7 Israel’s Failure—part 3 The Parameters of Salvation The Predictions of Scripture (10:11-21)

For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him; for “Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!”

However, they did not all heed the glad tidings; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? At the first Moses says, “I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you.” And Isaiah is very bold and says, “I was found by those who sought Me not, I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me.” But as for Israel He says, “All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” (10:11–21)

Continuing to discuss Israel’s failure to believe the gospel, Paul digs deeper into the issue of salvation, showing its extent and pointing out that Israel’s failure was not a surprise, but long beforehand was predicted in Scripture.

THE PARAMETERS OF SALVATION

Paul next explains the parameters, the extent, of salvation.

Because most Jews strongly rejected the idea that God’s grace extended to Gentiles, they were willingly ignorant of the full measure and extent of His provision for redemption. Because they were God’s specially chosen people, they believed they were also His only saved people. They knew, of course, that Ruth, a Moabite, was the great-grandmother of David and therefore in the line of the Messiah. But they insisted that such Gentiles who converted to Judaism and were blessed by God were exceptions that proved the rule.

Consequently, just as they had rejected Jesus and His teaching, they also vehemently rejected the teaching of Paul, a former zealous Pharisee and persecutor of the church, who now not only claimed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, but that Christ had appointed him to be “a chosen instrument … to bear [His] name before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15; cf. Gal. 1:16).

But Paul declares that God’s extending His salvation to all Gentiles was nothing new. That gracious offer did not begin with the all-inclusive gospel of Jesus Christ, which Christians, most of whom were Jews, were then proclaiming to everyone who would hear. To the contrary, as Paul had already cited (9:33), The Scripture says through Isaiah, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed” (cf. Isa. 28:16). God had always been calling to Gentiles (whoever). In fact, Israel was to have been His witness nation, “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6), to preach salvation in the true God to the rest of the world.

The Old Testament Scripture, as “witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,” had long testified that “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ [is] for all those who believe; for there is no distinction” (Rom. 3:21–22, emphasis added). In other words, salvation through faith in Him for anyone (whoever believes) has always been God’s plan. As Paul declared earlier, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16, emphasis added). And as he assured the believers at Corinth, many of whom were Gentiles, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17, emphasis added). From eternity past, God’s Word invariably has accomplished His divine goal, which has always included His loving and gracious desire that no human being would perish but that “all [would] come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

That wondrous truth is a balance to the great emphasis Paul has been placing on God’s sovereignty (see, e.g., Rom. 9:6–26). Although the two truths seem mutually exclusive to our finite minds, God’s sovereign choice of every person who is saved is, in His infinite mind, perfectly consistent with His promise that whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed. Both the Old and the New Testaments make clear that salvation is granted only to those who trust in God and that He offers His gracious redemption to all mankind, Jew and Gentile. No one who believes in Him will ever be disappointed by the salvation that He so graciously and universally offers.

The barrier to salvation, therefore, is not racial or cultural but personal rejection of the God who offers it. People perish because they refuse to “receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10). Yet it was that very universal aspect of the gospel that many Jews resented. The classic biblical example of Jewish religious and racial pride and reluctance to reach Gentiles is found in the prophet Jonah when he responded to the Lord’s call to preach to Nineveh.

Jonah lived in Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II, who ruled from 793 to 753 B.C. It was a prosperous time for the nation, which had expanded its boundaries northeastward to include Damascus. Because the Assyrians periodically made raids into Israel, Jews developed a special hatred for Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.

That immense city of perhaps 600,000 inhabitants is said to have taken three days to traverse on foot. Ninevites, like all other Assyrians, were noted for their immorality and idolatry, and Assyrian soldiers were infamous for their merciless brutality. Nahum spoke of Nineveh as “the bloody city, completely full of lies and pillage; her prey never departs” (Nah. 3:1).

Therefore, when the Lord called Jonah to preach to that wicked Gentile city, the prophet immediately took ship to travel in the opposite direction. Because of the hatred of Assyrians that he shared with his fellow Israelites, Jonah’s concern was not that his preaching might fail but that it would surely succeed. It is not surprising, therefore, that the remarkable repentance of the Ninevites, from the king to the lowest servant, “greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity’” (Jonah 4:1–2). At the very time he was forced to testify to God’s grace and compassion, he disdainfully refused to emulate those virtues himself.

