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Timothy 2:15)
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is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to
be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1Timothy 2:3-4
Romans by the Book Lesson
95
Hello and welcome
to Home Bible Study. If this is your
first visit to HBS I’m especially glad that you’re here. I pray you’ll take the time to see what we’re
about and then opt to return regularly to study your Bible with us.
At the end of last
week’s lesson I chose to leave the main path, as it were, and I led you all off
onto a side trail instead because of the word “mystery” (Musterion in
the Greek), in verse 25. Most of you
know this is “standard operating procedure” for me. When a Bible verse or topic comes to mind that
matches the one were covering, I have a tendency to “chase it down.” This is what I mean by “side trail.”
Now a side trail
isn’t a “bunny trail;” there’s a difference.
Bunny trails (like opinions) are long, winding and endless; most of the
time they’ll take you nowhere. However, when you follow
after a Scripture verse or topic, as we did last week, you’re comparing
Scripture with Scripture: “Order on order, order on order, Line on
line, line on line, A little here, a little there.’” (Isaiah 28:10) When you elect to do this, you’re actually studying
your Bible.
For every precept (teaching) mentioned
in a place in the Bible, there is at least one other verse of the same
precept. For example, if Daniel mentions
a doctrine, it will appear in the book of Matthew, or the book of Revelation.
That's why I left
the main trail last week. Not only was it appropriate it was time for you
to know the word mystery is better
translated secret; meaning something unknown or kept hidden and not
something dark and mysterious such as David Copperfield’s magic act. As this pertains to the Sovereign God, He intentionally keeps information hidden from
mankind until He decides it is time to reveal it. (Deuteronomy 29:29)
When the fullness of time came He chose to reveal His Grace Age secrets to Saul of Tarsus, a.k.a Paul a
zealous Jew. Paul then became the administrator of the mystery in accordance with the will of God and this by revelation, meaning he did not receive
the Gospel of God from any man nor was he taught it. Paul received these previously hidden secrets, representing the Divine will
of God, from the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
(Galatians 1:11-12)
Our Lord revealed
many secrets to Paul. Today we call these Church Doctrines.
The Church Doctrine we looked at last week concerned the mystery
of redemption or God’s Plan of Salvation in this Dispensation of Grace (see
1 Corinthians 2:7-10; 3:10, 15:1-4, 2 Corinthians
3:12-18; Ephesians 1:9, 10; Ephesians 3:3-5, 9, 18, 19, Ephesians 6:19;
Colossians 1:25-27, 2:2, 4:2-3; 2 Thessalonians 2:7; 1 Timothy 3:9, 16).
I returned to verse
25, or to the main trail as you might
say, to pick up Paul’s teaching on verse 25.
The mystery Paul is specifically
speaking of here, to his brethren,
is that a partial hardening
has happened to Israel.
Let’s
read it together.
Romans 11
25: For I do not
want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery – so that you will
not be wise in your own estimation – that a partial hardening has
happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come
in;
Paul
is saying Israel’s hardening was a secret.
This information wasn’t revealed in the Old Testament (see Ephesians
3:4-5), Jesus Christ did not speak of it during His earthly ministry, and you
won’t find anything said about it in the first part of the Book of Acts. When
you get to Acts 13:6, you find Paul on his first missionary journey. He arrives in Paphos, and encounters a Jewish
false prophet named Barjesus. Paul
rebuked him because he was full of
deceit and fraud and he struck Barjesus with blindness for a time. Some
say this is a symbolic miracle indicating
that Israel is Spiritually “blinded” to God’s Gospel but it also promises a
restoration of True Israel in the future.
It’s
a fact that only Paul received this secret
regarding Israel’s hardening and
this came about after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. By stating that it was a mystery (I prefer the word secret), something the Gentiles could
not have possibly known, Paul then speaks about certain aspects of this secret i.e. that it is partial and temporary.
The
word partial in the Greek is Meros and means: in part, to some degree, and one of the
essential parts of a whole; individually. Thus this verse is saying the hardening which has happened to Israel is partial
for some Jews did believe in Jesus Christ and were saved. Paul
was one of these but Scripture records thousands of Jews being saved by faith. (Acts 2:41)
In
addition, the hardening was temporary. We know this because of the word until in v25. The word until
is a time indicator. Paul doesn’t disclose
when the veil of darkness over Israel
will be lifted but he does reveal the future event: the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
The
fullness of the Gentiles was a
phrase Paul used for the “completion of the Body of Christ, or the filling up
of God’s Church. When the last Believer
has entered into the Body of Christ by faith, (God alone knows the number of His
saints both Jew and Gentile who will “come in”) God intends to remove His
Church from this planet. This future experience
is known as the Rapture: Behold I tell you a (what) mystery; we will not all sleep, but
we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead (in Christ Jesus) will be raised imperishable, and we (who
are alive) will be changed. For this perishable must put on the
imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53; 1 Thessalonians
4:14-17; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-6)
Sometime after the Rapture, God will once again deal primarily with His covenant people Israel. He will return to His prophetic timeline that was interrupted at the Cross of Christ (Psalms 2:1-6; Daniel 9:24-27). The first 3.5 years of the last 7 years of human history are known as the Tribulation. Jesus Christ named the last 3.5 years of this time period the great Tribulation! (Matthew 24:21, 9.)
