This was written to Gentile believers in Rome.
Yes. . .your point?
Rom 11:10-12 10 Let their eyes be darkened (dimmed) so that they cannot see, and make them bend their back [stooping beneath their burden] forever.11 So I ask, Have they stumbled so as to fall [to their utter spiritual ruin, irretrievably]? By no means! But through their false step and transgression salvation [has come] to the Gentiles, so as to arouse Israel [to see and feel what they forfeited] and so to make them jealous.
12 Now if their stumbling (their lapse, their transgression) has so enriched the world [at large], and if [Israel’s] failure means such riches for the Ge
ntiles, think what an enrichment and greater advantage will follow their full reinstatement!
Some of you think that this only applies to a selected remnant, it applies to all of Israel, God's elect people. That is something that many of you will have to deal with.
That's also what the NT thinks. . .and BTW, that's "the fullness of their reinstatement" as in
"the fullness of the Gentiles."
Pour yourself a cup, and put on your thinkin' cap, 'cause we're headin' into barracuda waters.
A text without a context is a pretext.
The explanation in chp 11 of God's sovereign choice in rejecting unbelieving Israel was written to
Roman Christians in the context of the whole letter to the Romans on the righteousness of God,
where Paul vindicates God's righteousness in rejecting unbelieving Israel.
So you can't jump in at the middle of the letter in chp 11 and expect to understand it correctly.
In chp 8 of his defense of God's righteousness, Paul presents the inability to be separated from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, which then sets off a series of rhetorical questions.
If nothing "can separate us from the love of God" that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ro 8:34-39),
then what about Israel? They are cut off, separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Why does Israel not believe and receive sonship (see Jn 5:3-47).
Paul's response to the question is that God's cutting off Israel because of unbelief is
not inconsistent
with his clearly stated purpose in his word (9:6).
Moving to chp 9, Paul first expresses his grief that Israel has been cut off, after being chosen
as God's people (see Zec 11:4-11, where the reason for the judgment on Israel is given
in vv. 1-3; viz, rejection of the Messianic Shepherd-King.
He points out that, although Israel was given many advantages by God, his promise of sonship
was not to all the descendants of Abraham, just as it was not to Ishmael and Esau.
God sovereignly chose Jacob to inherit the promise instead of Esau,
before they were even born
or had done anything good or bad--in order that his purpose in
election might stand;
i.e., not by works but
by him who calls.
So having introduced God's sovereignty into his presentation, Paul addresses the obvious
question it raises:
Is God unjust (to Ishmael and Esau)? His answer: Not at all, God has the right
to dispense his mercy and compassion as he chooses, for it is not
owed to anyone, it is a gift, which has
nothing to do with the recipient, but with God's soverign choice of to whom he will grant them.
To demonstrate God's right to dispense, or not to dispense, mercy based solely in his sovereign
choice, Paul uses the account of Pharoah, and concludes that God has mercy on whom he wants
(chooses) to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants (chooses) to harden.
Which then raises the next obvious question:
Then why does he blame us for hardening our hearts? Who can resist his will that they be hardened?
Paul's answer. . .the sovereignty of God. "Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?" God is the
sovereign potter who has the right to make from his clay some vessels for noble purposes (salvation)
and some for common use (human waste vessels, for wrath).
Which raises the next issue:
So why would he choose to make some vessels the objects of his wrath,
who prepared
themselves for destruction, rather than make all vessels for mercy? His answer: what if
God did this to make his wrath and power known, as a foil for making known to the objects of his mercy
the riches of his glory (goodness). However, while no one can call God to account for what he does,
Paul does point out God's great patience toward the objects of his wrath, for the purpose of bringing
about repentance.
Continuing on with his presentation of
the sovereignty of God in election to mercy, Paul uses the
prophecies of
Hosea 2:23,
1:10 to show that the forgiving, saving, restoring God takes the Gentiles
who are "not my people" and makes them "my people" by sovereignly grafting them into the covenant.
Then he uses the prophecies of
Isa 10:22-23,
1:9 to show that
only a small remnant of Israel
would ever be saved (see Ro 11:5-6), that it's not a new plan, and that God's calling includes both
Gentiles and Jews, the great majority being Gentiles.
Having introduced Gentiles into his presentation, he addresses the reason for Israel's rejection and
the Gentiles' calling:
unbelief and belief, respectively. The Gentiles pursued righteousness by faith and
obtained it, while Israel pursued it by works and did not attain it. They
stumbled over the Messiah,
the "stumbling stone" (1Pe 2:8),
and fell into rejection.
Some of you use to believe this with conviction but were turned away from it by the unscrupulous teachings of others who refuse to accept God's favor and unconditional promises that can not be altered.
God's promise has not been altered.
God is now saving a remnant of Israel, just as he is saving a remnant of all mankind.
In the NT, both Israel and the Gentiles are on the same footing.
Don't some of you see that Paul was an example of the worst kind of Pharisee and a murderer, yet God had mercy upon him and called him by grace with a supernatural intervention? What does that say to some of you?
Is there a Jew of Israel alive today that God can not have mercy upon
Conversion of unbelievers is not about God having the power or not, it's about his choice or not.
God stated, 750 years before the NT, in Isa 10:21, that only a remnant would return to him.
It is repeated again in Ro 9:27.
Jesus was the king of the Jews and he returns as the king of kings and Israel will be saved when he returns afterthey had rejected him the first time.
That is your fancy, with no Biblical basis, and totally contrary to the NT.
This has nothing to do with second chances but has everything to do with what God has promised and Israel will be reinstated contrary to what some of you believe.
It also has nothing to do with the revelation spoken by the Son in these last days (Heb 1:1-2), given
through the writers of the NT, in which light all Scripture is to be understood.
And there any promise from God to forgive sin after Christ Jesus returns.
Peter states that Christ Jesus must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore
everything (Ac 3:21, for which the whole creation has been groaning, and for which we have been e
agerly awaiting, the redemption of our bodies at the resurrection (Ro 8:22-23), followed by
the Final Judgment and the new heavens and new earth (2Pe 3:13).
The Christ comes once to atone and once to judge, and not in between (Heb 9:27-28).
If you have not made your peace with God through Christ Jesus before he returns,
it will be too late when he returns.