God’s miraculous work in the hearts of the Ninevites was an object lesson to Israel in several ways. First of all, it demonstrated that great power for salvation was in God and His proclaimed Word, not in the prophet who proclaimed that word. Second, it doubtless was also intended to shame Jonah and all other self-righteous, hard-hearted Israelites. One extremely reluctant prophet went one time to preach one message and God caused the entire city to repent!

By tragic contrast, despite all the blessings in being God’s called people, with whom He made covenant and to whom He gave His law and sent His prophets, Israel repeatedly turned away from Him into idolatry and every other form of ungodliness. Yet Nineveh, which was thoroughly pagan and had no such advantages, in one day “believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them” (Jonah 3:5).

Some eight centuries later, Jews still held unabated disdain for Gentiles. When returning to Israel from another country, Jews would shake the dust from their robes and feet, lest they carry any defiled earth into their land. They would not enter a Gentile house, eat or drink from a Gentile vessel, or so much as touch a Gentile hand. Every morning many Jewish men would pray, “I thank God that I am not a woman, a slave, or a Gentile.” Jews were reluctant to have any dealings with Gentiles, and were especially loath to share the redemptive truth of their God, lest, as Jonah feared, their “gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness,” would cause even pagans to repent and be saved.

Paul knew that it was the Lord’s plan for the gospel to be preached first “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8), making “disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19). As already noted, Paul had testified at the beginning of Romans that “the gospel … is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16, emphasis added). But it was doubtless also for another reason that Paul always witnessed first in a synagogue or other place of Jewish worship. Had he preached first to Gentiles, Jewish indignation would have been so strong that they would never have listened to him.

As more and more Jews believed in Jesus and were saved, many more turned more fiercely against Him and His Jewish followers. Just as Jesus had warned, “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God” (John 16:1–2). When Paul took four Jewish men who were under a vow into the temple for ritual purification, “Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, began to stir up all the multitude and laid hands on him, crying out, ‘Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people, and the Law, and this place; and besides he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.’ For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple” (Acts 21:27–29).

In the modern state of Israel, most Jews, including many who are not religious, still strongly resent and oppose Christian missionary work in their country. Although Jews consider all other religions to be false, they are particularly fervent in their opposition to Christianity. Like the Jews in Jerusalem who decried Paul’s visit to the temple, they view Christianity as a Gentile religion that is specifically “against [their] people, and the Law” (Acts 21:28). And they make little or no effort to convert Gentiles to Judaism.

Nothing could have been more devastating to Jews than to be reminded that God makes no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him. Those whose greatest pride was in the belief that they were far superior to all other peoples could not tolerate that humbling truth.

Proclaiming the same message to the Galatian church, Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Not only that, but shockingly he went on to say that believing Gentiles, just as much as believing Jews, “are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:28–29).

To Gentile believers in the church at Ephesus Paul declared, “Therefore remember, that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called ‘Uncircumcision’ by the so-called ‘Circumcision,’ which is performed in the flesh by human hands—remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:11–13). Later in that letter he said, “I, Paul, [am] the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles” (3:1). The great “mystery of Christ,” which Jews so intensely hated, is that “Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (see vv. 4–6).

The same Lord who called out Abraham and his descendants to be His chosen people, is Lord of all who believe in Him. But because most Jews were looking for a national deliverer rather than a universal Savior, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which He extends to all who call upon Him, was unacceptable.

Not only is Christ the Savior and Lord of all who believe but He is also abounding in riches for all who call upon Him. Gentile believers have God’s equal blessing as well as His equal salvation. And just as God sovereignly calls all believers to Himself, all must call upon Him in faith.

To further emphasize the universal outreach of the salvation message, Paul quotes another prophet, Joel, who centuries earlier had declared to Israel the extent of saving grace when he said that whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved (see Joel 2:32).

In the Old Testament, the phrase call upon the name of the Lord was especially associated with right worship of the true God. It carried the connotations of worship, adoration, and praise and extolled God’s majesty, power, and holiness. Emphasizing the negative side of that phrase, the imprecatory psalmist cried to God, “How long, O Lord? Wilt Thou be angry forever? Will Thy jealousy burn like fire? Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations which do not know Thee, and upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Thy name” (Ps. 79:5–6, emphasis added). Again the psalmist exulted, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples” (105:1, emphasis added). Still another time in the Psalms we read that he “called upon the name of the Lord,” praying, “‘O Lord, I beseech Thee, save my life!’ Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes, our God is compassionate” (116:4–5, emphasis added).

