chapter 9, until he comes to the very end, that the fact that there has always been this remnant according to the election of grace is a proof that God's purposes have stood.

He puts it, you remember, in chapter 11: "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth." That satisfies that immediate point. He says, "You know what is happening now is not happening for the first time. There have been other times in the history of this people when the true Israel was indeed nothing but a very small remnant, and that is sufficient. God's promises to Israel are still being fulfilled even though it be in a remnant."

But you see, that is not the whole story. That is not the whole case. Having established that in chapter 9, and that in and of itself is quite enough, the apostle now in chapter 11 says something further. You remember we've regarded chapter 10 as a kind of, not a digression so much as an elaboration of one particular point which he makes at the end of chapter 9. So to get this big argument, you go straight from chapter 9 to chapter 11. Now then, in chapter 11, he says something like this: "What I've said," says the apostle, "in and of itself is really enough to satisfy our minds. But actually, in fact, something more is going to happen."

"At the present moment," he says, "there is nothing but a remnant." Verse 5: "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." You see, that's a summing up of the whole argument of chapter 9, this remnant that God has kept going. He says it's like that now. But, and here's the startling thing, it isn't always going to be that. It isn't always going to be a remnant. So he introduces this great idea in verse 11 where he talks about their provoking them to jealousy.

They haven't stumbled that they should fall; they're not finished with. And then you see in verse 12, "Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?" He repeats that, you remember, in verse 15. Then that there should be no doubt at all about it, in verse 25 he says, "I'm going to let you into the secret. I have received a revelation. I'm speaking as an apostle, I'm speaking as a prophet. I'm not arguing any longer." He'd been arguing in terms of the Old Testament. He says, "This is no longer argument. I give you a revelation."

This is the thing. This is the mystery which he is revealing. And the mystery is, as we've seen, that Israel as a whole is going to be brought in. Now you see, my contention therefore is that there is no contradiction at all between what he says at the beginning of chapter 9 and what he says here in chapter 11, especially as you go on towards the end. It's not a contradiction; it's an addition. And an addition is not a contradiction. Paul is not saying that it's always going to be a remnant and only a remnant of Jews that believe. "At this present time it is," he says.

But this other event is going to take place. He says what is happening now has proved to be a great benefit to the Gentiles, but it's nothing in comparison with what will take place when that happens. So you see, it's a question of the progression of the argument. Reason capped by revelation, a great manifestation of something that was secret and that was hidden and which is revealed to the prophet only by the Holy Spirit. There is no reason whatsoever for saying that the true Israel must always be a remnant. All Paul is saying is this: that that has often been the case. It was the case when he was writing; it would continue to be the case until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Then it won't merely be a remnant of Israel that will believe, it will be the whole of Israel, all Israel shall be saved.

I trust that that is satisfactory to your minds and to your understanding. If I may use a comparison, any man in developing a case, if he knows how to do it, sets out his case in bits and parts and portions and he works up to a climax. He does all he can by means of his own reason and understanding, but if there is a revelation, he ends with that. He doesn't start with it. That is what makes this whole section to me so wonderful. So many of us, I suppose, in this position, if we'd got this knowledge and information, we'd have replied at once by saying, "Oh, it's all right, look here, it's been revealed to me. I happen to know I've been let into the mystic secret that God's going to bring them in."

But the apostle doesn't do that. He wants to show the Jews that they are ignorant of their own history, and he keeps on driving it home to them with his scriptural quotations. They believe the scriptures. He's doing what our Lord did with them: "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: but they are they that speak of me." The Jews were all wrong. They'd misunderstood their own scriptures. The apostle does exactly the same thing, and he does that first. He only ends with this revelation as a kind of coping stone to show this amazing plan and purpose of God and how it never falls down or breaks down in any respect. Even when there's only a remnant, it is still standing. How much more so when we see it fulfilled in all its fullness.

There then is what I would regard as the only remaining objection to this exposition of this passage. Now having done that, there seem to me to be a number of general lessons taught here and especially with regard to this whole question of prophecy and its interpretation to which we must pay attention. You're all familiar with the way in which prophecy not only often has confused people, but prophecy unfortunately has often divided people. There is no doubt at all that this whole question of prophecy and its interpretation has often been used by the devil to confuse and to confound people, and as I say, most tragically of all, to divide them.

