Trinity Evangel Church

For those who fear the Lord what’s not to love about Elijah’s showdown with the 450 prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18? We read prophetic smack-talk at its finest, and we just know what’s going to happen when Elijah called all the people near to him and repaired “the altar of the LORD” in front of them. He used twelve stones to represent each tribe of Israel, then he dug a trench and put the wood in order and cut up a bull in pieces and placed it on the wood. Then he had twelve jars of water poured over the alter. And when he prayed, the “fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (1 Kings 18:38). And, beloved, may the Lord make us even more pleasing and potent offerings.

All the world is an altar and we are living sacrifices. Because of the mercies of God our lives are to be consumed for God, not necessarily through shed blood but with every breath. Our brains and bodies, our priorities and our practices, are from Him and through Him and to Him. We have been justified by faith and now we are being consecrated, set apart, in full for God. We are concerned, we are consumed with God’s mercies.

Romans 12:1-2 is a great passage, a great flag planted for us to rally toward, a great transition in the epistle. There have been applications sprinkled in the first eleven chapters, but the exhortations about the behavior of believers comes like a stampede of buffalo through the rest of the letter. These first two verses provide a general call to applied mercies, with more specifics to come.

Roman 12:1-2 is easier to quote than to carry out. For most Christians, they have a greater sin being conformed to the world than misunderstanding sola fide or God’s plan for Israel.

Paul’s original readers, Jew or Gentile, would have had much more familiarity with watching offerings, and because of that would have been much more startled by a few parts of this appeal.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1 ESV)

Much hinges on Therefore. The doxology in the previous paragraph probably doesn’t go back far enough, and though the doxology seems especially to sum up praise for chapters 9-11, this doctrine/application conjunction-hinge is heavy-duty strength, with good reason to look to the beginning the letter. All the justification by faith, the peace with God, our freedom from sin, certainty of glorification, and the power of God in the gospel are part of the mercies of God. Paul connected sound doctrine with character and good works (see Titus 2:1-10), and also he often built behavior on the foundation of union with Christ, an even greater mercy than forgiveness by itself. The beginning of chapter 12 commences a concentration on conduct, on “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5).

Paul makes an appeal, he urges, he exhorts them to a kind of life. Again, the motivation should be by the mercies of God. How much behavior is motivated by threats—in civil, household, and religious spheres? And God Himself reveals the dangers and disasters and destruction awaiting the disobedient. But what a surprise it would be that mercies motivate. “His mercies never come to an end” (Lamentations 3:22); He is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3). That means that mercies do not lower the standard, they make the standard not just doable, but desirable, even a delight.

It may have also surprised some to think that their bodies would be the offering, or even more basic, that they themselves would be be the offering. They knew sacrifices, they’d seen animals killed and blood spilled and fire burning; a man presented a symbol of himself or a substitute of himself. But here this is the brothers, every believer, not trying to get out of the body (or downplaying it like dualists), but spending it.

And certainly the idea of a living sacrifice would be most uncomfortable. The imagery is of the burnt offering, in which the entire animal was cut up and laid on the altar and fully consumed by the fire as a picture of complete consecration. There wasn’t any part of the animal kept back or left over; the whole thing was presented. This is full devotion. And of course, all this meant the sacrifice was killed. But the sacrifice in verse 1 isn’t destroyed, it is ongoing, living, breathing dedication. It’s “always dying” but not quite dead yet (see 2 Corinthians 4:11-12).

Such a sacrifice is also holy and acceptable to God. To offer blemished animals was sacrilege. For Christians, we’re not just giving ourselves to God rather than to sin, though that’s true. Not sinning ought to be the start.

All this Paul calls our spiritual worship. The two Greek words (λογικὴν λατρείαν) could be translated as “logical/rational service,” or a mix and match of meanings. There is a cognitive aspect in logiken, which also anticipates our minds being renewed in the next verse. The emphasis of “spiritual” is that it’s not our bodies literally burned up but metaphorically so. The word also emphasizes that God’s mercies, carefully thought through, make it obvious that we are not our own. It’s “reasonable” (Tyndale/KJV), mental, neither mystical or mechanical.

Worship or “service” is often used in a liturgical context, but there is nothing in verse 1 that limits the living sacrifices to Sundays, or to the assembly assembled. All the world is the altar, as verse 2 makes even more obvious.

The altars, so to speak, on which the Lord calls us to be living sacrifices, are probably not going to be clean, probably not convenient, or quiet. Don’t expect the scene to be pretty; or yourself to be looking good. It’s not just getting up early for devotions, but devotions prepare you as the devotions.

There are two imperatives here, a prohibition and a positive command.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2 ESV)

Do not be conformed is from suschematizesthe, don’t be “with-schema-ed,” don’t follow that form; “fashion not yourselves like unto this world” (Tyndale). Here is antithesis to the world’s thesis.

This world is fine as a translation, but maybe better “this age.” We must think, and anticipate, and desire, something else and something eternal. There are socially acceptable standards, there are influencers, there are pressures, propaganda, popular priorities. But as the commentator Franz Leenhardt wrote, “what madness it is to join in this puppet show which is displayed on a tottering stage.”

This age is full of sentimentality, envy, resentment, blame-shifting, victimhood/easily-offended, love of political power, love of money, self-fulfillment/self-identity, ingratitude and irrationality/cognitive dissonance (as in Romans 1:21).

Instead, we’re commanded to be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The Greek imperative is metamorphousthe, so: be metamorphosized. Be changing away from what is passing away (1 John 2:17, see also 2 Corinthians 4:18). Even more specifically, be transformed as one conformed more and more to the image of Christ (see Romans 8:29).

The changes happen inside-out, a renewing of your mind, your “wits” (Tyndale). You know this, but for the record, Christianity isn’t emotionalism, nor externalism/mechanical. Truth, doctrine, theology drives behavior. Thinking has consequences, which is why it’s so important to think on the right things (see Philippians 4:8).

Minds being renewed see the same things differently. Creation is not an idol, but it is also a gift of God, a revelation of Him to us, that also groans along with us. We do not suppress the truth, we let it spring up. We give thanks and we give honor to God by Name. We see all as from-through-to Him.

The NASB: so that you may prove what the will of God is. To prove to “test” is a frequent image regarding the purifying of metals, with for the purpose of getting the good stuff. Here the good stuff is the will of God, and this would be things that require thinking and proving that aren’t already revealed in Scripture. We don’t test the part of God’s will that He’s already told us.

The good means no frustrating guilt, the pleasing means no frustrating burden, the perfect means no frustrating dissatisfaction. This is contra: “all is vanity."

There is to be ongoing difference, not just between us and the world; that’s the base line. There is to be ongoing renewing for ongoing proving of obedient, fruitful, jealousable sort of embodied worship.

Imagine the scene at Solomon’s dedication of the temple when there were so many sheep and oxen offered that “they could not be counted or numbered” (2 Chronicles 5:6). That must have included the smell of blood, but what of aroma of the living and blessed sacrifices? We are a holy temple (Ephesians 2:21), a dwelling place for God, and we are living sacrifices. And you might think that my emphasis on the group out of place, except that the next paragraph is about our relationships to one another in the body.

Also, this is for every Christian. People who don’t want to lose their lives should not confess that Jesus is Lord. God’s grace does not extinguish the desire for a godly life (John Calvin), God’s grace teaches us that sacrifices which please Him are holy sacrifices.

Also, God is the one who decides and gives the harvest from this. All of life is an altar for His mercies to be applied.

Beloved, you have been saved by grace, you are being saved by grace, and it is by grace that you must live all-in in all of life for God. All of life is an altar, and you are a living sacrifice. You are pleasing to God, and so go please Him more with what is good, well-pleasing, and perfect.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

For those who fear the Lord what’s not to love about Elijah’s showdown with the 450 prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18? We read prophetic smack-talk at its finest, and we just know what’s going to happen when Elijah called all the people near to him and repaired “the altar of the LORD” in front of them. He used twelve stones to represent each tribe of Israel, then he dug a trench and put the wood in order and cut up a bull in pieces and placed it on the wood. Then he had twelve jars of water poured over the alter. And when he prayed, the “fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (1 Kings 18:38). And, beloved, may the Lord make us even more pleasing and potent offerings.

All the world is an altar and we are living sacrifices. Because of the mercies of God our lives are to be consumed for God, not necessarily through shed blood but with every breath. Our brains and bodies, our priorities and our practices, are from Him and through Him and to Him. We have been justified by faith and now we are being consecrated, set apart, in full for God. We are concerned, we are *consumed* with God’s mercies.

Romans 12:1-2 is a great passage, a great flag planted for us to rally toward, a great transition in the epistle. There have been applications sprinkled in the first eleven chapters, but the exhortations about the behavior of believers comes like a stampede of buffalo through the rest of the letter. These first two verses provide a general call to applied mercies, with more specifics to come.

Roman 12:1-2 is easier to quote than to carry out. For most Christians, they have a greater sin being conformed to the world than misunderstanding *sola fide* or God’s plan for Israel.

# Full Devotion (verse 1)

Paul’s original readers, Jew or Gentile, would have had much more familiarity with watching offerings, and because of that would have been much more startled by a few parts of this appeal.

> I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1 ESV)

Much hinges on **Therefore**. The doxology in the previous paragraph probably doesn’t go back far enough, and though the doxology seems especially to sum up praise for chapters 9-11, this doctrine/application conjunction-hinge is heavy-duty strength, with good reason to look to the beginning the letter. All the justification by faith, the peace with God, our freedom from sin, certainty of glorification, and the power of God in the gospel are part of the **mercies of God**. Paul connected sound doctrine with character and good works (see Titus 2:1-10), and also he often built behavior on the foundation of union with Christ, an even greater mercy than forgiveness by itself. The beginning of chapter 12 commences a concentration on conduct, on “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5).

Paul makes an **appeal**, he urges, he exhorts them to a kind of life. Again, the motivation should be **by the mercies of God**. How much behavior is motivated by *threats*—in civil, household, and religious spheres? And God Himself reveals the dangers and disasters and destruction awaiting the disobedient. But what a surprise it would be that *mercies motivate*. “His mercies never come to an end” (Lamentations 3:22); He is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3). That means that mercies do not lower the standard, they make the standard not just doable, but desirable, even a delight.

