God's Redemptive Plan: Unity and Salvation for All

For as you 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 for God has concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. [00:01:07]

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 a cursed from Christ for my brethren my Kinsmen according to the flesh who are Israelites. [00:05:56]

Now 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. [00:10:39]

Now 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. [00:12:08]

What I have said says the Apostle in and of itself is rarely 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. [00:13:07]

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 at in chapter 11 and especially as you go on towards the end it's not a contradiction it's an addition and an addition is not a contradiction. [00:14:49]

Prophecy is not proleptic history now 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 now that's what he means by prpic history history is concerned to give us knowledge of the past that erate is the real business of history. [00:19:23]

Great events are for to 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 his 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. [00:21:18]

Our greatest danger in the interpretation of Prophecy always is is to read in to 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 mind 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. [00:25:32]

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 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. [00:36:05]

All we are told is that it is after the fullness of the Gentiles become in that's plainly stated in verse 25 blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become 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 are not told anything about it. [00:38:38]

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 Gentiles 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 but isn't there or else it is mere speculation. [00:47:07]