In the four references just cited from Joel and the Psalms, the word Lord represents God’s covenant name, Yahweh, or Jehovah—which is rendered in many translations in large and small capital letters (LORD). Therefore to call upon the name of the Lord was not a desperate cry to just any deity—whoever, whatever, and wherever he or she might be—but a cry to the one true God, the Creator-Lord of all men and all things. As Paul has just stated, it is by the confession of “Jesus as Lord” and belief in one’s “heart that God raised Him from the dead” that any person “shall be saved” (Rom. 10:9). He is the one true Lord on whom faithful Jews had always called in penitence, adoration, and worship. To call upon the name of Jesus as Lord is to recognize and submit to His deity, His authority, His sovereignty, His power, His majesty, His Word, and His grace. Everyone, Jew or Gentile, who does so will be saved.

Forms of the Hebrew word yasha, most commonly translated save, is found some 160 times in the Old Testament, and forms of the corresponding Greek term sōzō (saved) are found well over a hundred times in the New Testament. Paul alone uses the term forty-five times.

To further explain the universal extent, or parameters, of God’s saving grace, the apostle asks rhetorically, How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?

With simple, progressive logic Paul establishes that only those who call upon the name of the Lord can be saved, only those who have believed in Him can call upon Him, only those who have heard of Him can believe in Him, only those who have a preacher can rightly hear of Him, and finally, no preacher can preach the true gospel who has not been sent by God. Viewed from the other direction, Paul is saying that if God did not send preachers no one could hear, if no one could hear no one could believe, if no one could believe no one could call on the Lord, and if no one could call on Him no one could be saved.

The capstone of Paul’s argument in this passage is that a clear message which gives understanding of the truth must precede saving faith. He reminds his Jewish readers that God called Abraham and His descendants in order that “the whole earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3) and that He called those descendants (Israel) to be His witnesses before the whole earth, as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5–6). Just as He did in the Old Testament, God stills sends His preachers to witness to the farthest corners of the earth.

Again gathering Old Testament support, Paul quotes from Isaiah, Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!” (see Isa. 52:7). It is not the physical feet of God’s preachers that are beautiful, but the wondrous glad tidings of good things that those feet carry to the ends of the earth.

That verse from Isaiah was written in celebration of Israel’s deliverance from years of captivity and bondage, first in Assyria and then in Babylon. But for Paul’s purpose, an even greater fitness of that verse is seen in Isaiah’s subsequent declaration of a future day when “The Lord has bared His holy arm in the sight of all the nations, that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God” (Isa. 52:10, emphasis added). In that day, we learn from John, “the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders [will fall] down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they [will sing] a new song, saying, ‘Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation’” (Rev. 5:8–9, emphasis added).

Changing from a note of great rejoicing to one of great sorrow, Paul reminds his Jewish readers that They did not all heed the glad tidings; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” (see Isa. 53:1). Heed translates hupakouō, which has the basic meaning of listening attentively and the derived meaning of submission or obedience. Tragically, the offer of salvation that is proclaimed to all men is not heeded by all men.

As do many other passages of Scripture, this verse makes clear that, even in His omnipotent sovereignty, God chooses not to exercise absolute control over human affairs. Contrary to the idea of a divine determinism, such as that of ultra-Calvinism, God’s glad tidings must be received in faith by those who hear it. Only lopsided and unbiblical theologies put everything on God’s side or everything on man’s side. In order to produce salvation, God’s unmerited grace demands man’s positive response. Inherent in God’s eternal plan of salvation is man’s obedient faith. In perhaps the most concise and beautiful statement of the gospel, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16, emphasis added).

Luke reports that in the very early church, “The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7). The phrase “obedient to the faith” is here a synonym for becoming saved. Near the opening to his letter to Rome, Paul declared that “through Jesus Christ our Lord … we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:4–6). Here again we see both sides of salvation. Those who are “obedient to the faith” are believers who have been “called of Jesus Christ.” Later in the letter, Paul declares the corollary truth: “To those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [God’s] wrath and indignation” (2:8). Later still, the apostle says, “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? Thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed” (6:16–17).