It may have also surprised some to think that their **bodies** would be the offering, or even more basic, that they themselves would be be the offering. They knew sacrifices, they’d seen animals killed and blood spilled and fire burning; a man presented a symbol of himself or a substitute of himself. But here this is the **brothers**, every believer, not trying to get out of the body (or downplaying it like dualists), but spending it.

And certainly the idea of a **living sacrifice** would be most uncomfortable. The imagery is of the burnt offering, in which the entire animal was cut up and laid on the altar and fully consumed by the fire as a picture of complete consecration. There wasn’t any part of the animal kept back or left over; the whole thing was presented. This is full devotion. And of course, all this meant the sacrifice was *killed*. But the sacrifice in verse 1 isn’t destroyed, it is ongoing, living, breathing dedication. It’s “always dying” but not quite dead yet (see 2 Corinthians 4:11-12).

Such a sacrifice is also **holy and acceptable to God**. To offer blemished animals was sacrilege. For Christians, we’re not just giving ourselves to God rather than to sin, though that’s true. Not sinning ought to be the start.

All this Paul calls our **spiritual worship**. The two Greek words (λογικὴν λατρείαν) could be translated as “logical/rational service,” or a mix and match of meanings. There is a cognitive aspect in *logiken*, which also anticipates our minds being renewed in the next verse. The emphasis of “spiritual” is that it’s not our bodies literally burned up but metaphorically so. The word also emphasizes that God’s mercies, carefully thought through, make it obvious that we are not our own. It’s “reasonable” (Tyndale/KJV), mental, neither mystical or mechanical.

**Worship** or “service” is often used in a liturgical context, but there is nothing in verse 1 that limits the living sacrifices to Sundays, or to the assembly assembled. All the world is the altar, as verse 2 makes even more obvious.

The altars, so to speak, on which the Lord calls us to be living sacrifices, are probably not going to be clean, probably not convenient, or quiet. Don’t expect the scene to be pretty; or yourself to be looking good. It’s not just getting up early for devotions, but devotions prepare *you* as the devotions.

# Ongoing Difference (verse 2)

There are two imperatives here, a prohibition and a positive command.

> Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2 ESV)

**Do not be conformed** is from *suschematizesthe*, don’t be “with-schema-ed,” don’t follow that form; “fashion not yourselves like unto this world” (Tyndale). Here is antithesis to the world’s thesis.

**This world** is fine as a translation, but maybe better “this age.” We must think, and anticipate, and desire, something else and something eternal. There are socially acceptable standards, there are influencers, there are pressures, propaganda, popular priorities. But as the commentator Franz Leenhardt wrote, “what madness it is to join in this puppet show which is displayed on a tottering stage.”

This age is full of sentimentality, envy, resentment, blame-shifting, victimhood/easily-offended, love of political power, love of money, self-fulfillment/self-identity, ingratitude and irrationality/cognitive dissonance (as in Romans 1:21).

Instead, we’re commanded to **be transformed by the renewal of your mind**. The Greek imperative is *metamorphousthe*, so: be *metamorphosized*. Be changing away from what is passing away (1 John 2:17, see also 2 Corinthians 4:18). Even more specifically, be transformed as one conformed more and more to the image of Christ (see Romans 8:29).

The changes happen inside-out, a renewing of **your mind**, your “wits” (Tyndale). You know this, but for the record, Christianity isn’t emotionalism, nor externalism/mechanical. Truth, doctrine, theology drives behavior. Thinking has consequences, which is why it’s so important to think on the right things (see Philippians 4:8).

Minds being renewed see the same things differently. Creation is not an idol, but it is also a gift of God, a revelation of Him to us, that also groans along with us. We do not suppress the truth, we let it spring up. We *give thanks* and we *give honor* to God by Name. We see all as from-through-to Him.

The NASB: **so that you may prove what the will of God is**. To **prove** to “test” is a frequent image regarding the purifying of metals, with for the purpose of getting the good stuff. Here the good stuff is **the will of God**, and this would be things that require thinking and proving *that aren’t already revealed in Scripture*. We don’t test the part of God’s will that He’s already told us.

The **good** means no frustrating guilt, the **pleasing** means no frustrating burden, the **perfect** means no frustrating dissatisfaction. This is contra: “all is vanity."

There is to be ongoing difference, not just between us and the world; that’s the base line. There is to be ongoing renewing for ongoing proving of obedient, fruitful, jealousable sort of embodied worship.

# Conclusion

Imagine the scene at Solomon’s dedication of the temple when there were so many sheep and oxen offered that “they could not be counted or numbered” (2 Chronicles 5:6). That must have included the smell of blood, but what of aroma of the living and blessed sacrifices? We are a holy temple (Ephesians 2:21), a dwelling place for God, and we are living sacrifices. And you might think that my emphasis on the *group* out of place, except that the next paragraph is about our relationships to one another in the body.

Also, this is for *every* Christian. People who don’t want to lose their lives should not confess that Jesus is Lord. God’s grace does not extinguish the desire for a godly life (John Calvin), God’s grace teaches us that sacrifices which please Him are holy sacrifices.

Also, *God* is the one who decides and gives the harvest from this. All of life is an altar for His mercies to be applied.

----------

## Charge

Beloved, you have been saved by grace, you are being saved by grace, and it is by grace that you *must* live all-in in all of life for God. All of life is an altar, and you are a living sacrifice. You are pleasing to God, and so go please Him more with what is good, well-pleasing, and perfect.

## Benediction:

> Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

> The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, 28, ESV)

It’s been a few Sundays since we’ve been in Romans, but we started this section of Romans in mid January. Romans 9-11 deserves its own tier-one heading, and it gets its own doxology.

Romans 11:33-36 may be the best doxology in the Bible. A doxology is a word of “glory” (δόξα/doxa, as in verse 36), a formula of praise. In God’s Word they are all good, all inspired. This particular explosion of rhetorical splendor comes after a particularly gnarly doctrinal concern. While some commentators propose that this paragraph divides the book in two: doctrinal 1-11 and practical 12-16, the content of the praise itself connects not just with the righteousness of God in general but with a question about God righteousness in His covenants to Israel.

If the only special revelation from God a Gentile had was the epistle to the Romans, it would be an easy (perhaps even preferable) step from 8:38-39 directly to 12:1-2. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, so present your bodies as a living sacrifice. But if you had more Scripture, especially if you had the Old Testament, and certainly if you were a Jew, you would have more questions. The salvation promises in the gospel sound like truly good news. But what about all the promises God made to Israel? Has the word of God failed (Romans 9:6)?

This is where Paul started in Romans 9, and it’s Paul’s burden that takes up his attention—and ours with him—for so much time. It wasn’t my idea (or a Dispensationalist’s dogmatic dream) to insert three whole chapters about God’s irrevocable gifts and calling of God to Israel (Romans 11:29), to Israel as identified by blood and covenant.

Paul explained that God did not elect each and every Israelite in every generation unto salvation. There was, and still is for now, only a remnant among God’s chosen nation who confessed that Jesus is Lord. He also explained that God will fulfill His promise to save “all Israel” in a coming generation (Romans 11:26), but that part of that process will be to use many Gentles confessing that Jesus is Lord and receiving the blessings that come from serving the Lord to provoke the Jews to jealousy. It is a grand narrative. To many Israelites it would have been a mystery story, not entirely understood until Paul. But this final bow of praise reminds us that it is most certainly not a man-made arc/plot. This isn’t how men would have written it out. Praise God! Amen!

It’s been good to hear some of your thoughts in response to my last message. I’d like to make a couple things super clear before we doxologize. Supersessionism, which replaces ethnic Israel with a “spiritual” definition of Israel as the Church regardless of Jew or Gentile, is “exegetical violence” (per the Reformed commentator/theologian John Murray). Supersessionism is a very specific error, and a specious one, in that it is attractive and misleading. It’s also reckless, revisionist, and makes one vulnerable to doubting God’s Word. So I don’t think that (and didn’t say that) Covenant Theologians are liars. I don’t think that Postmillennialists or Amillennialists are liars (even though those positions are inconsistent with non-Supersessionism; I can be very thankful for that kind of inconsistency while arguing for something better). But I am saying that, in effect, a Supersessionist is calling God a liar, because God’s covenant promises are very specific to the house of Israel and the house of Judah (see Jeremiah 31:31ff where the New Covenant parties are named). Changing the meaning of a word (such as “Israel”) in the middle of the conversation is a fallacy of equivocation, and here it would be deceiving at best and destructive to God’s character at worst.

The only reason for these chapters is to answer the question about the Jews: will God save them as He covenanted to do? Paul could have easily said that the Jew/Gentile distinction is done in every way, and that “Israel” actually just means “Christian.” He could have said the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to figurative Jews, Greeks who believe. But though Jews and Gentiles are saved the same way—by confessing that Christ is Lord and being justified by faith in the gospel—Paul maintains and celebrates the distinction in God’s work of redemption on earth and in history. Jews in the main rejected the Messiah, Gentiles all over received and are receiving the Messiah, in such a way the provokes Jews to jealousy unto their restoration of blessings through Jesus at the proper time. “God is not man, that He should lie.... Has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19)

You just can’t be listening to Paul explain God’s faithfulness to His Word and not respond by exulting in God’s glory. Even Paul “responds” out loud in this passage. Paul emotionally, formally, and eloquently responds in praise to all the truth in chapters 9-11. Paul has been on edge in dealing with debaters questioning God’s righteousness, and now he exalts the riches of God’s wisdom and ways.

There are three parts, they all emphasize God as the beginning and the end, as the sovereign and as glorious in not only the mercy shown, but the majesty of His purposes, subordinate and ultimate.

It is interesting that this exclamation of praise is driven by language stressing what we do not know about God (“unsearchable,” “inscrutable/unfathomable/untraceable”). This doxology is about God’s great wisdom, not men’s obvious and final and complete and tidy solutions to every difficult problem.

Even still, what Paul says in the next few verses—though in the language of what is beyond us–is not to highlight the countless unrevealed things of God, but instead to stress the depth of what we do know through God’s revelation. We do know this all-wise God, and we know what that God has told us.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33 ESV)

Depth is a measurement of scale. The scope of the following three attributes (riches, wisdom, knowledge) of God extends to a degree or range of amount or quality that is hard for our finite minds to grasp; there isn’t a theological pressure suit strong enough to get down to the bottom floor of His riches.