It's important we should know something concerning the way in which we approach this whole matter of prophecy and its interpretation, for that is what we're dealing with here. Now, what is the way to interpret prophecy in general? Here I can do nothing better than to quote to you Charles Hodge, who seems to me to have put this very perfectly indeed. Listen to Hodge: "Prophecy," he says, "is not proleptic history." That's a most important statement. Listen, he expounds that. "Prophecy is not proleptic history. It is not designed to give us the knowledge of the future which history gives us of the past."

That's what he means by proleptic history. History is concerned to give us knowledge of the past. That, at any rate, is the real business of history. Modern historians are turning it into all sorts of things. As they turn other things, they're turning it into philosophy, as they're turning science into philosophy. Но the business of history really, primarily, is to give us a knowledge of the past. You may, if you like, afterwards try to draw deductions and lessons, and we should do so. But of course, the trouble is today that the historians, instead of really dealing with the past as it is and giving us knowledge of the past, they start with their theories, and they twist and mold and manipulate the facts of the past to fit into their theory.

Now, that's bad history. And as when they do the same thing with science, it is bad science. According to Hodge, the business of history is to give us knowledge of that which has happened in the past. Now he says prophecy must not be thought of as doing that with respect to the future, in terms of details. Listen to him as he goes on. "Great events are foretold, but the mode of their occurrence, their details and their consequences, can only be learned by the event." Now history, you see, it tells you not only about the great events, it gives you the history, it gives you the details. It tells you the order in which they happened and how they happened, and it gives you the details and the consequences of what happened.

History, you look back and you see it all. Now he says prophecy isn't like that. Prophecy tells us about the great events that are going to happen. But the mode of their occurrence, their details, and their consequences can only be learned by the event, by when it happens. It is in the retrospect that the foreshadowing of history is seen to be miraculous and divine. What he means is this: it is only when prophecy has been fulfilled and you look back across it that you see how wonderful prophecy is.

Let me take the obvious illustration. Take the prophecies in the Old Testament about the coming of our Lord and so on. Now, the people who read those prophecies, or to whom they were read or expounded, they didn't see the great significance of what was happening. All they knew was that there was a promise concerning a Messiah. Но you and I with the knowledge of the gospels in our hands and the story, we look back and we read the Old Testament prophecies, and we see the amazing character of it all: the detailed information that was given, hidden of course at that time, but to us perfectly clear because we're looking at it in retrospect.

That's what Charles Hodge says. He says you mustn't go to prophecy and expect it to be a sort of detailed account of what's going to happen and all the consequences of what will happen in the same way as you have in the history of the past. The principle, he says, of interpretation of prophecy therefore is this: that it is concerned with the big things, not with the details. Now, the moment I say that, I think you see the importance of this principle that I'm laying down and I'm doing it through my quotation from Charles Hodge.

There are so many people today who regard prophecy as something detailed. I think I may have told you before of what happened to me on a certain Easter Monday as I was traveling to the West Country to preach. We arrived in the train at Reading, and a young man came into my compartment holding in his right hand a Bible and a copy of The Times. And I knew immediately what he was going to do that day. He was going to give an address on prophecy, and I turned out to be right. You see, how did I do it? Well, there was nothing clever about what I did. I happen to know this outlook, this mentality: the Bible and The Times. The detailed news and information in The Times, all foretold in the Bible, in the prophecy of the Bible.

And so you see, people expect to find these details and so on, and thus they've identified Napoleon with the man of sin, and then Hitler, and perhaps Stalin after that and so on. It's a wrong approach to prophecy altogether. We are not given these details. Now the scriptures themselves say so: we are not to be concerned about the times and the seasons. There's the general principle if you like. Now, we must bear that in mind as we're dealing with this particular passage. It's a big statement, but we've got to be very careful when we come to details.

Let me put that in the form then of a second principle: our greatest danger in the interpretation of prophecy always is to read into the text things that are not there. Why do we do that? Well, we do that, of course, because we've got a scheme in our minds, and we then tend to look for this and to find it everywhere. And if it isn't there, well, in a very subtle way we can put it in. And it's astounding to notice the way in which this is done. I'm going to give you an illustration or two in a moment.

Now let me again remind you that this is not peculiar to students of the Bible. I remember on one occasion, I think on a Sunday night, making this point from this pulpit. I'd just been reading a review by Mr. A.J.P. Taylor of the ten-volume monumental study of history by Professor Arnold Toynbee. And the point made by Professor A.J.P. Taylor was this: he said, "Of course, if a man dealing with history starts off with a theory in his mind," says A.J.P. Taylor, "he can make the facts of history prove his theory." And he says the trouble with Dr. Arnold Toynbee is this: that he started out with a preconceived notion, idea, and prejudice, and in this great review of the history of the world, he has just manipulated and twisted the facts to fit into his theory.