Paul assured the church at Thessalonica that, “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, [he will deal] out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 1:7–8). Similarly, the writer of Hebrews speaks of Christ as having become “to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation” (Heb. 5:9). Scripture makes clear that saving faith is marked by submissive obedience to God’s righteous truth, and that unbelief is marked by disobedience to that truth (cf. 2 Thess. 2:10–12).

John declares that “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:6–7). As the apostle goes on to say, true salvation does not bring sinless perfection in this life. “If we say that we have no sin,” he explains, “we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1:8–10). When they fall into sin, genuine believers go to the Lord to seek and receive the forgiveness He continually offers to those who are His.

To be saved is to submit oneself to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus will not and cannot be Savior of those who will not receive Him as Lord. “No one can serve two masters,” Jesus attested; “for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24). On another occasion Jesus declared to a group of Jews who claimed to believe in Him: “If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31–32). When they claimed to be free already, “Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin’” (v. 34). To their claim to be Abraham’s offspring, He said, “I know that you are Abraham’s offspring; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you” (v. 37). To their claim that Abraham was their father, He said, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do” (vv. 39–40). And to their claim that God was their Father, He responded, “If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. … You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (8:41–42, 44).

To have one spiritual father is to have one spiritual lord. Those relationships are inseparable. There is no such thing as partial fatherhood or partial lordship. In the same way, to have Christ as Savior is to have Him as Lord. Christ does not exist in parts and cannot be accepted in parts. Those to whom Christ is not both Savior and Lord, He is neither Savior nor Lord. Those who have not accepted Him as Lord have not accepted Him as Savior. Those who have not accepted the Son as Lord have no claim on the Father but are still slaves to sin and are still under the fatherhood and lordship of Satan.

When Isaiah wrote the words quoted by Paul in Romans 10:16, the prophet was speaking of the suffering, dying, substitutionary Savior, who “was pierced through for our transgressions, [and] was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). The report of which Isaiah and Paul speak is the glad tidings of the gospel, the good news of Christ’s dying that we might live, the glorious truth that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him” (John 3:16–17). But because Jews as well as Gentiles did not all heed the glad tidings, Jesus went on to declare that “he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). Later in his gospel account John reported that Jesus “had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him; that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, ‘Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’” (12:37–38).

As Paul and Barnabas explained to unbelieving Jews in Antioch of Pisidia, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; [but] since you repudiate it,” that is, reject the glad tidings “and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46).

Summarizing what he had said in verses 1–16, Paul declared, So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Salvation does not come by intuition, mystical experience, meditation, speculation, philosophizing, or consensus but by hearing and having faith in the word of Christ. To proclaim the saving word of Christ is therefore the central and essential purpose of evangelism to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20). Paul reminded the elders of the church at Ephesus that, in obedience to that commission, he solemnly testified “to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21).

The purpose of evangelism is not to use human persuasion and clever devices to manipulate confessions of faith in Christ but to faithfully proclaim the gospel of Christ, through which the Holy Spirit will bring conviction and salvation to those who hear and accept the word of Christ. It is tragic that many appeals to salvation are a call for trust in someone and something they know nothing about. Positive responses to such empty appeals amount to nothing more than faith in faith—a blind, unrepentant, unsubmissive trust in a contentless message that results in a false sense of spiritual security. Such false evangelism cruelly leads the unsaved to believe they are saved, and leaves them still in their sin, without a Savior and without salvation.

Paul next asks rhetorically, But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? and then answers by quoting from the Septuagint (Greek) version of Psalm 19:4, Indeed they have; “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” In other words, even David understood the universal parameters of God’s offer of salvation, which already has gone out (a past tense) into all the earth. David opens that psalm with the declaration that “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard” (vv. 1–3). Their voice and their words refer to God’s revelation of Himself that has gone out into all the earth and has been proclaimed to the ends of the world—to all men and women who have ever or will ever live.

That is the same truth Paul emphasizes so strongly in the first chapter of Romans. For “those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness … that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they [unbelievers] are without excuse” (1:18–20). All men have both internal and external evidence of God. Just as the heavenly bodies touch all the earth and extend to the ends of the world with God’s natural revelation, so His gospel touches all the earth and extends to the ends of the world with His special revelation. God cannot be unfair or unjust. Those who refuse to trust in Him do so because they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (v. 18).