In context wisdom summarizes God’s arrangement of all things to fulfill His designs for redemption (Murray). Knowledge summarizes God’s all-inclusive and thorough comprehension.

The word judgments refers to God’s manner of ruling. These are His executive decisions about the direction of history, especially as history relates to salvation.

And these judgments are unsearchable, inaccessible, impossible of explanation by human minds. Men can search and scrutinize all they want, they can make a careful examination and investigation, but they will not be able to fully penetrate how God works.

God’s ways are His ways of acting, His mode of operations. These ways are inscrutable, unfathomable; perhaps the best gloss is untraceable; they are “past finding out” (KJV). Paul is not denying that we see things as they happen. The point is that mere observation of these events does not translate into a complete understanding in-real-time of what God is doing in history.

From Scripture:

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,

Verse 34 is close to Isaiah 40:13 LXX. This is the first rhetorical question, and like the others, it expects a negative answer and implies that God alone can take credit for what is happening.

The OT context of this quote is huge. In Isaiah 40 God promises an exodus from Babylon, but Israel is filled with doubts and fears because they are so weak and Babylon so strong. God assures Israel that He can accomplish His saving plan because all the nations (let alone Babylon by itself) are nothing before Him, a mere drop in the bucket or a speck on His scales (see Isaiah 40:12-31).

Our lack of knowledge is not to be a discouragement; it’s humbling in a way that increases hope in Him. It is good that we don’t know everything, and that God does! We don’t have the know-how or expertise to be God’s consultant. We are not able to troubleshoot problem areas for God.

Verse 35 is a reference to Job 41:11. No one is ahead of God in giving. One of Job’s major complains during his suffering was that God was unjust. This led Job to question God’s wisdom. In Job 38-41 God reveals Himself to Job and rebukes him for questioning. Job was too limited and finite to govern the world, and those who are most frustrated are those who attempt to live without faith in the Lord.

In this case an abstract is a summary of the contents. All the work of God is summarized in a trifecta of prepositional phrases.

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36 ESV)

First, all things are from Him. This shows that He is the SOURCE, the originator. Second, all things are through Him. This means that He is the SUSTAINER, the agent and cause and energy behind everything. Third, all things are to Him. This means that He is the GOAL, the end, the aim of all creation. God has arranged redemptive history to bring the maximum glory to Himself.

All of this goes to show that God is independent, self-sufficient, the first and the last, the all in all. “Who is like the Lord our God?” (Psalm 113:5, also Quis ut Deus? from Mont St. Michel).

Men have no ideas, expertise, or resources compared to God. We also have no cause for complaining against God. Soli Deo gloria unto the ages, and Amen.

Christians live from faith to faith in God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, from-through-to Him are all things.

So in Romans 9-11 we’ve touched on Ecclesiology (distinctions between Israel and the Church), Eschatology (His kingdom come), Soteriology (election and reprobation), World History (rise and fall and redemption), Sovereign mercy (Calvinistic) and Riches for the world (Kuyperian) and a future for Israel’s full restoration (Dispensational), all toward this doxology of God’s mind and gifts.

God is faithful to His Word. The word of God has not failed (Romans 9:6). So His covenants are unchangeable, and that makes us more than conquerors through Him who loved us. By the great mercies of God, receive the blessings that make you jealousable and present your bodies as living sacrifices of worship.

Beloved, you know things that the world's wisest haven't put together. You have a wisdom that is not of this age or of the rulers of this age. You know the From-Through-To God. Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows the Lord (see Jeremiah 9:23-24). To Him be glory forever!

For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Corinthians 8:5–6, ESV)

It’s been a few Sundays since we’ve been in Romans, but we started this section of Romans in mid January. Romans 9-11 deserves its own tier-one heading, and it gets its own doxology.

Romans 11:33-36 may be the *best* doxology in the Bible. A doxology is a word of “glory” (δόξα/*doxa*, as in verse 36), a formula of praise. In God’s Word they are all good, all inspired. This particular explosion of rhetorical splendor comes after a particularly gnarly doctrinal concern. While some commentators propose that this paragraph divides the book in two: doctrinal 1-11 and practical 12-16, the content of the praise itself connects not just with the righteousness of God in general but with a question about God righteousness in His covenants to Israel.

If the only special revelation from God a Gentile had was the epistle to the Romans, it would be an easy (perhaps even preferable) step from 8:38-39 directly to 12:1-2. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, *so* present your bodies as a living sacrifice. But if you had more Scripture, especially if you had the Old Testament, and certainly if you were a Jew, you would have more questions. The salvation promises in the gospel sound like truly good news. But what about all the promises God made to Israel? Has the word of God failed (Romans 9:6)?

This is where Paul started in Romans 9, and it’s Paul’s burden that takes up his attention—and ours with him—for so much time. It wasn’t my idea (or a Dispensationalist’s dogmatic dream) to insert three whole chapters about God’s irrevocable gifts and calling of God to Israel (Romans 11:29), to Israel as identified by blood and covenant.

Paul explained that God did not elect each and every Israelite in every generation unto salvation. There was, and still is for now, only a remnant among God’s chosen nation who confessed that Jesus is Lord. He also explained that God will fulfill His promise to save “all Israel” in a coming generation (Romans 11:26), but that part of that process will be to use many Gentles confessing that Jesus is Lord and receiving the blessings that come from serving the Lord to provoke the Jews to jealousy. It is a grand narrative. To many Israelites it would have been a mystery story, not entirely understood until Paul. But this final bow of praise reminds us that it is most certainly not a man-made arc/plot. This isn’t how men would have written it out. Praise God! Amen!

It’s been good to hear some of your thoughts in response to my last message. I’d like to make a couple things super clear before we doxologize. Supersessionism, which replaces ethnic Israel with a “spiritual” definition of Israel as the Church regardless of Jew or Gentile, is “exegetical violence” (per the Reformed commentator/theologian John Murray). Supersessionism is a very specific error, and a specious one, in that it is attractive and *misleading*. It’s also reckless, revisionist, and makes one vulnerable to *doubting God’s Word*. So I don’t think that (and didn’t say that) Covenant Theologians are liars. I don’t think that Postmillennialists or Amillennialists are liars (even though those positions are inconsistent with non-Supersessionism; I can be very thankful for that kind of inconsistency while arguing for something better). But I am saying that, in effect, a Supersessionist is calling *God* a liar, because God’s covenant promises are very specific to the house of Israel and the house of Judah (see Jeremiah 31:31ff where the New Covenant parties are named). Changing the meaning of a word (such as “Israel”) in the middle of the conversation is a fallacy of equivocation, and here it would be deceiving at best and destructive to God’s character at worst.

The only reason for these chapters is to answer the question about the Jews: will God save them as He covenanted to do? Paul *could have easily said* that the Jew/Gentile distinction is done in every way, and that “Israel” actually just means “Christian.” He could have said the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to *figurative* Jews, Greeks who believe. But though Jews and Gentiles are saved the same way—by confessing that Christ is Lord and being justified by faith in the gospel—Paul maintains and celebrates the distinction in God’s work of redemption on earth and in history. Jews in the main rejected the Messiah, Gentiles all over received and are receiving the Messiah, in such a way the provokes Jews to jealousy unto their restoration of blessings through Jesus at the proper time. “God is not man, that He should lie.... Has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19)

You just can’t be listening to Paul explain God’s faithfulness to His Word and not respond by exulting in God’s glory. Even Paul “responds” out loud in this passage. Paul emotionally, formally, and eloquently responds in praise to all the truth in chapters 9-11. Paul has been *on edge* in dealing with debaters questioning God’s righteousness, and now he exalts the riches of God’s wisdom and ways.

There are three parts, they all emphasize God as the beginning and the end, as the sovereign and as glorious in not only the mercy shown, but the majesty of His purposes, subordinate and ultimate.

- 3 emotional exclamations that emphasize God’s transcendence (of His being above and beyond our comprehension, excelling beyond usual/human limits)

- 3 rhetorical questions that argue for God’s self-sufficiency (that is, a fullness of needing nothing from men)

- 3 prepositional phrases that punctuate God’s centrality (or His being most crucial and important)

# Exclamations of God’s Glory (verse 33)

It is interesting that this exclamation of praise is driven by language stressing what we do not know about God (“unsearchable,” “inscrutable/unfathomable/untraceable”). This doxology is about God’s great wisdom, not men’s obvious and final and complete and tidy solutions to every difficult problem.

Even still, what Paul says in the next few verses—though in the language of what is beyond us–is not to highlight the countless unrevealed things of God, but instead to stress the depth of what we do know through God’s revelation. We *do* know this all-wise God, *and* we know what that God has told us.

> Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33 ESV)

**Depth** is a measurement of scale. The scope of the following three attributes (riches, wisdom, knowledge) of God extends to a degree or range of amount or quality that is hard for our finite minds to grasp; there isn’t a theological pressure suit strong enough to get down to the bottom floor of His **riches**.

In context **wisdom** summarizes God’s arrangement of all things to fulfill His designs for redemption (Murray). **Knowledge** summarizes God’s all-inclusive and thorough comprehension.

The word **judgments** refers to God’s manner of ruling. These are His executive decisions about the direction of history, especially as history relates to salvation.

And these judgments are **unsearchable**, inaccessible, impossible of explanation by human minds. Men can search and scrutinize all they want, they can make a careful examination and investigation, but they will not be able to fully penetrate how God works.

God’s **ways** are His ways of acting, His mode of operations. These ways are **inscrutable**, unfathomable; perhaps the best gloss is untraceable; they are “past finding out” (KJV). Paul is not denying that we see things as they happen. The point is that mere observation of these events does not translate into a complete understanding in-real-time of what *God* is doing in history.

# Arguments for God’s Glory (verses 34-35)

From Scripture:

> “For who has known the mind of the Lord,

> or who has been his counselor?”

> “Or who has given a gift to him

> that he might be repaid?” (Romans 11:34–35 ESV)

Verse 34 is close to Isaiah 40:13 LXX. This is the first rhetorical question, and like the others, it expects a negative answer and implies that God alone can take credit for what is happening.