To which the answer, of course, was that A.J.P. Taylor does exactly the same thing himself, and both are wrong. The historian mustn't do that, but they do it, and they say that about one another, and to that extent it is bad history. You notice what his charge was: he said that he was manipulating the facts to fit into his theory. And of course, it can be done very cleverly. You slide over this and you put unusual emphasis there. You're still, in a sense, dealing with the facts, but an underlining here, inverted commas there, you can make the whole thing look so different. This is what is being done, incidentally, with the theory of evolution, which so many scientists are teaching us as facts today. They start rightly by saying it's a theory. A few pages further on, you'll find them referring to it as a fact. Now, that's the thing that people tend to do with prophecy.

It is the danger of reading in something that isn't there in order to support our own particular theory. Now, my contention is that here the apostle is dealing with one big thing only and nothing else. So my third principle is this: is to put before you what the apostle does *not* say here. And this is the thing I'm trying to emphasize: what he doesn't say here. The first thing he doesn't deal with at all here is the millennium and the second advent. He doesn't deal with them here at all. Но listen. Here's a Greek scholar, the late Dr. West of America, who was a most distinguished Greek scholar.

This is his actual comment on this passage we've been dealing with. He says, "Israel as a nation will, in the sovereign grace of God, be regenerated and filled with the Spirit to become again the channel through which God will operate for a thousand years to bring salvation to a Christ-rejecting world." Now, that's his comment on this very passage. You notice: "Israel as a nation will, in the sovereign grace of God, be regenerated and filled with the Spirit to become again the channel through which God will operate for 1,000 years to bring salvation to a Christ-rejecting world."

Again he says, he repeats this, he regards "all Israel" to mean that all, every single individual Jew alive at that time will be converted. I took some time in showing that it doesn't mean that and cannot, but he takes it that it does. Then he goes on: "This individual cleansing from sin will be followed by a national restoration to the Messianic kingdom with the Messiah reigning on the throne of David in Jerusalem as King of Kings and Lord of Lords for 1,000 years." He finds that in this passage of ours. You see what I mean by "reading in"? Where is there any mention of a thousand years here? It's just not here at all. Where is there any mention here of our Lord's second advent? It's not here.

Indeed, it seems to me that the 25th verse is enough in and of itself to exclude this interpretation. You see, the interpretation is that God is going to use this converted nation of Israel for a thousand years to bring salvation to a Christ-rejecting world. Whereas Paul says that "blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." The Christ-rejecting world will have received and believed before this happens to Israel. But according to this other interpretation, it's the other way around.

Now, why does a man do a thing like that? Well, he does it, you see, because he starts off with his particular theory about the millennium. And once you've got that, you find it everywhere. Any vague reference which seems to in any way point in that direction is taken hold of. "Here it is. Here it is. The nation of Israel's going to be saved." That's a perfectly correct statement. Но then you see, he adds to that. It isn't here; there's no mention of it. And yet as a part of his interpretation, he reads it in, he puts it in. This is the kind of thing I say we mustn't do.

Or take a second point: where do you find any reference whatsoever to the land of Palestine or of Israel in this section? Where is there any mention of the restoration of the Jews to the land? Where is Jerusalem as such and the reigning there of the Lord for a thousand years mentioned? And yet you see, those of you who read your Scofield notes, you will find that Scofield has a note in connection with verse 26 in which he says this: "According to the prophets, Israel regathered from all nations, restored to her own land and converted, is yet to have her greatest earthly exaltation and glory."

Where do you find it in the text? It's not there. It's not there at all. We are not told that all Israel is to be saved in this way, after they've all been gathered back into the land of Israel. We are not told that. They will be saved wherever they are, scattered if you like throughout the whole world, as far as this passage is concerned. And yet you see, it's dragged in, and this will be used then as an argument for saying that the people will be taken back to the land, and then they'll be converted, and then they will do this wonderful thing, and they will know their greatest earthly exaltation and glory. There's not a word about this in the whole section. It's entirely read in.

Now, this is the kind of thing which is happening and which is always liable to happen, and against which I am trying to warn you. Take that last point, which is my third point: this idea that we are told here that the Jews, the nation of Israel, is going to have a unique and separate position of exaltation. Again, I suggest there isn't a single word about that here at all. What the apostle actually says is this: that the Jews are going to be converted in exactly the same way as the Gentiles have been converted. No difference at all.