The way of salvation has always been offered to all men everywhere. As the Lord graciously promised through Jeremiah, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). God’s absolute and universal assurance to all men is that no person who sincerely seeks for Him will fail to find Him. The incarnate Christ “was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:9, emphasis added), and the incarnate Christ Himself declared that “this gospel of [His] kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations” (Matt. 24:14). Even in the first century Paul could therefore declare, “the word of truth, the gospel… has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing” (Col. 1:5–6). Although the apostle was probably speaking here only of the part of “the world” to which the full gospel had been proclaimed, the benefit of the gospel was available to all the earth and the ends of the world.

In Romans 10:11–18, Paul affirms that the gospel is not just one more local invention or one more pagan mystery religion but is the good news of salvation that God always has sought to be proclaimed to every nation and to every person, Jew and Gentile alike.

It is that universal extent of the gospel that caused many Jews to reject Jesus as their Messiah. The Pharisees reprimanded the officers who reported Jesus’ authoritative teaching and work, arrogantly saying, “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he?” (John 7:48). In other words, an ordinary Jew was presumptuous to believe and trust in a Messiah who was not recognized by their religious leaders. Tragically, many Jews today reject Jesus as their Messiah for the same foolish reason.

When Galileo was summoned before the Roman Catholic inquisition for teaching that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the sun around the earth, he was charged with heresy. When he offered to demonstrate the truth of his findings by having them look through his telescope, they refused. Their minds were already made up, and they refused even to consider evidence to the contrary. With that same obstinacy, most of Israel, from New Testament times to the present, have refused even to consider the claims of the gospel. Consequently, they have failed to know God, Jesus Christ, and saving faith.

THE PREDICTIONS OF SCRIPTURE

But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? At the first Moses says, “I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you.” And Isaiah is very bold and says, “I was found by those who sought Me not, I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me.” But as for Israel He says, “All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” (10:19–21)

Finally, Paul points out that Israel was ignorant of the predictions of their own Scriptures, a truth implied throughout the previous part of this chapter. But ironically, the ignorance of Israel was not based on lack of truth; it was not because the people did not know. As already noted, God called Abraham and His descendants in order that “the whole earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3) and He called those descendants (Israel) to be His witnesses before all His earth, “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5–6). They did know, and consequently had no excuse for not understanding and accepting God’s universal parameters of salvation.

Quoting another part of the Pentateuch, Paul reminds his readers that Moses says, “I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you” (see Deut. 32:21). God’s blessing of Gentiles who believe in Him would make His chosen people jealous and angry. Some fifteen-hundred years before Paul wrote this letter, Moses declared that the salvation message was to reach Gentiles as well as Jews.

Jesus depicted that truth in the parable of the “landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey” (Matt. 21:33). When the vine-growers beat, killed, or stoned two successive groups of slaves who came to reap the owner’s produce and then killed the owner’s son, the owner brought “those wretches to a wretched end” and rented “out the vineyard to other vine-growers, who [would] pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons” (vv. 34–41).

Quoting again from Isaiah, Paul finally reminds his readers that the prophet was very bold when the Lord said through him, “I was found by those who sought Me not, I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me” (cf. Isa. 65:1). Through Moses, who represented the law and through Isaiah, who represented the prophets, Paul firmly established that Israel’s rejection of her Messiah came as no surprise to God. It was predicted that, because of that rejection, God would be found by Gentiles who had not sought Him and would manifest Himself to those Gentiles who did not ask for Him.

But as for Israel, God’s chosen people, who ignored His Word and sought Him in their own way and on their own terms, the Lord said, All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. Apeitheō (disobedient) literally means to contradict, to speak against. Throughout her history, Israel had, for the most part, contradicted and opposed the truth of the God who had lovingly called her and graciously and patiently (all the day long) stretched out [His] hands to her.

In another of Jesus’ parables, a man gave a great banquet to which none of the originally invited guests came. When the slave reported the various excuses that were given, “the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner’” (Luke 14:21–24).

Because of Israel’s persistent rejection of Him, Jesus lamented, “0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (Matt. 23:37).

What monumental and tragic failure! Unbelieving Jews misunderstood and rejected God, Jesus Christ, and saving faith because of their self-righteousness, and they misunderstood the extent of salvation because of their proud prejudice. They therefore failed as God’s witness nation.