The OT context of this quote is huge. In Isaiah 40 God promises an exodus from Babylon, but Israel is filled with doubts and fears because they are so weak and Babylon so strong. God assures Israel that He can accomplish His saving plan because all the nations (let alone Babylon by itself) are nothing before Him, a mere drop in the bucket or a speck on His scales (see Isaiah 40:12-31).

Our lack of knowledge is not to be a discouragement; it’s humbling in a way that increases hope in Him. It is *good* that we don’t know everything, and that God does! We don’t have the know-how or expertise to be God’s consultant. We are not able to troubleshoot problem areas for God.

Verse 35 is a reference to Job 41:11. No one is ahead of God in giving. One of Job’s major complains during his suffering was that God was unjust. This led Job to question God’s wisdom. In Job 38-41 God reveals Himself to Job and rebukes him for questioning. Job was too limited and finite to govern the world, and those who are most frustrated are those who attempt to live without faith in the Lord.

# An Abstract of God’s Glory (verse 36)

In this case an *abstract* is a summary of the contents. All the work of God is summarized in a trifecta of prepositional phrases.

> For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36 ESV)

First, all things are **from Him**. This shows that He is the SOURCE, the originator. Second, all things are **through Him**. This means that He is the SUSTAINER, the agent and cause and energy behind everything. Third, all things are **to Him**. This means that He is the GOAL, the end, the aim of all creation. God has arranged redemptive history to bring the maximum glory to Himself.

All of this goes to show that God is independent, self-sufficient, the first and the last, the all in all. “Who is like the Lord our God?” (Psalm 113:5, also *Quis ut Deus?* from [Mont St. Michel](https://twitter.com/tohuvabohu/status/1678800286893350912?s=20)).

Men have no ideas, expertise, or resources compared to God. We also have no cause for complaining against God. *Soli Deo gloria* unto the ages, and **Amen**.

# Conclusion

Christians live from faith to faith in God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, from-through-to Him are all things.

So in Romans 9-11 we’ve touched on Ecclesiology (distinctions between Israel and the Church, Eschatology (His kingdom come), Soteriology (election and reprobation), World History (rise and fall and redemption), Sovereign mercy (Calvinistic) and Riches for the world (Kuyperian) and a future for Israel’s full restoration (Dispensational), all toward this doxology of God’s mind and gifts.

God is faithful to His Word. The word of God has not failed (Romans 9:6). So His covenants are unchangeable, and that makes us more than conquerors through Him who loved us. By the great mercies of God, receive the blessings that make you jealousable and present your bodies as living sacrifices of worship.

----------

## Charge

Beloved, you know things that the world's wisest haven't put together. You have a wisdom that is not of this age or of the rulers of this age. You know the From-Through-To God. Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows the Lord (see Jeremiah 9:23-24). To Him be glory forever!

## Benediction:

> For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Corinthians 8:5–6, ESV)

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

On or around July 4th, 1776, a group of men gathered to sign a document declaring their independence from a tyrannical king. Today, we're gathered to do just the opposite and declare our dependence on the King of Kings. And as we do so, we remember that our help is in the name of the Lord. May it help the earth. The scripture reading for our call to worship this morning comes from Psalm 62, 1 through 8. For God alone my soul waits in silence. From him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be greatly shaken. How long will all of you attack a man to batter him like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?

They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse, Silla. For God alone, all my soul wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be shaken. On God rest my salvation and my glory. My mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times. O people, pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Selah." Let's pray. Father, we praise you this morning, for you are the rock of our salvation and are a refuge from all our enemies. The nations rage and declare their independence from you.

They do not comprehend the peril that they are in. The troubles of the righteous are only for a season, but those who do not yield to you will be completely shattered in the day of judgment. The fool thinks he's his own master. He does not understand that he is a slave to sin. We too were once enslaved in our unrighteousness, but have now become slaves of righteousness through Jesus Christ. We praise you for having set us free from the penalty of sin and the work that you're doing by your spirit to set us free from its power and ultimately its presence.

As we gather this morning for a time of corporate worship, we declare our absolute dependence on you and ask you to continue changing us from glory to glory until we come to the true image of your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. If you ask a fellow believer how their prayer life is, you'll almost always get a response acknowledging that it could be better. Of all the spiritual disciplines, prayer is the chink in many a Christian's armor. Martin Luther is supposed to have said, I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer. Now we hear that quote and we can't imagine spending that much time in our prayer closet. We often have a hard time finding 10 minutes a day to pray.

The point of this exhortation is not to set a legalistic standard on the number of minutes that we spend in prayer, but rather to consider the kind of dependence on God or independence from Him that determines those minutes. The Christian who professes to depend on God, but rarely prays, is like the man who tells his wife he loves her on their wedding day and then never mentions it again. All Christians should be growing into greater dependence on God for everything which necessarily requires extended time in the word and in prayer. Often God uses trials to bring us to a place of greater dependence on him. Those hard providences are gifts and are intended to bring us into closer communion with him. C.S. Lewis put it this way, quote, the thing is to rely on God.

The time will come when you will regard all this misery as a small price to pay for having been brought to that dependence. Meanwhile, the trouble is that relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing has been done yet. End of quote. Did you catch that? Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had been done. In other words, professing reliance on God is not a one and done profession. The person who only occasionally confesses or gives evidence of dependence on God doesn't truly depend on him if that's a rare occasion.

Isaiah 29 13 describes the kind of religion that God despises in it that people are described as those who quote drawn near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. It's quite easy to fall into the trap of performing religious duties without having a heart that hungers and thirsts after God. This is the kind of lukewarmness that Jesus says in Revelation 3 16 that he will vomit us out of his mouth. A friend of mine had someone mock his faith once and said that God was his crutch in life and my friend disagreed and said that God was his stretcher. I like how that pictures the kind of dependence that we should have on him. If you are guilty of relying on God like a crutch and not like a stretcher or if there's any other sin that you need to confess, now is the time to confess those sins and seek his forgiveness. So if you're able to do so you're invited at this time to go ahead and kneel in humble confession. So let's go ahead and take that moment right now. Father, we confess that too often our

hearts are not in alignment with our external religious expressions. The cares of this world crowd in and demand undue amounts of time and affection, leaving you with the leftovers. We ask that you forgive us for letting our hearts be ruled by these cares rather than casting them on you in prayerful dependence. Jesus told his disciples that you array the lilies in the field and take notice of every sparrow that falls from the sky, therefore how much more are you aware of our needs? We boast in our strengths and we lament our weaknesses as if these counted for anything on the scale of our worth to you. We make our plans without regard for your will, forgetting that we are about amiss with no tomorrow guaranteed.

Help us to seek the blessedness that comes from a walk of faith that is bathed in prayer rather than rushing forward according to our own volition. Thank you for the inexhaustible supply of forgiveness available to us by the death of Jesus on the cross. May we not cheapen it by wantonly returning to the same old sins over and over, but gradually put off the old man as we put on the new. We pray this in the name of our Lord, another one who has saved us from our sin, Jesus Christ. You're invited to stand. The scripture reading that reminds us of the forgiveness that we have when we confess our sins is found in Psalm 103, verses 8-12.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgression from us." And let's go ahead and sing then like people who've been forgiven our sins. Today's scripture reading is Second Chronicles 16, one through 10, Second Chronicles 16, one through 10.

In the 36th year of the reign of Asa, Basha, king of Israel, went up against Judah and built Ramah, and he went that he might permit no one to go out or come into Asa king of Judah. Then Asa took silver and gold from the treasures of the house of the Lord and the king's house and sent them to Ben Hadadad, king of Assyria, who lived in Damascus saying, there is a covenant between me and you as there was between my father and your father. Behold I am sending to you silver and gold. Go break your covenant with Be'eshah king of Israel that he may withdraw from me. And Ben had listened to King Esa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel.

And they conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel, Me, Man, and all the store cities of Nephthali. And when Bea'sah heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and let his work cease. Then King Esa took all Judah and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Bea'sah had been building. and with them he built Geba and Misfah. At that time Hananiah and the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, because you relied on the king of Syria and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Assyria has escaped you. Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen, yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand.

For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless towards him. You have done foolishly in this for from now on you will have wars. Then Asa was angry with the seer and put him in stocks in prison for he was in a rage with him because of this and Asa inflicted cruelties upon some of the people at the same time. Father we stand here with heads bowed recognizing that you are the promise making, the promise keeping God. And we stand here as the children of promise. And from the days of Abraham when he believed your promise and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. So too Father we believe in your promises we cling to them our hope rests in them.

And Father, we thank you that as we study your word, we see again and again and again that you do keep your promises and you will keep your promises. And so would you continue to work in our hearts to make us the kind of people who believe that, who lean wholly on you, Father, as on the stretcher, trusting in you, depending on you, for our very breath. Open up our minds and our hearts, our eyes, our ears, whatever needs to be opened so that we can see what your word has for us this morning. And may we walk out of here, people with even greater faith. We ask in your Son Jesus' name, amen. This coming Tuesday marks the 247th anniversary of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.

We're told in the writings of some of the people who were present that day that the mood was pretty somber. At one point, Benjamin Harris, a representative from Virginia, who was a rather heavyset man, said to the much smaller Elbridge Jerry from Massachusetts, quote, I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Jerry, when we are all hunting for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body, I shall die in a few minutes and be with the angels. But from the lightness of your body, you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead." So how's that for encouragement? The signers knew that they were putting their welfare and even their lives on the line.

The last line of the declaration reads, and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and sacred honor. This Declaration of Independence was not made in haste. It was only after many appeals to the King of England were rebuffed that these men felt compelled to act. Enlisting their grievances, they wrote, in every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

The signers acknowledged that the decision to throw off a government should not be made quickly. They wrote, Prudence indeed will dictate that government's long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience have shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to write themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. Now, the King of England did not take kindly to the Declaration and the ensuing war for independence cost many lives. The impulse towards independence has been at the core of American culture for most of its existence.

It's only been in recent history with the push towards socialism that this rugged individualism has been waning. There is a kind of independence that is good, like overthrowing tyrants, and a kind of dependence that is bad. It's good that children learn to walk independently and not need to be carried around from a certain age. I was talking to my daughter-in-law, Maggie, she's here from Germany for five months, and she's got a little Toby on her hip, and she said the doctor says, oh, you have mama's hip, you know, from mama's, you know, that lane you get when you're carrying that baby on that hip all the time. So it's good that Toby learns independence from mama at some point.

