Page 62 - Romans Student Textbook.doc

10.4 Chapter 9: Salvation Illustrated in Israel: God’s Salvation of a Remnant

Introduction

Paul expounded and explained the salvation that is provided for those who trust in Jesus Christ
in the first half of this letter. He did so because he was setting the stage to tell the Roman
believers about how to repair the rift that was growing in their community between two
groups of people whom he calls “the weak” and “the strong.” But before he could begin to give
instructions, he decided to spend a little more time reinforcing the foundation from which he was going to
give his instructions. To bolster the truth that he has just taught he took time to illustrate how this
salvation works with an example. The example that he used to illustrate the reality of this salvation by
faith in Christ is the example of the nation of Israel.

With this illustration Paul anticipated a significantly relevant question about the nature of the salvation
that God provides. The question is “What about Israel? Don’t they get salvation by keeping the Old
Testament law?” To head off such questions among the people to whom he wrote, Paul raised the issue
himself. In doing so he used the salvation of Israel as the strategically appropriate illustration of how God
provided salvation for all people. It is strategically valuable because the connection to Israel is at the heart
of what defined a believer in Rome as either “weak” or “strong.”

Paul used this illustration in an attempt to communicate three thoughts that all of the believers in Rome,
both “the weak” and “the strong” needed to remember.

(1) Even though it looks like God is done with Israel He is still working to redeem a remnant of Israel.
(2) God’s offer of salvation to all people includes Israel even when the majority of them resist the
message.
(3) God includes the Gentiles in His salvation for the purpose of bringing Israel to the place of repentant
trust in Jesus as their Messiah.

Paul’s deep desire was that the Jewish nation would come to trust in Christ as he had. (9:1-5)

Paul prefaced his discussion of this illustration with a declaration of his love for Israel and his
understanding of the special place before God that God gave them in the history of mankind. Paul was
genuinely anguished by the fact that the majority of the Jewish people had rejected the message of the
gospel. He said this in the context of having repeatedly gone to place after place and synagogue after
synagogue to preach the message of salvation through Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. Paul’s strategy as He
went to a new city was to go to the Jewish synagogue and preach the gospel to them first. The response
of the Jews in Corinth was typical of what happened when he did this.

And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and
Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Jesus
was the Christ. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them,
“Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” . . . But when
Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews make a united attack on Paul and brought him before the
tribunal, saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.”
61

It is with the words and actions that accompanied such repeated rejection of His attempts to lovingly
share the good news with his people coming to his memory that Paul wrote of his love for the Jews. He

61 Acts 18:4-6,12-13, ESV.
61