I read to you at the beginning from verse 11 tonight in order that you might have the whole context in your minds, and you've noticed that the argument is "as... so." There was a time, he says, when you didn't believe, but you were brought in through their failure. Even so, through you they are going to be brought in. It's exactly the same. Here's this olive tree. They were the natural branches; they've been cut off. You've been grafted in. God is able to graft them in again. There's nothing special. It's the same thing. He makes it perfectly clear that what is going to happen to the Jews is that they are going to be converted in exactly the same way as any Gentile has ever been converted. And when they are converted, they will be added to the church.

They won't have any special place. They won't have any special position. They won't have any uniqueness in the matter of exaltation. No, no. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. Here is the people of God, consisting of Jews and Gentiles in the one and only olive tree. And yet, you see, all this other is imported into this. Surely this 32nd verse should have prevented anybody from ever falling into that particular trap or that particular error. "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief." He's concluded the Gentiles in unbelief; He's concluded the Jews in unbelief.

That's what He's been saying in verses 30 and 31. "In times past ye have not believed... now they have not believed." God concluded you in unbelief, God is concluding them in unbelief. He's concluding both parties in unbelief in order that He might have mercy upon all. There is only one way of salvation, and Jew and Gentile enter into it in exactly the same way. And there is only one position for Christians, whether Jews or Gentiles, and that is members of the body of Christ. So you see, there is nothing here to teach us that the Jews are going to be in some special position in the kingdom of God. We are told the exact opposite.

All we are told about the Jews is this: is that for the fathers' sakes they are beloved, and God is going to bring them in. He's going to convert them. He's going to add them to the church. And that that in turn will be a wonderful means of blessing to the whole of the Christian church. That's what the apostle says, and he says no more than that. These other items are not mentioned at all, but men, in the interests of a theory, read them in. Now, my friends, the lesson I trust that we're all learning from all this is this: listen to the scriptures and don't go beyond them. Don't detract, don't add. Both are equally wrong. It is wrong to take away from; it is wrong to import into.

The scripture must be allowed to speak for itself. And all the apostle is telling us here, and he says no more, is that there is a day coming when Israel as a bulk and as a nation is going to be granted repentance and faith to believe, that they're going to be converted, to become Christians, to be added to the church. And it'll be such an astounding thing that it'll be really like life from the dead for the church.

Very well, let's be careful then that we don't read in what is not in the scripture itself. Let me deal with one other question, which is this: when is all this going to happen? That's a question that naturally suggests itself to our minds. If this is going to happen to Israel as a whole, as a nation, in bulk, when is it going to happen? And the only real answer we can give is this: that we're not told. All we are told is that it is after the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. That's plainly stated in verse 25: "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." We are told that they will be brought in by a kind of jealousy. He's been saying that several times over.

Now, nevertheless, though we're not told anything about it, there are those who would say that we're entitled to deduce from what we are told here that this will happen at the time of the second coming of our Lord, that this is going to take place at the time of the second advent. They tend to quote what we're told in the second part of verse 26: "There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." But we've already dealt with that when we were doing the detailed exposition, so I needn't go over it again.

Let me therefore bring some other arguments to bear upon this matter. I would say, in the first place, that if the apostle here is really dealing with the second coming of our Lord, he would say so. This apostle deals with the matter and the doctrine of the second coming of Christ in many places. And he does so quite plainly and quite clearly. When he's dealing with that, he says that he's dealing with that. He doesn't hint at it or deal with it indirectly. He makes plain statements, and that is why there is no difficulty about believing in the literal and physical coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This apostle of all apostles has dealt with that. So I'm arguing that if that is what he had in mind here, if he is saying that when the Lord does appear again, Israel seeing Him will then believe, he'd have said that and he'd have put it like that. He doesn't do so. And that to me is really enough in and of itself. But in addition, secondly, the teaching about the coming of our Lord in the New Testament is always to the effect that He will come as a thief in the night, sudden, unexpected, when men shall say, "Peace and safety," then... or as the lightning flashes from one end of the heaven to the other.

That is the way in which this doctrine is always presented. There's nothing like that here at all, nothing whatsoever. You rather are given the impression that the preaching of the gospel goes on, and the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, then in some way that is not explained to us, the Jews as a whole are going to be converted. Но there's nothing here to suggest some sudden event, some sudden appearance. That, I feel, is an argument that militates against it also.