It's not good when able-bodied persons depend on others to pay their bills. Of course, the desire for independence has been at the root of the sin since the fall. Eve's desire to be like a god rather than to be content in humble dependence led her to take that fateful bite of the apple. Sometimes the urge for independence reaches absurd levels, as in the case where how one feels about their identity trumps creational reality. Being independent from God is never a good thing. And in fact, it really isn't even possible. Men only think that they're independent. God numbers our days, Job 14.5. Our life is like a vapor, James 4.14.

We cannot resist his will, Romans 9.19. He determines the outcomes of our plans, Proverbs 16.9. He controls world events, Daniel 2.21. We could go on listing all the ways in which man is not independent from God. Now I realize when I say that we are completely dependent on God, I'm preaching to the choir. I doubt anyone here would disagree with that assertion. That said, I do question if we miss a lot of God's blessings because we do not rely on Him as fully as we should. Could it be that there are blessings we are leaving on the table, so to speak, because we just don't have the appetite to receive them? Do we have a growing hunger and thirst to receive all that God has to give?

Have we satiated ourselves with the good and better such that we don't desire the best? We know that his supply of goodness is infinite, as is his generosity, so are we feasting on that goodness like we could be. Do we turn our backs on his table laid in with bounty because we'd rather sit at our own meager spread? The scripture has many references to God's call to come and receive from His fullness, but He isn't going to force-feed us. We must long for it as evidenced by living in utter dependence on Him. If God is our plan B when plan A fails, rather than being our only plan, we should not expect Him to be eager to shower His blessings on us.

In short, God's blessings flow when we depend on Him. Now I need to inject something into this discussion. We cannot say that when we live a life of total dependence on God, that we will experience only pleasing things. Paul lived a life dependent on God, and yet he lived with a thorn in his flesh sent by God. Hard providences are a part of the normal Christian experience, but even those serve God's purposes to bless us. All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose, Romans 8.28. Another way to think of what I'm scratching at is to have what I call a godly discontentment.

It's different than worldly discontentment. Worldly discontentment finds its satisfaction selfishly feeding its lusts, Proverbs 30-15. It is non-relational. It seeks its own. Godly discontentment finds its satisfaction in knowing God's pleasure as it thankfully receives and then gives glory to him. It's highly relational. The more we receive from God, the more he is glorified as thanksgiving is made to him.

And then kids if you need your fill in the blanks for your point There's only one point to today's message and that point is that blessing comes from depending on God I Asked Ryan to read from Second Chronicles because chapter 16 verse 9 is one of my favorite verses The ESV reads for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless towards him. I just love the imagery. The Lord is scanning to and fro. Who can I strongly support? I mean, once you kind of like God, you get God's attention and he said, hey, I want to strongly support that person. The word blameless used in the ESV sounds like God is searching for sinless people to strongly support. Obviously, if sinless was required to receive God's support then none of us would qualify for his support. Confessing our sin regularly is necessary to receive God's support but the idea in this verse goes beyond that. A few other Bible versions help scratch at the fuller meaning of the verse. The New American Standard and the Holman

Christian Standard Bible both say those whose heart is completely his. The idea that God is scanning the earth with his eyes for believers who live lives of such dependence on him that he wants to give them his fullest support. So I'm going to spend the rest of our time in the Word this morning examining three times that sitting kings of Judah faced impossible odds. In two of those three cases the king depended solely on God and he reaped major blessings as a as a result, but in the third case he did not and it cost him dearly. In the reading this morning we saw God's displeasure with Asa, King of Judah, because he did not fully rely on God. And if you want you can get into Second Chronicles and probably around chapter 13 I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna back up a little bit from what Ryan read and we're gonna see these three kings and these three situations. But at this point in time in this section of Chronicles were really only a few kings into Israel's history as a divided nation.

You recall after Solomon's death that his son Rehoboam became king over all of Israel. And so here he is reigning and then Jeroboam, who was the foreman at the time over the forced labor and some of those workers, came to Rehoboam with some legitimate grievances over their work conditions. But instead of following the advice given by his father's trusted counselors. Instead he listened to his circle of young friends and followed their advice who advised him to crack down even harder on the workers, make life even more miserable. This hard stance led Jeroboam and the people then to reject Rehoboam as their king and to establish a separate kingdom with Jeroboam as their new king.

so ten tribes departed from underneath Rehoboam and said we're gonna make Jeroboam our king and that's how the divided kingdom came into be. Well for where we're at today fast forward 18 years into Jeroboam's reign over the ten rebellious tribes and Rehoboam now dies leaving his son Abidjah king over Judah. Abidjah is about 39 years old when he became king but he actually only rained for about three years. And from what we read he appears to have been serious about serving God with a whole heart. At this time tensions were pretty high between the two divided nations and there was constant war going on and so that continued on into the time of Abidja and Jeroboam. They were continuing to have wars back and forth. And then in chapter 13 we find Abidja again leader of Judah, preparing for another battle as he calls out the ten tribes of Israel for their rebellion and rebukes them for establishing their own religious leaders and practices in opposition to God's instructions. Remember God had said this is the way you're gonna worship, this is the place

you're gonna worship, this is the time you're gonna worship, and anything else was a serious sin. But that's exactly what to Jeroboam and his followers did. They set up their own system. Their sins included replacing the legitimate libidical priests with their own and erecting two golden calves as the object of their worship. Did you ever hear that one before? They also established sacrifices in Samaria in disobedience to God's law. Well, as this war is beginning to brew and Abidjaz calling them out for their sin, he starts to marshal his forces.

But Abidjaz's army was outnumbered by Jeroboam two to one, and yet he tells Jeroboam, don't trust in your superior military. In 1310 he says, Second Chronicles 1310, he says, but as for us the Lord is our God and we have not forsaken him. And then in verse 13 the battle begins with Jeroboam's 800,000 man army positioned in front of and behind Abidjah's 400,000 troops. These Abidjah's totally surrounded two to one. But because Abidjah trusted in God, we read in verse 16, God defeated Jeroboam and all Israel before Abidjah and Judah.

Abidjah's army ended up killing over 60% of Jeroboam's army or 500,000 soldiers. That's almost as many U.S. fighters killed in World Wars I, II, and the Vietnam War combined. In 1318 we read, thus the men of Israel were subdued at that time and the men of Judah prevailed because they relied on the Lord the God of their fathers. This chapter then, this brings us then up to chapter 14 where the kingship now passes from Abidjah onto his son Asa, so now Asa, king of Judah. Asa starts off his rule well like his father. We're told starting in verse 2, and Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He took away the foreign altars and the high places and broke down the pillars and cut the ashram and commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers and to keep the law and the commandment. He also took out all of the cities of Judah, the high places and the incense altars, and the kingdom had rest under him. He built fortified cities in Judah for the land had rest.

He had no war in those years for the Lord gave him peace." These were good years for Judah and they prospered greatly. Verse 7 and 8 says, so they built and prospered and Asa had an army of 300,000 from Judah armed with large shields and spears and 280,000 men from Benjamin that carried shields and drew bows. All these were mighty men of valor. But as life usually goes nothing stays perfect forever. Starting in verse 9 we read about an Ethiopian leader named Zera who came out against Judah with a million man army and 300 chariots. So there's Asa with his 580,000 soldiers. All of a sudden here comes the guy from Ethiopia with a million men and his 300 chariots. But just like in the days of his father, Asa is outnumbered about two to one, but once again God rots the Ethiopians and gives Asa a great victory. We are told that none of the Ethiopian army survived and Judah gathered up all the spoil.

Moving on to chapter 15 we read about the Spirit of God coming upon a man named Azariah who then comes to King Asa and says, the Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him he will be found by you, but if you forsake him he will forsake you. Azariah reminds Asa of the earlier times, as you continue to read, he reminds Asa of the earlier times in Israel's history when the people were without a teaching priest or the law. Probably going back to the days, I'm not sure when they were at, but they had lost track of the word of God and there was no priest. And all the chaos had ensued from that. But now that they were following God, they could expect continued blessing. He concludes his speech saying in verse 7, but you take courage, do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded. And then the rest of chapter 15 just describes all the religious reforms that Asa put in place to further strengthen Judah's reliance on God. He purged all of the idols that still existed in the

land of Judah and Benjamin. He rebuilt an altar that was in disrepair. He called the people to a great gathering where they sacrificed 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep to the Lord. The people who attended this great sacrifice included a whole lot of people from the ten tribes of the rebellious tribes who had been looking over the fence saying, hmm, life looks a whole lot better in Judah these days. I think I'll go back there. And so they came and were part of that sacrifice. Just try to imagine the amazing blessing Judah was experiencing as they turned their whole heart to God. They were so ardent in their desire to serve God that they made a covenant with him. Starting in 1512 we read the purpose of this covenant was quote, to seek the Lord the God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul but that whoever would not seek the Lord the God of Israel should be put to death whether young or old man or woman. They swore an oath to the Lord with a loud voice and with a shouting and with trumpets and with horns, and all Judah rejoiced over the

oath. For they had sworn with all their heart and had sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around."

