Grafted In

August 21, 2016 Background Scripture: Romans 11:11 – 36 Lesson Passage: Romans 11:11 – 24 Jesus said it best: Salvation is of the Jews. That is to say, everyone God chooses to save will be saved through the faith God gives based on the covenant that belongs to the Jews. The beginning of the Jewish faith is the circumcision of the male babies. This makes all of the males participants in the covenant of God and the females are sanctified as part of the family. It was through the Jews that the Law of God was received. The Jewish faith was built on the keeping of the Law—which included circumcision. But the Law is contrary to the flesh and leads to an individual’s moral disobedience becoming exceedingly sinful. The Jews’ hope of deliverance was dependent on the promised Messiah of God arriving in their midst. However, because of the disobedience in the children of the covenant, they were not prepared to receive the long awaited Messiah when he was presented to them. In our lesson today, Paul stated that Israel’s disobedience provided a window God used to extend salvation, by faith, to the Gentiles. The Gentiles were previously outside of the covenant of God. This window of salvation for the Gentiles, Paul reasoned, was provided to provoke the Jews to jealousy. But Paul’s conclusion is that all of Israel will still be saved. God promised salvation to the Jews and He is not going back on His promise. During this time between Pentecost and the Rapture, also known as the Church Age, God has spiritually blinded the Jews and this has made them enemies of the gospel. The Jews are not enemies of God for they are still God’s covenant people. Therefore, Paul warned the Gentile believers to not get beside themselves and think they are superior to the Jews. The Jews are the original people of God and that has not changed. Paul used the analogy of an arborist’s work with trees. The arborist can improve the quality of fruit produced by grafting branches from a tree into the trunk another tree. The grafted branch relies on the trunk and roots of the tree it has been grafted into for all of its substance. When the grafted branch begins to bear fruit, it is due solely to the trunk and roots of the tree it is grafted into. Paul viewed the Gentile believers in the same manner as the grafted branch. The fruitfulness of Gentile believers is due solely to the tree of salvation they have been grafted into—not because of self-worth or merit. The tree of salvation is the people of God. Again, the Jews are the original people of God. The caution here is that Gentile believers should not become high-minded and think they are better than the Jews. The fact of salvation is that Gentile believers have been grafted into the Jewish family and made partakers of the covenant. This is the essence of the doctrine of adoption. Abraham is the father of the faithful and we have been made children of Abraham through adoption. God’s entire plan of salvation is of the Jews. During this Church Age, Gentiles are being saved because we are being grafted in. Robert C. Hudson August 13, 2016

Living under God’s Mercy

August 14, 2016 Background Scripture: Romans 9:6 – 29 Lesson Passage: Romans 9:6 – 18 The text for today’s lesson presents some aspects of God’s sovereignty. From this study, we should conclude that God is not waiting at man’s beck and call to respond to man’s wishes as though God is man’s humble servant and not vice versa. On the contrary, mankind continues to exist in our present state because of God’s patient mercy towards us. One important aspect of God’s sovereignty is the election of saints. The saints are not the elect of God because we accepted the salvation offered through Christ but rather we accepted the salvation offered through Christ because we are the elect of God. There is a difference. God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. God chose us before we had the opportunity to choose Him. To further show that the purpose of God stands by election and not by works, Paul noted that God called Isaac, the offspring of Abraham, before he was born. This clearly shows that before the child could do either good or evil, he was already chosen by God as the bearer of the seed of promise. Likewise, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, was also chosen by God beforehand. God executes His will in the absence of any activity on man’s part. We cannot manipulate God’s will to suit us in spite of our feeble attempt to do so. God’s will is according to His divine mercy and not man’s doings or abstentions from doing. Even in the creation, God created all things before He created man and then God assigned man to have dominion over His creation. Throughout man’s history, God has used whoever He desired to accomplish His will. God has used both good and evil people for His purpose. God elevates or destroys whoever He chooses. Whether God elevates a good person or an evil one, it is for the same purpose and that is that the outcome will conform to God’s will. There is much that we don’t understand about the actions of God. But it is important to understand that we were created by God and the creation has no right or grounds on which to question the creator, God. God can display the riches and depth of His mercy by saving the unworthy and bringing them into His glory. This He does with both Jews and Gentiles who receive Jesus by faith. Likewise, God can show His wrath by being patient with evil people that He will later destroy—even though He may choose to use them for a time to bring about His will. Through the prophets of God, He spoke plainly about the future. One philosopher has stated that prophecy is a mold that history gets poured into. God has demonstrated this over and over throughout time. God declared the end long ago through His prophets. Hosea prophesied concerning the acceptance of the Gentiles into God’s family at a time when it seemed unthinkable. Isaiah prophesied concerning the remnant of Israel that would be preserved to keep the descendants of Abraham from being excluded from God’s plan long before there was a dispersion of the Jews. Both prophecies are declarations of God’s mercy. The conclusion to be drawn from examining the lesson passage is that the mercy of God is the only reason salvation is available for Jews and Gentiles. We live under God’s mercy. Robert C. Hudson July 26, 2016