But thirdly, I have a strong feeling that verses 12 and 15 definitely exclude this supposition altogether. The verses I've quoted so often to you: "If the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?" "If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" Now, the emphasis there is, of course, upon the conversion of the Jews and this astonishing phenomenon that's going to have such an invigorating effect upon the life of the church.

But you see, when the Lord Jesus Christ Himself will come again, when He makes His appearing, it is perfectly clear from the whole teaching of scripture, and we can all so easily understand it, that when that happens, the center of interest will not be the Jews, but the Lord. Nobody'll be looking at the Jews, whatever happens to them. Everybody'll be looking at Him. This will be the phenomenon: He shall have appeared. But you see, according to this teaching, when this happens to the Jews, they will be the phenomenon, and everybody will be looking at them, and rightly so, and amazed at them.

And the thing that happens to them will be the cause of the blessing: "If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" But believe me, my friends, however wonderful that will be, and it will be wonderful, it will pale into insignificance by contrast and comparison with what'll happen when He Himself will appear. This will be the phenomenon of phenomena, and every eye shall see Him and look upon Him, and we shall forget everybody and everything else.

Now, the apostle here is not talking about our Lord's second coming. He is talking about this thing which is going to happen to the Jews as a whole and as a nation. And it seems to me that his whole emphasis and description precludes the possibility even of its being associated with the second coming. And then I have another argument which to me carries very great weight. I'm going to read to you the eighth verse in the 18th chapter of the gospel according to Saint Luke. "I tell you that he will avenge them speedily."

It's after the parable, you remember, of that importunate widow who kept on worrying that judge. The Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" Now, that's a tremendous and a staggering statement. It is to the effect, you see, that when the Son of man does come, when He makes His second appearance, that there will be not much evidence of the faith upon the earth.

Whereas what the apostle is telling us here in Romans 11 is this: that the fullness of the Gentiles will have come in and all Israel will have come in. It'll be a tremendous period of a belief and of rejoicing in the faith. That seems to me to be enough to exclude the possibility that the apostle has in his mind here the second coming of our blessed Lord and Savior. The teaching about the second coming is this: that it will not only be unexpected and sudden, it will be in a time of great declension of the faith. Not only is that taught in the gospels, you get the same thing in the book of Revelation.

You get this terrible warfare, and the people of God seem to be on the point of extinction, when suddenly He will come and He will destroy all His enemies. So that I am arguing that I cannot see any possibility that what we are told about here in this prophecy in Romans 11 is a reference to something that is going to happen when our Lord makes His appearance or when, if you prefer it, His second coming takes place.

I confess freely I can't go any further. All I am prepared to say is this: it seems to me that what we are told here in the prophecy of Romans 11 is something that must take place before, well before, our Lord's second coming. For it appears that after this glorious period, there will be a period of declension, and He will come at that time and period of declension. Но what we are told about here is that the revivifying effect upon the church of the conversion of the bulk of the nation of the Jews is going to be one of the most astonishing phenomena in the whole long history of the Christian church. That is all we are told. And anything beyond that is either reading into the text what isn't there or else it is mere speculation.

Very well, we leave it at that for this evening. We'll have to go on to consider how this is going to happen and also the comfort and the strength and the consolation that it should give to all of us as God's people in this evil, trying, difficult age in which we find ourselves as members of the Christian church and as part of the people of God here upon earth. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, we thank Thee once more that we are in Thy hand, that Thou hast not left us to our own efforts and surmisings. We see how prone we are to wander, how ready to go astray, how ready to take from the truth or to attempt to add to it. We pray Thee again to keep us to that simplicity that is in Christ Jesus. Oh Lord, give us honesty as we face Thy word. Take from us any tendency to establish our positions or our prejudices. Give us grace, we pray Thee, to be ever ready to admit that we don't know, that we cannot tell.

Bring us, oh God, to that place in which we shall be content with what Thou hast been pleased to reveal to us, and not be led by a sinful curiosity to desire to know that which Thou hast not been pleased to make known unto us. Lord, we thank Thee for the revelation of the truth, for our being allowed to enter into the mystery of this knowledge which had been hid from generations in the past. Lord, may we so rejoice in it that we shall ever be filled with a sense of wonder, love, and of praise and of gratitude unto Thee for Thy great and abounding mercy to us. And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit, abide and continue with us now this night, throughout the remainder of this our short and uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and evermore. Amen.