Asa was so determined to purge the land of evil that he even removed his own mother from being Queen Mother because she had made a detestable image to the fertility goddess Asherah. Now his reforms weren't totally complete but verse 17 says quote, nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly true all his days. Because of his faithfulness God gave Judah rest more until the 36th year of his reign. So a real high spot going on in the life of Judah because of their faithfulness the center dependence on God. Then we come to his 36th year as king and Asa's resolve to wholly lean on God was tested when Beshah, king of Israel, made war against Judah. So here come the ten tribes again. They just never learned their lesson. They're coming after Judah again. Beshah, if you know his history, he was a usurper who had made himself keen by first murdering Jeroboam, Jeroboam's son, Nadab. So he had Jeroboam, remember he was the foreman, he had been the king, people made him king, he had a son Nadab, and then here comes this guy Beshah and he takes out Nadab and he goes on

and he takes out all of Nadab's and all of Jeroboam's family which was actually fulfilling a prophecy that had been made against Cherubim during his reign for setting up those golden cabs. God had sent a prophet to say, because you did this great wickedness, I'm taking you and your entire family out. And so here's God using Beishah, a usurper, to execute that prophecy. And so now all of a sudden we have Beishah, who's the king, over the ten tribes, and he's now taken out the legitimate line of kingship in Judah or in the ten tribes. So as Beshah went after Judah, he built a fortress in a location known as Rehma within the territory of Benjamin. It was situated about five miles north of Jerusalem and the whole purpose of the fortress was to try to prevent people from coming into two are leaving Judah, basically a siege was starting. But unlike the time Asa's father Abidjah fought Jerub on superior army or the time Asa himself went against the Ethiopian army and relied solely on Gad, this time he turned not to

God, but to Ben Haddad, king of Syria, for help. Go figure. Beshah had made an alliance, Beshah again over the ten tribes, had made an alliance with Ben Haddad, which then gave Beshah the courage to say, oh I can go after Judah now. I got my rear flank protected. And so Esau, he turns to Ben Haddad from Syria, he says, hey, if I give you some silver and gold, which I'm taking out of the Lord's Treasury, can I get you to back off and stop supporting the ten tribes? They're giving me trouble. And so the, Ben Haddad agrees and he takes the money and then Ben Haddad starts sending raiding groups into the ten tribe territory and starts harassing them, which then forces Beshah to pull back from his attack on Judah and deal with problems back at home. But because Asa did not turn to the Lord in his situation, God sent the prophet Hanani to rebuke Asa with these words. Because you relied on the king of Syria and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. Were

not the Ethiopians, which we just read about, and the Libyans, a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen, yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward you him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars. Then Asa was angry with the seer and put him in stocks in prison, for he was in a rage with him because of this. And Asa inflicted cruelties upon some of the people at at that same time. It's surprising, given Asos' history of seeking the Lord with a whole heart, that he would in these later years resort to human wisdom to deal with his problems.

It's even more disconcerting that he would respond to God's rebuke with anger towards the messenger and even punish the people. But this is how sin usually progresses. Once we are on the slippery slope of relying partially on God and partially on ourselves, all bets are off, and it does not end well. This example from the life of Asa is a classic example of what happens when a person's heart is completely devoted to the Lord and when it is not. There are many examples in scripture where this is played out. Solomon's own life is an example. In his early days when he first became king, he prayed to God, confessing that he was like a little child that he did not know how to go out or how to come in.

He's saying, God, I need help. This humble, reliant posture before God caused God to bless him with wisdom and wealth unlike any ruler ever before or since. But sadly, in his later years, we read that he turned his heart away from God. First Kings 11, 1-8 records this demise. Starting in verse 9, we read God's rebuke to Solomon. He says, And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing that he should not go after other gods but he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son."

And that's basically telling them about Jeroboam, what's going to happen. But, I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen. Sadly, it became a habit of Judah to turn to pagan nations for help. In his commentary on Isaiah, Matthew Henry observes how often Israel committed the same sin of calling to the neighboring nations for salvation rather than God. And try to follow this if you can, because it's really kind of humorous who they keep turning to. The short version is we're going to turn to Syria for help, later Syria becomes a problem, so we're going to turn to the Assyrians for help, then the Assyrians become a problem, so we're going to turn to Egypt for help.

And you're going to see that develop here. So the people that are asking for help, they eventually say, oh, you're the bad guy now. Go get somebody else and they don't turn to the Lord. So we just saw in Chronicles how Asa depended on the Syrians for protection from Bayshah. Fast forward now, nine kings to Ahaz, king of Judah. During his reign, the Syrians who Asa had said, would you please help, joined up forces with the ten tribes of Israel and they came after Judah instead of turning to the Lord. Ahaz then hired Tiglath Piliser of Assyria and his army. And we read in the Second King 16, 7 through 8, so Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Piliser, or the police, I'm not quite sure, the king of Assyria and saying, I am your servant and your son. I said, whoa, here he's going to a pagan king. I am your servant and your son.

Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Assyria and from the hand of the king of Israel who are attacking me. And Ahaz took silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasure of the king's house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. Does that sound familiar? The Assyrians take the money, they attack the Syrians and knock them out of the equation. Imagine the jealousy that Ahaz provoked in God when he told Tiglath Piliser that he was his servant and son. It was bad enough that Ahaz turned to the Assyrians for help and not the Lord, but he doubled down on his sin by ordering Uriah the priest to go over to the Assyrians and say, hey while I was visiting the king, begging him, I saw an awesome altar. Go make a copy of that altar and come on back here to Jerusalem and would you take the old dirty altar we have and would you replace it and build one just like Tiglath Piliser has?

And in matter of fact, when you're done with that, would you start performing the sacrifices on this altar modeled after a pagan altar? Do you think God was a little annoyed? If you're keeping score, we have Asa asking the Syrians for help against Israel. Later, we have Ahaz asking the Assyrians for help against the Syrians who are teaming up with Israel. And then skip ahead just one king to Hezekiah. And this time we have Judah and Israel appealing to Egypt for help against the Assyrians. The Assyrians conquer the city of Samaria and they end up taking away the Israelites into exile. That's the big event in history where then the ten tribes go poof and off into exile.

After warning from Isaiah not to rely on the Egyptians, Hezekiah thankfully turns back to the Lord and then we read in that account, I won't go through it, how God then supernaturally conquered the Assyrian army. All the people had to do was just go out and start picking up all the spoil. Throughout the build up to the Assyrian siege, Isaiah is prophesying and warning the people to repent of their sins and trust in God. He repeatedly calls them to dependents in God who will deliver them.

In Isaiah 30 15 he says, for thus said the Lord God the Holy One of Israel, in returning and in returning and rest you shall be saved in quietness and in trust shall be your strength and in Isaiah 30 18 a few verses later therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you for the Lord is a God of justice blessed are all those who wait for him he shares with the people a vision of what God intends for them in Isaiah 30 19 through 26 he's trying to describe do what I'm saying this is what God has in store for a people shall dwell in Zion in Jerusalem you shall weep no more he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry as soon as he hears it he answers you and though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction yet your teacher will not hide himself self anymore, but your eyes shall see your teacher and your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or when you turn to

the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, be gone, and he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground and bread the produce of the ground and he will be rich and plenteous. In that day your life-struck will graze in your large pastures and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder which has been winnowed with shovel and fork and on every lofty mountain every high hill there will be brooks running with water in the day of the great slaughter when the tower falls.

Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun will be sevenfold as the light of seven days in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow. So whatever your eschatology is, whenever you think that's going to happen, has very earthy terms and it certainly communicates a heart of God who is wanting to bless his people. These words of Isaiah show us how greatly God lawns to be the one to whom Judah relies on. Reading these accounts is like watching a movie and yelling at the person on the screen who's about to make a bad move. Don't do it. You ever find yourself doing that and screaming at the TV?

Idiot? Don't open that door. You know, we know it's there. There is a discernible pattern we see repeated in the life of Israel. It starts with a gradual disregard for God's love and law, followed by decreasing dependence on him, which is often marked then by increasing sin. Next comes discipline from the Lord, which if met with repentance restores rightful dependence, and if not brings destruction. The whole cycle could be avoided if they would just begin and end with dependence on God. It's easy to shake our heads in disbelief at Israel's folly, but are we much better? We who have the fullness of the gospel, we have far more reason to trust the Father since we no longer live only with shadows and types. In some ways it is more grievous when we pursue independence because of the advantage that we have over Israel. Sadly the fall has left its indelible mark on all of us. Human pride insists on exalting itself. When we fail, our angry or irritated response shows that our confidence is in ourselves and not Christ. The same is

true when we boast in our successes. Our anxious thoughts belie our claim that our help is in the name of the Lord. Our slowness to do what he has called us to do shows that our flesh is yet to be mortified. We say we are nothing apart from Christ, but raise are hackles in defense when our sin is found out. In these and marries of other ways, we show that dependence on God alone has yet to be achieved. In the preamble section of the United States Declaration of Independence, the Founders wrote, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, in the pursuit of happiness.

These rights were asserted while claiming independence from a tyrannical king. Now, whether or not they actually are rights, they are some of the blessings that God wants ultimately for his people. Unfortunately, many today skip over that part instead it says that they're endowed by our creator and then claim them while also seeking independence from the creator. All of human history, including Israel's, teaches us what happens when men try to live independently. Do we want more of God's blessing? Do we believe he has more to offer and wants to bestow it? Then we should heed the words from a sermon Jonathan Edwards gave, titled, God Glorified in Man's Dependence.

In there, he said these words, let us endeavor to obtain and increase a sensibleness of our great dependence on God, to have our eye to Him alone, to mortify a self-dependent and self-righteous disposition. Man is naturally exceedingly prone to exalt himself and depend upon his own power or goodness, as though from Him he must expect happiness." End of quote. Let's pray. Well, Father, we should walk away from a message like this, bit-chass ties, because all of us can admit that there are times far too often where we really do not walk in full dependence on you. So much of our life repeats day after day, same old, same.

We become confident. We just believe tomorrow's going to be the same as it was today. And then when the crisis hits, we're often initially flustered and irritated. Father, we do ask you to really work on our hearts that we would become a people that really does truly, wholly lean upon you. We want your eyes, when they're scanning over the earth, to stop on us and say, ah, there's somebody whose hearts completely stayed up on me. And so make us those kind of people, Father, so that we might receive from your goodness your bounty, all that you have for us. We don't ask Father just to be greedy or to be selfish, but we know that in receiving, you are receiving glory.

You find pleasure in giving gifts to your people. And so may we have the capacity to receive them, but that has to begin with us being broken and dependent on you. And so I just pray, Father, that you'd work that out in all of us in this combined body together. Let's pray that in your son, Jesus' name, amen. Growing up in a Catholic home, I was taught the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is a 50-cent word, just to say that the bread and the wine become the literal body and blood of Christ. When you eat the bread and the wine, you are literally eating Christ's flesh and blood.

