Chapter # 11 Paragraph # 2 Study # 2
January 6, 2019
Humble, Texas
(100)
1769 Translation:
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 fulness?
1901 ASV Translation:
12 Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
- I. The Unanticipated (by Legalists) Impact of Israel's Trespass.
- A. The faulty translation, "fall", is misleading. The word is the typical word for a step made across a known and forbidden boundary. Paul uses it 8 times in Romans, 5 of which are in chapter five and refer to Adam's act in the Garden of Eden of eating the forbidden fruit. This is, in tradition, called "the fall of man", but it needs to be seen as "the rebellion of man" in view of the greatness of the transgression against explicit warning by God.
- B. Israel's grievous "transgression" consisted primarily in the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, though it had its "parts" (antagonism, argumentative opposition, accusation of demonism, commitment to the pride of life, apostasy from God, etc.). This was Israel's "transgression"; the most heinous sin imaginable (a creature rising up in murderous hatred to "transgress" his/her station and attack the Creator with murderous intention and call it "serving God").
- C. At issue in the larger context is not so much Israel's act, but God's reaction: did He decide to consign them to the Eternal Destruction that they deserved?
- 1. Yes, if we carefully understand the reality of a "segment" of "Israel" known as "The Hardened".
- a. "Israel" is "national Israel" as a fulfillment of the promise to Abraham of "a great nation".
- b. Within "national Israel" is a large body of unbelievers known to us as "The Hardened". They are sometimes called "Israel" (as in 9:27), but are recognized to be "not Israel" (as in 9:6).
- 2. No, if we also understand the reality of a "segment" of "Israel" known as "The Elect Remnant".
- a. As above, there is an "Israel" that is "national Israel" that includes everyone who descended from Jacob under his new name "Israel".
- b. But, also as above, there is within "national Israel" a group known as "The Elect Remnant" (as in 9:27 and 11:7) who are, in addition to being the offspring of Jacob/Israel, also of the faith of Abraham (4:12).
- 3. There are actually four "Israels". There is an "Israel" that is a "nation". Then, there is an "Israel" that is the physical offspring of Jacob ("Israel") known to us in this context as those who are "hardened". Then, there is an "Israel" that is both the physical offspring of Jacob and the children of the promise of God known to us as "The Elect Remnant". This is the distinction made by Paul in Romans 9:8 where there is no denial that all Israel came from the loins of Jacob, but there is a distinctly separate group within that "all Israel" that was marked as "children of promise" because God produced them by His own action even though He used the physical processes of sexual intercourse that are involved in all of the production of offspring [Isaac was "the original son of promise" whom God produced even though He used Abraham's and Sarah's involvement in the sexual processes that got the sperm and egg together in Sarah's womb]. In this divine production, the crucial element was "faith" because the crucial provision was "promise". It was "by faith" that Sarah received the ability to conceive (Hebrews 11:11) Thus, God, by creating "faith" in "some", created an "Israel" (of those who believed God) within the larger "Israel" (of those produced by Jacob but were characterized by both disbelief and an argumentative spirit ((10:21)). And, finally, there is an "Israel" that was called "Israel" that was a "kingdom" made up of those who rebelled against the house of David because of the foolishness of Solomon's successor/son and it was known as "Israel" in distinction from the kingdom ruled by the house of David, also known as "Judah". This is the "Israel" against which Elijah complained before God in 11:2-3. This makes confusion possible, but it also makes it possible for us to gain understanding if we recognize the reality of four groups of people who are called "Israel".
- 4. Thus, Paul's question is not whether God reacted to "The Hardened" by determining to eventually consign them to Perdition (He actually did do this), but whether God's reaction wiped out all of His promises regarding a national, genealogical and believing "Israel". He is fulfilling those promises by generating and preserving "The Elect Remnant" that will be eventually winnowed down to exclude all Israelites who do not believe and to include all Israelites who do.
- 5. At this stage of Paul's reasoning, it is the national group of "Israel" that is in view: what "Israel" as a nation did and how God reacted.
- D. The elements of Paul's reasoning.
- 1. It was the "occasion" of "Israel's" transgression that opened the door to what he calls "riches of the world" and "riches of the nations".
- a. In both phrases, "riches" is the focus.
- 1) Paul uses the term in four places in Romans.
