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Study Section12: Chapter 11 - Salvation Illustrated in Israel. God’s
Salvation of the Gentiles was Designed to Bring Israel to Repentant
Trust in Christ

12.1 Connect
Do you remember the story in Matthew 15 about the Canaanite woman who came to Jesus
and asked for healing for her daughter who was possessed of a demon? Jesus answered her,
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is not right to take the children’s
bread and throw it to the dogs.” Sounds a little harsh! Jesus is calling a non-Jew (Gentile) a
dog. The woman replied, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the
master’s table.” Jesus was amazed at her faith, and immediately healed her daughter.

Jesus came to his own people (Israel), but they refused to accept Him as Messiah (John 1:12). And
because of the hardness of their heart, the Gospel was offered to the non-Jews. Paul was a missionary to
the Gentiles. He would always enter a new area by going to the synagogue, but once his message was
rejected, he immediately shared the Gospel with the Gentiles (dogs). In chapter 11, we discover that

God has allowed Israel to be hardened in their hearts and minds so that Gentiles might believe, but they
are still the chosen covenant people of God upon whom He shows His mercy.

Gentiles have been grafted into the family of God as the great plan of God to offer salvation to everyone.
He is not willing that any should perish, but that everyone would come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)

12.2 Objectives

1. Students should be able to explain how salvation to the Gentiles relates to the rejection of
Israel of the Messiah.

2. Students should be able to describe how God’s salvation of the Gentiles was designed to bring
Israel to repentance.

12.3 The Passage: Romans 11:1-36

Therefore, I say, God has not rejected his people has He? May it never be! For also I myself am
and Israelite, out of the seed of Abraham, tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people
who He foreknew. Or do you not know in Elijah what the Scripture says, as he interceded to God
for Israel? “Lord, your prophets they killed, your altar they destroyed, and I am left alone and
they seek my life.” But what was the reply He said to him? “I have left to myself seven thousand men who
have not bent a knee to Baal.” Therefore, thus also in the now season a remnant according to the choosing
of grace has become; now if by grace, no longer out of works, otherwise the grace would not longer be
grace. Why therefore? What Israel seeks, this it did not attain, but the chosen obtained, but the rest were
made stubborn, just as it is written,

God gave to them a spirit of stupor, eyes to not see and ears to not hear, until the present day.

And David said,
Let their table become unto a snare and unto a trap and unto a stumbling block and unto to a retribution
to them, let their eyes be darkened to not see and their back through all times be bent.

God has not rejected Israel completely, but rather, has chosen to save a remnant of them at the present
time.

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