I remember in third grade being prepared by the nuns for my first Holy Communion, hey, when the priest puts that host on your tongue, you put it in and you swallow it. You don't play with it. You don't chew on it. You don't mess around with it. You swallow it. That's the body of Jesus. Later, when I was an altar boy and during the Communion service, if a host should fall on the ground, you know, it got dropped by a clumsy priest or something, then the priest would pull out a special little holy hanky and lay it right over that host on the ground and people walk around it because that was Jesus underneath that hanky. And then after the church service we would all come out, the altar boys and the priests, and we'd have about a 10 minute ceremony sprinkling it with holy water and saying some prayers over it. So that was my experience growing up. Catholic theologians point to scriptures like John 6 where Jesus said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part in me.

They point to the many disciples who parted ways when Jesus said those things. And they said, see, even they knew that Jesus was saying something outrageous. So they use that as one of their proof texts. One of the many theological problems with transubstantiation is that it requires Jesus' body to be unnatural or non-human. The only way a Roman Catholic communion can be practiced worldwide is if Jesus' physical body is omnipresent and can never be fully consumed. But these qualities are not true of a human body.

If Jesus is not completely human like us except without sin, then that means his death on the cross was not suitable, was not a suitable atonement for our sins because he's not fully man in addition to being fully God. Later when I came to a full faith in Christ I was taught the communion was simply a time of remembrance of Christ's death on the cross, but the more I consider the Lord's Supper that understanding seems to come up short as well. At the moment I lean towards the camp of those who say the Lord's Supper contains a mystery we don't fully understand. How's that for clarity? John Calvin argued that there is a very real spiritual feeding taking place. He believed that our souls are nourished by Christ's flesh and blood in a spiritual transaction carried out by the Holy Spirit while the bread and the wine remain just bread and wine, but they serve as a symbol of a spiritual reality.

It's beyond our ability to understand this fully. But Calvin would suggest that skipping the Lord's supper is to our soul what skipping eating physical food is to our body. And again, the elders haven't all sat down and had our own communion wars. That was the number one point of war throughout church history.

We haven't had our own wars yet, but I think we all would say there's something more going on than just remembrance and it's certainly not transubstantiation. What exactly it is we can't put our finger on. And talking about this in these terms actually makes a lot of people nervous because it sounds like some kind of mystical nature and and there certainly are ditches that we want to avoid as we wrestle with a proper understanding of communion. But if Calvin is right his understanding of the Lord's Supper only serves to strengthen the bond of dependency that we have on the Lord. So you're invited to go ahead and stand at this time. If and however the Lord's Supper feeds our souls, what remains certain is that the communion table demonstrates our dependence on Christ. He is the head, we're the body. Jesus told us disciples in John 15 15, you can do nothing apart from me. In addition to dependent on him, there is a mutual dependence on each other as members of the body. If you haven't noticed the theme today is dependence, have you picked

up on that theme yet? Ephesians 4, 15 through 16 says, speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. As you come to the table this morning, be thankful that you are joined to Christ's body, the Church, in the bond of love. The benediction this morning comes from Romans 15, 5-7. In it, Paul prays for God to grant us harmony. definition of harmony calls it a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts. If we add in the Ephesians 4.16 that I read earlier, the fuller definition becomes harmony is a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. For harmony to exist, independent parts must come together in in an orderly, dependent way.

In so doing, we find greater strength and encouragement, and God is the most glorified. And so for our blessing today, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with the Christ Jesus that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.

See Part 1 here

An Outline of the Eight Covenants of the Bible

Notes for the Eight Covenants of the Bible

An Outline of the Eight Covenants of the Bible

Notes for the Eight Covenants of the Bible

The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Our God is eternal, sovereign, righteous, and merciful. We note His kindness and severity, His perfect standard and His offer of forgiveness for all who have sinned against it. He is making His merciful name known among the nations.

We are nearing the end of this section of Paul’s letter to the Romans. We have not heard the last about Paul’s missionary efforts to Gentiles or Paul’s exhortations related to Jewish scruples. But here is the final paragraph of his explanation for how he could so confidently say that “it is not as though the word of God has failed” (Romans 9:6). The Lord’s covenant mercy to Israel has not failed.

There is a “mystery” as Paul reveals it, as Paul has been revealing it, in Romans 9-11. The mystery isn’t that God changed His mind, it’s that how God fulfills His mind doesn’t look exactly like we might have had in mind. The end is the same, the way He gets to the end is higher than our ways. It ought to keep us humble, and that’s how he starts this last paragraph before the doxology.

It is not a mystery that Israel would be saved, but how the process of their salvation would come about.

Unlike the ESV’s switch of the phrases, Paul actually starts with his desire for them to understand, and that understanding will keep them from getting self-wise. He also starts with a “For” (KJV, NASB), as this paragraph explains the previous parts of chapter 11.

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: (Romans 11:25a ESV)

He didn’t want them to be “without knowledge,” to be “ignorant” (KJV) or “uniformed” (NASB) about the mystery. Mystery is a New Testament favorite, for Paul in particular (see again in Romans 16:25), referring to a thing that had previously been un-manifested. A mystery isn’t a new thing, but before it was “in God’s private counsel” (BADG), a secret of sorts. Paul has actually been unveiling the mystery for the last three chapters, but will spell it out in two sentences shortly.

He’s talking to the brothers, which would include all the believers, but especially the Gentiles whom he started addressing directly in verse 14. Understanding this mystery will help keep them from being arrogant and proud (see those admonitions also in verses 18, 20).

There are three parts/stages to the mystery.

a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, (Romans 11:25b–26a ESV)

Stage one: a partial hardening has come upon Israel. This is a summary of much of Romans 9 about election and Romans 10 and 11 about hardening. Partial hardening doesn’t mean a percent of hard and soft in hearts, it’s not about only fragments of arteries being blocked, but fully hardened hearts among a percent of the people of Israel. God’s choice of Israel did not mean that every generation of Jews would be good, or even that the majority would receive their Messiah when He came. We know they didn’t. Only a remnant would believe, the rest were hardened.

Stage two: until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. It’s not just that much of Israel would disobey, but that Gentiles would be grafted in to the salvation blessings, and here Paul clarifies that there is a fulness, a final part/full number of Gentiles elected to salvation. On the timeline, we are somewhere in this stage.

Stage three: And in this way all Israel will be saved. When the work of God among the Gentiles is done, then He will graft back in the Jews. This first part of verse 26 is a punch in the throat to Supersessionism.

It simply will not do as decent Bible reading to call this Israel the church, or all the elect Jews and Gentiles (as John Calvin, “I extend the word Israel to all the people of God”), or any other group than ethnic, national Israel. This Israel to be saved is the same Israel that knew partial hardening. As generations of Jews rejected, so a coming generation will be fully included, reconciled, grafted back in (Romans 11:12, 15, 24). It has been just a remnant, but now all will be restored.

“The main thesis of verse 25 is that the hardening of Israel is to terminate and that Israel is to be restored. This is but another way of affirming what had been called Israel’s “fulness” in verse 12, the “receiving” in verse 15, and the grafting in again in verses 23, 24. To regard the climactic statement, “all Israel shall be saved”, as having reference to anything else than this precise datum would be exegetical violence.” (John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans)

If it is all the Christians, including Gentiles, then Gentiles being saved IS Israel being saved and that is not a mystery, that would be an undoing of the covenant promises. It makes the following OT covenant a lie.

Here are just partial quotes from two Old Testament prophecies that Paul sees being fulfilled when Israel is saved.

as it is written,

The first comes from Isaiah 59:20-21, the second comes from Isaiah 27:9. Israel had the “covenants” (Romans 9:4). It was through the patriarchs, the “forefathers” (see the next verse), and then through the prophets.

Isaiah revealed the promise of God to send a Deliverer who would come from Zion, that is, from Jerusalem, who would banish ungodliness from Jacob, also named by God as “Israel.” The covenant is: when I take away their sins. It’s a covenant to forgive them, and because it includes forgiveness, it is unconditional.

Though somehow John Calvin, “in this prophecy deliverance to the spiritual people of God is promised, among whom even Gentiles are included.” An even worse take:

"the Christian Church in which the earthly distinction between Jew and Gentile disappears never to be re-instituted. To re-instate the old distinction between Jew and Gentile after the New Testament era has dawned would be to reverse the forward march of the Kingdom, and would be as illogical and useless as to go back to candle or lamp light after the sun has risen." (Loraine Boettner, The Millennium, 241)

That is “exegetical violence.” We’ve seen the New Covenant explicitly referred to in Jeremiah 31, and the similar promise of a “new heart” for sake of obedience in Ezekiel 36. And those covenants of mercy include earthly, geographical and agricultural promises to “the house of Israel” and “the house of Judah.” The Lord promised them forgiveness and fruitfulness. This is contra the Reformed Murray, who as an amillennialist at least accepts salvation for Israelites, but says none of the other physical/temporal parts of the covenants are to be expected.

The elements of these quotations specify for us what is involved in the salvation of Israel. These are redemption, the turning away from ungodliness, the sealing of covenant grace, and the taking away of sins, the kernel blessings of the gospel, and they are an index to what the salvation of Israel means. There is no suggestion of any privilege or status but that which is common to Jew and Gentile in the faith of Christ. (Murray)

Apparently there’s more than one way to commit “exegetical violence.”

Also, other than 9:4 this is the only explicit mention of covenant in Romans. One would think, if we were to understand all the things through the covenant lens, that Paul certainly would have helped us learn to use that vocabulary.

The last word on God’s purpose for Israel in particular.

As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:28–29 ESV)

The Jewish religious leaders pressed the Romans to put their Deliverer to death. No one persecuted the Christians more in the first century than Jews, Paul himself a prime example. The Jews loved their privilege as possessors of the Law (not gospel) and tried to establish their own righteousness apart from faith as called for in the gospel. So they are enemies for your sake.

And yet there is a way in which all those with Jewish blood belong to the root that increases their accountability because they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. They have something unique.

In God’s Word only one kind of person can be elect in two ways, and there are two ways to be elect in only one way, and then there are the non-elect (or the reprobate). Only Jews can be part of the elect nation and elect unto salvation.

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. This is true for our salvation because it is true of God’s Word. That counts for His covenants, and that means that all of what He said in those covenants must come to pass. There may be mystery in how it comes, but it must come about. God doesn’t repent from giving privileges, and neither should we for receiving them from Him.

The forgiven tend to get stingy about forgiveness, and we shouldn’t.

