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Pathways Through Paul
Daily Devotional
March 20
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Today's Pathway:
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Yesterday we saw that Paul enumerated the many blessings that Israel had received. Now he begins to show that those blessings do not necessarily guarantee that every Jew is a child of God. It should be noted that by the time of Paul's writing a large portion of those who had been saved were Gentiles, and many Jews had rejected the message. The transition from Christianity being primarily made up of Jews to being primarily Gentiles begins after Acts 7. In Acts 7 Stephen preached a very Old Testament focused message to the Jews in Jerusalem. He dealt with the blessings that God had given to them, and then showed how they had rejected God, persecuted the prophets, and murdered the Messiah. The Jews were angered, and they stoned Stephen. In the very next chapter we see Phillip preaching in Samaria, an area that the Jews despised because it was made up primarily of people who were a racial mixture of Jew and Gentile, and many people there believed his message and were saved. In Chapter 9 we see the conversion of Saul, who in Romans 11:13 refers to himself as the "apostle to the Gentiles". In chapter 10 we see Peter going to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. Cornelius and his family were saved and baptized. In chapter 11 Peter returns to Jerusalem and tells his fellow Jewish Christians what had happened. They were upset because he had gone to a Gentile's home and eaten with him. But when he explained how the Lord had led him to Cornelius, and how these people had received Christ and given evidence of their salvation, they responded by glorifying God and saying,
"Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."
From that point on, most of the converts to Christianity seem to be Gentiles.
Because of this transition, it might seem that God's Word had failed the Jews. After all, if God had given these blessings to Israel, why was not all of Israel saved? This is what Paul is dealing with in verse 6 of today's passage. The problem was not that God's Word had become inefficient or failed ("taken none effect"). The problem was that many of the Jews had rejected His Word. Paul then writes,
"For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel".
This statement, and others in this section of Romans have spawned some false teachings, primarily the idea that the New Testament church is a continuation, or a replacement, of Old Testament Israel. This is not the case at all. Paul is simply showing that just because someone was born a Jew does not mean that he is going to go to Heaven, or that he is going to receive all the promises that were given to Israel. Promises were given to Israel as a nation, but individual Jews still had to choose to believe in order to receive those promises. If they rejected, then they would not receive the promises made to Israel. Paul illustrates this in verses 7-8. Promises were made to Abraham concerning his offspring (Genesis 12:3-7, 17:7). Yet not all of Abraham's children received those promises. As God had explained to Abraham in Genesis 21:12, only those who came through the lineage of Isaac received them. Paul's point is this: to be a child of Abraham was not enough to receive the promises given to him, you also had to be a child of Isaac. In the same way, being a child of Abraham through the lineage of Isaac and Jacob was not enough to guarantee your salvation. You also had to become a child of God by receiving Jesus Christ as Savior.
Paul has much more to say on this subject. We will look at some of it tomorrow.
Pastor Mark J Montgomery
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