Usually we refer to, “The Fall” as the time when Adam and Eve sinned and disobeyed God and sin came into the whole world. I often wonder why we cannot then see the consequences either of the sin of Israel or the Gentiles or why God should plan for an alternative which includes a, “New Creation” and a means of obtaining righteousness which is not dependent on those previous dispositions which, if His Divine Purpose is eternal life, fail to obtain it. This is what it says in Romans 11 verses 11 – 15 : “Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring! I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”
Firstly, “Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery”. No emphatically No, but what immediately becomes visible is that death is not beyond recovery, the pathway to which is righteousness by faith and available to the broken of ones. Had, God not made this intervetion of grace and with this offer, they would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah and resurrection would not have been available, “For all have sinned”. This means that resurrection power is available via an infallable process for all who believe, because it is dependent on God alone. To those who tell me that if the first Covenant with Israel, “failed”, then God has broken His promise, I want you to know that the failure was not Gods, and Paul is explaining that He has kept His promise fully in Jesus.. I once saw somebody, taken aback when I showed him, Acts 13 verse 32 which says, “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors 33he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus”. This man is a published author on the subject but had never seen this verse before, nor was he prepared to accept it. but God’s promises are fulfilled by the raising of Jesus from the dead. This Jewish Messiah brings with Him, not sand upon the seashore, but stars in heaven. I know I’m taking a liberty with the analogy bit it fits well the moment. Jesus triumphantly fulfills the requirement of righteousness which as the acceptable means of obtaining any covenantal relationship with God.
Jesus, in Luke chapter 6, gives some understanding of what is going on. In a parable in verse 39 He calls the religeous leaders blind leaders of the blind. Later in chapter 14 verse 5, He asks a question of these leaders again, “If one of you has a child or an ox which falls into a ditch (or a well) on the sabbath, do you not immediately pull it out. We know why Jesus said this, but the detail gives us a bit more information. First we have blind leaders of the blind, both fall into a ditch. Now we have sufficient understanding to respond to an emergency. It is evident, however, that the blindness and stupor, which this group of Israelites are suffering, comes from a spirit which does not allow their eyes to be opened to the spiritual problem. They need a deliverer, just to see that they need deliverance. They cannot make the first move. This of course becomes a question about, “How can God blame us” and “Does not the potter have the right over his pot”, but for now, this is the predicament to which Jesus addresses Himself and continues to heal a man on the sabbath. (Perhaps this is a reasonable time for those who see Jesus as anti-semitic, to just ponder for a moment). Another detail here is that this well or ditch is not a place beyond recovery, but an opportunity for rescue. The rule of law, not only forbade the rescue but also, being written code on parchment, did not have any life or involvement in the problem, not even instruction of its own on how to get an ox out of a ditch. I don’t have any difficulty here in stretchy an analogy to include that six foot deep ditch where we eventually lay, unable even to hear or be heard in death and in absolute need of someone who acts to bring me out of there by speaking to that within me which can respond. Not a list of rules, but a life which hears the call of God to arise and is then raised to eternity. Thanks be to God who has who has the victory over sin and death and the grave, through His Son Jesus, who is raised to life. Death is a ditch, or grave from which we need immediate rescue, for now is the day of salvation. You can’t leave it. For those who believe that on the last day, “all Israel, (the nation), will be saved”, there is strong reason to believe that this is wrong thinking. At least be wise enough to offer a hand.
So they did not fall beyond recovery, but rather to the very place where they could be reached by grace apart from their own effort and apart from the law. It was also the place where the Gentiles were. The root of righteousness has its immediate effect on the branches, both Jew and grafted Gentile. Faith now is the issue. Those who are broken off can be replaced by faith and if by something other than law which belongs to Israel, the Gentiles can be included and are included. In the obtaining of righteousness, the forgiveness of sins, there is no difference, except that is, that Israel, who are the naturals of God’s love, will be more readily, re-grafted but the process is the same as that for previous remnant branches, by faith.
Of course their falling opened up the opportunity for Gentiles to receive the riches of God from which they had been previously separated, “now brought near, by the blood of Christ”. But there is another awkward phrase, which when you understand that this death is God’s way too take life into His own hands, (put that way for simplicity), the awkwardness now leaves the explanation that Israel’s broken branches, (not just included because of the patriarchs, important though that is, still not the full inclusion of righteous), even though they are porosised, can have life from the dead, where continuation in the law did not acheive this. All that Paul is saying now begins to come together into a whole and cohesive, purposeful plan. Usually, this chapter is dissected into some wildly, ill fitting explanations, which bear little relationship to the very full unfolding of the plan of God. This plan is not to victimise Israel, but to bring good news and hope. That God has kept all of His promises and come to rescue His people. Paul is saying this to the Gentiles so that they might, by showing what God has done to these unsaved distant Gentiles, might by their witness, cause Israel’s broken branches to know that the riches still belong to them, “obtainable”, now to those failures called sinners, whether Jews or Gentiles.
For those who want to tell me that what I am saying is anti semitic may I say that, All of this is on the basis of faith not because of nationality, although there is an advantage in being a Jew. This also is the intervention of a loving God, who sends His own Son to die for that sin, which ought to cause us to consider that this is way beyond normal concern for those who because of sin are deemed to be strangers