For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. (Romans 11:30–32 ESV)

What’s different is that whereas Israel’s disobedience led to our receiving of mercy, it is our receiving of mercy that will lead to their receiving of mercy. We share disobedience; we all know how to do that. But in God’s purposes He aims for the final and full showing of mercy on all. This isn’t universalism. It is still in the context, not just of that “fulness” of Gentiles, but of “all Israel.”

Supersessionism is a long name for a simple error. Supersessionism is another name for replacement theology, or fulfillment theology, for covenant misleading not covenant mercy. It’s a Bible reading error. If you read enough to believe that God will fulfill His covenant word to Israel, and that while the church receives many salvation blessings it does not fulfill the words of God to Jews (but rather will be used by God at the right time in the future to bring about Israel’s salvation), then you will end up a Dispensational Premillennialist.

And while we appreciate many brothers who don’t identify that way, we think they miss out on the hope that this understanding secures (per Romans 8), and on the praise it provokes in doxology (per the next paragraph). His mercies never come to an end, great is His faithfulness (see Lamentations 3:22-23). Praise the Lord!

I will miss being the minister proclaiming the benediction for the flock the next few Lord’s Days. But of course it is not my blessing, it is God’s blessing on His people through the minister. May the Lord bless You and keep you and make His face shine upon you.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. (Romans 16:25–27, ESV)

The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Our God is eternal, sovereign, righteous, and *merciful*. We note His kindness and severity, His perfect standard and His offer of forgiveness for all who have sinned against it. He is making His merciful name known among the nations.

We are nearing the end of this section of Paul’s letter to the Romans. We have not heard the last about Paul’s missionary efforts to Gentiles or Paul’s exhortations related to Jewish scruples. But here is the final paragraph of his explanation for how he could so confidently say that “it is not as though the word of God has failed” (Romans 9:6). The Lord’s covenant mercy to Israel has not failed.

There is a “mystery” as Paul reveals it, as Paul has been revealing it, in Romans 9-11. The mystery isn’t that God changed His mind, it’s that how God fulfills His mind doesn’t look exactly like we might have had in mind. The end is the same, the way He gets to the end is higher than our ways. It ought to keep us humble, and that’s how he starts this last paragraph before the doxology.

# The Mystery in Israel’s Complete Salvation (verses 25-27)

It is not a mystery that Israel would be saved, but how the process of their salvation would come about.

## The Reason for Revealing the Mystery (verse 25a)

Unlike the ESV’s switch of the phrases, Paul actually starts with his desire for them to understand, and that understanding will keep them from getting self-wise. He also starts with a “For” (KJV, NASB), as this paragraph explains the previous parts of chapter 11.

> Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: (Romans 11:25a ESV)

He didn’t want them to be “without knowledge,” to be “ignorant” (KJV) or “uniformed” (NASB) about the **mystery**. Mystery is a New Testament favorite, for Paul in particular (see again in Romans 16:25), referring to a thing that had previously been un-manifested. A mystery isn’t a new thing, but before it was “in God’s private counsel” (BADG), a secret of sorts. Paul has actually been unveiling the mystery for the last three chapters, but will spell it out in two sentences shortly.

He’s talking to the **brothers**, which would include all the believers, but especially the Gentiles whom he started addressing directly in verse 14. Understanding this mystery will help keep them from being arrogant and proud (see those admonitions also in verses 18, 20).

## The Nature of the Mystery (verses 25b-26a)

There are *three* parts/stages to the mystery.

> a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, (Romans 11:25b–26a ESV)

Stage one: **a partial hardening has come upon Israel**. This is a summary of much of Romans 9 about election and Romans 10 and 11 about hardening. **Partial hardening** doesn’t mean a percent of hard and soft in hearts, it’s not about only fragments of arteries being blocked, but fully hardened hearts among a percent of the people of Israel. God’s choice of Israel did not mean that every generation of Jews would be good, or even that the majority would receive their Messiah when He came. We know they didn’t. Only a remnant would believe, the rest were hardened.

Stage two: **until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in**. It’s not just that much of Israel would disobey, but that Gentiles would be grafted in to the salvation blessings, and here Paul clarifies that there is a **fulness**, a final part/full number of Gentiles elected to salvation. On the timeline, we are somewhere in this stage.

Stage three: **And in this way all Israel will be saved**. When the work of God among the Gentiles is done, then He will graft back in the Jews. This first part of verse 26 is a punch in the throat to Supersessionism.

It simply will not do as decent Bible reading to call this **Israel** the church, or all the elect Jews and Gentiles (as John Calvin, “I extend the word Israel to all the people of God”), or any other group than ethnic, national Israel. This Israel to be saved is the same Israel that knew partial hardening. As generations of Jews rejected, so a coming generation will be fully included, reconciled, grafted back in (Romans 11:12, 15, 24). It has been just a remnant, but now all will be restored.

> “The main thesis of verse 25 is that the hardening of Israel is to terminate and that Israel is to be restored. This is but another way of affirming what had been called Israel’s “fulness” in verse 12, the “receiving” in verse 15, and the grafting in again in verses 23, 24. To regard the climactic statement, “all Israel shall be saved”, as having reference to anything else than this precise datum would be *exegetical violence*.” (John Murray, _The Epistle to the Romans_)

If it is *all* the Christians, including Gentiles, then Gentiles being saved *IS* Israel being saved and that is not a mystery, that would be an undoing of the covenant promises. It makes the following OT covenant a lie.

## The Covenant behind the Mystery (verses 26b-27)

Here are just partial quotes from two Old Testament prophecies that Paul sees being fulfilled when Israel is saved.

> as it is written,

> “The Deliverer will come from Zion,

> he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;

> “and this will be my covenant with them

> when I take away their sins.”

> (Romans 11:26b–27 ESV)

The first comes from Isaiah 59:20-21, the second comes from Isaiah 27:9. Israel had the “covenants” (Romans 9:4). It was through the patriarchs, the “forefathers” (see the next verse), and then through the prophets.

Isaiah revealed the promise of God to send a **Deliverer** who would come **from Zion**, that is, from Jerusalem, who would **banish ungodliness from Jacob**, also named by God as “Israel.” The **covenant** is: **when I take away their sins**. It’s a covenant to forgive them, and because it includes forgiveness, it is unconditional.

Though somehow John Calvin, “in this prophecy deliverance to the spiritual people of God is promised, among whom even Gentiles are included.” An even worse take:

> "the Christian Church in which the earthly distinction between Jew and Gentile disappears never to be re-instituted. To re-instate the old distinction between Jew and Gentile after the New Testament era has dawned would be to reverse the forward march of the Kingdom, and would be as illogical and useless as to go back to candle or lamp light after the sun has risen." (Loraine Boettner, _The Millennium_, 241)

That is “exegetical violence.” We’ve seen the New Covenant explicitly referred to in Jeremiah 31, and the similar promise of a “new heart” for sake of obedience in Ezekiel 36. And those covenants of mercy include earthly, geographical and agricultural promises to “the house of Israel” and “the house of Judah.” The Lord promised them forgiveness and fruitfulness. This is contra the Reformed Murray, who as an amillennialist at least accepts salvation for Israelites, but says none of the other physical/temporal parts of the covenants are to be expected.

> The elements of these quotations specify for us what is involved in the salvation of Israel. These are redemption, the turning away from ungodliness, the sealing of covenant grace, and the taking away of sins, the kernel blessings of the gospel, and they are an index to what the salvation of Israel means. There is no suggestion of any privilege or status but that which is common to Jew and Gentile in the faith of Christ. (Murray)

Apparently there’s more than one way to commit “exegetical violence.”

Also, other than 9:4 this is the only explicit mention of **covenant** in Romans. One would think, if we were to understand all the things through the covenant lens, that Paul certainly would have helped us learn to use that vocabulary.

# The Showcase in Israel’s Complete Salvation (verses 28-32)

The last word on God’s purpose for Israel in particular.

## A Showcase of God’s Election (verses 28-29)

> As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:28–29 ESV)

The Jewish religious leaders pressed the Romans to put their Deliverer to death. No one persecuted the Christians more in the first century than Jews, Paul himself a prime example. The Jews loved their privilege as possessors of the Law (not **gospel**) and tried to establish their own righteousness apart from faith as called for in the gospel. So **they are enemies for your sake**.

And yet there is a way in which all those with Jewish blood belong to the root that increases their accountability because they are **beloved for the sake of their forefathers**. They have something unique.

In God’s Word only one kind of person can be elect in two ways, and there are two ways to be elect in only one way, and then there are the non-elect (or the reprobate). Only Jews can be part of the elect nation and elect unto salvation.

**For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable**. This is true for our salvation *because* it is true of God’s Word. That counts for His covenants, and that means that *all* of what He said in those covenants must come to pass. There may be mystery in how it comes, but it must come about. God doesn’t repent from giving privileges, and neither should we for receiving them from Him.

## A Showcase of God’s Mercy (verses 30-32)

The forgiven tend to get stingy about forgiveness, and we shouldn’t.

> For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. (Romans 11:30–32 ESV)

What’s different is that whereas Israel’s disobedience led to our receiving of mercy, it is our receiving of mercy that will lead to their receiving of mercy. We share disobedience; we all know how to do that. But in God’s purposes He aims for the final and full showing of **mercy on all**. This isn’t universalism. It is still in the context, not just of that “fulness” of Gentiles, but of “all Israel.”

# Conclusion

Supercessionism is a long name for a simple error. Supercessionism is another name for replacement theology, or fulfillment theology, for *covenant misleading* not covenant mercy. It’s a Bible reading error. If you read enough to believe that God will fulfill His covenant word to Israel, and that while the church receives many salvation blessings it does not fulfill the words of God to Jews (but rather will be used by God at the right time in the future to bring about Israel’s salvation), then you will end up a Dispensational Premillennialist.

And while we appreciate many brothers who don’t identify that way, we think they miss out on the hope that this understanding secures (per Romans 8), and on the praise it provokes in doxology (per the next paragraph). His mercies never come to an end, great is His faithfulness (see Lamentations 3:22-23). Praise the Lord!

----------

## Charge

I will miss being the minister proclaiming the benediction for the flock the next few Lord’s Days. But of course it is not my blessing, it is God’s blessing on His people through the minister. May the Lord bless You and keep you and make His face shine upon you.

## Benediction:

> Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. (Romans 16:25–27, ESV)