- a) The first use is found in 2:4 and has the sense of "extensiveness". The challenge is to the judgmental to consider their "fault" in thinking too little of the vastness of God's "goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering". There is this vastness/extensiveness of the glory of the infinite God in the specific sense of an immeasurable "richness" to His "goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering". In other words, God's enormous self-restraint toward wicked people in treating them with grace far beyond normal human expectation in light of His "desire" that they come to "repentance" (the term used in Romans 2:4 and given the meaning of "being saved" in 1 Timothy 2:4) and in the greater light of His "determined intention" that the Elect ("usward", identified in 1 Peter 1:2 and 2 Peter 1:10 as The Elect) come to "repentance" (2 Peter 3:9 using Paul's word in Romans 2:4). It is the outcomes of this "vastness of God's goodness" that are called "riches".
- b) The second use is found in 9:23 and has this same sense of "extensiveness". In that text the focus is upon what God's intention is for generating what Paul calls "vessels of mercy". There are "competing themes" in the "glory of God" that consist primarily of "wrath and power", on one hand, and "mercy" on the other. These, in the minds of men, are antithetical: power exercised in wrath vs. power exercised in mercy. In this reference, Paul applied the issue of "extensiveness" primarily to those aspects of "glory" that are attached to "mercy" as the end objective that has been determined ahead of time. And, just as in 2:4, his "point" is that God's "riches" consist of the outcomes of the vastness of God's goodness.
- c) The third use is found in our current text and Paul doubles down on the impact of the term "riches" by using it twice in this one sentence.
- d) And the last use is found in 11:33 where Paul breaks out in an exultant outburst regarding "the depth of the riches" (the extraordinary vastness) as it is applied to the wisdom and knowledge of God, both of which are far, far beyond man's abilities to get a handle on them ("unsearchable" and "past finding out").
- 2) The consistent thesis in all four of these texts is that "riches" boils down to "goodness" expressed to men in real time and events that is so extensive as to go far beyond man's grasp, or even his imagination (1 Corinthians 2:9).
- b. This vastness of goodness was directed by God toward both the "world" and the "nations".
- 1) The terms "world" and "Gentiles" both refer to the same group of people, but are used to clarify Paul's declaration that God has responded to "Israel" by turning to the other inhabitants of the "world" and to the other "nations" that exist alongside of national Israel on this created earth.
- 2) That they are the same is indicated by the grant of "salvation" to the "nations" in 11:11 to provoke Israel to repentance. "Salvation" is an umbrella term to indicate the vastness of the "riches" and includes "forgiveness of sins", "justification", "a commitment to sanctification and glorification", "places of honorable service in the Kingdom of God's Messiah", etc., etc. . The "umbrella" is "vast" as are the "riches" that exist under its cover.
- 2. Paul added a second description of this "occasion". He said, first, that it was Israel's "transgression" that created the "occasion" of God's turn to another facet of His Larger Plan. Now he adds what the translators call "the diminishing" (Authorized Version) or "their loss" (ASV).
- a. The word is rare in the New Testament, used only by Paul and only in two texts/contexts (Romans 11:12 and 1 Corinthians 6:7).
- b. It is defined in the English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains as "a lack of attaining a desirable state or condition". Vine's Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words says that it is in contrast in this text to the idea of "fulness" as a "filling up" to a given capacity.
- c. The word is a perfect choice given the major concept of Romans 9:31. Israel "failed" to arrive at their desired status of recognition by God because of their superior behavior.
- d. Thus, Paul is declaring that it was Israel's failure to prove their worthiness to inherit in Messiah's Kingdom that caused God to open the door of "salvation" to "nations".
- II. The Unanticipated Impact of Israel's Arrival in Fulness.
- A. It is Paul's theology that "Israel" has a future before God as the primary nation within the association of nations that will exist in Messiah's Kingdom. There will be no nation known as Judah.
- B. It is also his theology that those "nations" will not arrive at their full experience of God's "riches" until after "Israel" does. With this the entire eschatology of the Scriptures agree: Israel will be brought to the desired state of being accepted by God before Messiah's Second Coming and His establishment of the Kingdom of God on the earth with the other "nations" being, at that time of Israel's exaltation, given the fulness of the experience God offered to them when Israel rejected both Him and His Lord and Christ at His First Coming.