God’s
wrath has been on “hold,” if you’ll
permit the expression, since the rejection and subsequent death of His Son. The human race has been the beneficiary of
God’s Grace for 2,000 years. But the majority
has rejected God’s mercy, His Grace, and the notion that salvation only comes
by faith in Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection - they have decided
to go their own way.
Scripture
reveals that God’s wrath is
coming! It could be one day after the
Rapture or it could be a hundred years the Bible doesn’t say. But
God will inaugurate His prophetic time of Jacob’s trouble. You can bank on it: ‘Alas!
For that day is great, There is none like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s (trouble)
distress, But he (true Israel) will be (what) saved from it. (Jeremiah
30:7)
While
God is pouring out His righteous wrath on
the unbelieving world’s population, He will also, at the same time, continue to
offer His Grace and salvation, by faith, to billion of people. We understand that a great multitude will
come to believe on Jesus Christ for their salvation following the Rapture of
His Church and this includes a Believing remnant
of Jews. (Revelation 7:14)
The
end result Paul discusses in verse 26:
Romans 11
26a: and so all (true) Israel will be saved;
It’s
always a good idea to let Scripture do the talking
then you know for certain you’re on the right trail, as it were.
Please
turn to Zechariah 13:8-9. This is the
LORD God speaking: “It will come about in all the land,” Declares the LORD, “That two
parts in it will be cut off and perish; But
the third part will be left in it.
And I will bring the third part (the believing remnant of
Israel) through the fire (of
the Tribulation), Refine them as silver
is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I
will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ And they will say, ‘The
LORD is my God.’
One-third
of the nation of Israel will come to the realization that Jesus Christ
is the Messiah, He’s coming back, believe on Him, and be saved. This is the surviving remnant of
Israel or the seed of Psalms 22:30: A seed shall serve him; It shall be accounted
to the Lord for a generation. (The
Darby Bible – Psalms 102:18; Daniel 12:1; Isaiah 4:3). The remainder of the Israelites will be cut off as a result of their unbelief.
Let’s
finish up verse 26.
Romans 11
26: and so all (true) Israel will be saved;
just as it is written (or just as God said) “THE DELIEVERER (note the capitalization; this denotes deity) WILL COME FROM ZION (one of the hills
near Jerusalem), HE WILL REMOVE
UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.”
27: “THIS IS MY COVENANT
WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”
The
concept of a Jewish remnant is
present throughout the gospels but the word is not.
I
pray you see this lines up perfectly with Paul’s teaching on the mystery (secret) concerning Israel’s partial hardening, which was revealed only
to him, and after Jesus Christ’s resurrection.
Our Lord and Savior could not talk about this secret because it wasn’t time
for its revealing.
For
example Jesus Christ uses the term “little flock”
in Luke 12:32 in referencing all those who choose to believe and faithfully
follow Him, reflecting the prophet Jeremiah’s words: And
I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I
have driven them, and will bring them again to their pastures; and they shall
be fruitful and shall multiply. (The
Darby Bible - Jeremiah 23:3)
When
I “chased” this same topic down I found that Jesus speaks of a “minority” (also
considered a remnant) who will
respond to His call for repentance and
believe: For
narrow the gate and straitened the way that leads to life, and they
are few who find it. (The Darby Bible –
Matthew 7:14)
Here’s
one more verse referencing the minority (or the remnant) that will come to believe on Jesus Christ for their
salvation: “For many
are called but, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14)
Paul
Himself quotes the prophet Isaiah at Romans 9:27-29 when speaking about the
Jewish remnant: For
though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return (1/3 to
be exact): the consumption determined
shall overflow in righteousness. (Isaiah
10:22)
The
remnant is mentioned in Revelation
11:13: And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth of the
city fell, and seven thousand names of men were slain in the earthquake. And the remnant were filled with fear,
and gave glory to the God of the heaven.
God
could have taken every one of their lives at this hour. But He delayed
His judgment allowing those who choose to repent and believe to become members
of the remnant.
“THE DELIVERER
(note
the capitalization; this is the Messiah) WILL
COME FROM ZION… The Bible makes it abundantly clear that Jesus Christ will
return to earth and He will return in the same manner in which He left: And
after He (Jesus Christ) said these
things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him
out of their sight. And as they were
gazing intently into the sky while He was going, two men in white clothing
stood beside them. They also said, “Men
of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you
into the heaven, will come in just the same way as you watched Him go into
heaven. (Acts 1:9-11)
Jesus
Christ left this earth from the Mount of Olives and rose up into the sky where
a cloud received Him to ascend into heaven.
Jesus will return to the Mount of Olives in the same manner as He left,
returning in a cloud from heaven: In that day His feet will stand on
the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount
of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley,
so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half
toward the south. (Zechariah 14:4)
Jesus Christ will return to the earth to
fulfill God’s Abrahamic Covenant with Israel:
“And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear
in the sky, and then all the tribes of
the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE
CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.
(Matthew 24:30)
(To
be continued)
©
Copyright 2011
GJ
Heitzman’s Ministry
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Rights Reserved