Join Colin Cook on a journey through a challenging yet revealing passage that illustrates God’s unwavering commitment to mercy and salvation. Delve into the complexities of human disobedience, the transformation of anger into awe, and how God’s eternal promises remain steadfast. Reflect on the implications of being ‘imprisoned in disobedience’ and how this state paves the way for the eventual realization of divine grace and truth, leading to a global recognition of Christ’s sacrifice.
00:00:05 The Mystery of Israel’s Temporary Blindness
So Paul has brought us to the climax of this tremendously interesting or revealing passage about how Israel is going to be saved. And he says that it’s a mystery. I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery. So it’s a mystery, but he’s not going to let us be ignorant about it. In other words, he’s going to reveal what the mystery is. And what is the mystery? that blindness in part has happened to Israel. Now, that means that Israel is only going to be blinded temporarily. But also, that that blindness has come about because God has allowed Israel to resist the Messiah. In other words, he hasn’t forced it on them. They resisted Christ. They resisted the idea that he was the Savior of the world. And God has allowed that to happen. In fact, he has made it to happen even more so, because then he gives them the alternatives that they choose instead of him, whatever they may be. But that’s only half the story, because that blindness in part is going on while God is bringing in the Gentiles. That is, God is revealing to the Gentiles who the Messiah is and allowing the Israelites to be blinded. But for what purpose? That they may be lost? No. Because back to verse 11, I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not. But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. So what God does when a person or a group or a nation resists him and resists the revelation of Christ is that he allows them to resist him and gives them more blindness still so that they resist him all the more, while at the same time, on the other hand, he is saving those who have been positioned and are ready for his mercy in Jesus Christ. And what does that do? It makes the original group jealous. They look with envy upon the blessings that God brings to those who believe in Jesus Christ. And that brings God to the point where those who are jealous now long for the Messiah and so The Deliverer will come out of Zion, that is, Jesus Christ will be revealed to them in Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob, for this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. And so God is so incredibly intriguing. He uses one group to provoke another group to jealousy. Let’s read on and see how this is explained. Concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. That is, concerning the gospel, the Jewish people have resisted it, so they are enemies of the gospel. But for your sake… Well, how could their being enemies of Christ be for our sake, the non-Jewish people? Because their enmity against Christ led to their handing him over to the Romans, which then led to his crucifixion, which was, of course, the atonement for the world’s sins. So we benefit by their rejection of Christ by being forgiven for By his crucifixion. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. Now, just because they rejected Christ doesn’t mean then that they are lost. How amazing this is! A very different angle from what most Christians assume. We assume that rejecting Christ means our eternal loss. But actually, in God’s plan, our rejection of Him, or in the context of which we are talking, The Jewish rejection of him, but we can apply it to ourselves too, because we have all rejected Christ at one point or another, leads to our ultimate salvation because the rejection creates a crisis in our heart and soul and mind that ultimately becomes intolerable. So let’s read on. Concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election, they are beloved for the sake of their fathers. So they’re still not cast away forever or lost forever. Why? For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. In other words, the gift of the blessing given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all their posterity is that gift and that calling of them to represent Jehovah in the world are irrevocable, cannot be revoked, cannot be pulled back or turned back. So God’s plan is still that Israel shall be saved, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you, referring to the Gentiles, were once disobedient to God, but have now obtained mercy, through their disobedience, how did we receive mercy through their disobedience? Because their disobedience led to the crucifixion of Christ. And that crucifixion, being the atonement that God made for the world, leads to our mercy. Okay? For as they were once disobedient to God… yet have now obtained mercy, so as you, that is referring to the Gentiles, as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that is referring to the Jewish people, that through the mercy shown you, that is the mercy shown the Gentiles, they also may obtain mercy. So what God is doing in salvation is to save some people while leaving the others unsaved to resist him, so that the saved people become so peaceful, happy, glorious, and joyful that they become a curiosity to the ones who have not yet been saved. And then they become more of a curiosity but an envy because their blessings are so great that they, the unsaved, want the blessings too. So God plays one group of over against the other he intertwines their relationships so that we who are the salt of the earth make others envious because of the flavor that we give to the world and that envy ultimately leads to their salvation too thus we come to the conclusion which is verse 32 now listen to this carefully For God has imprisoned all to disobedience, or God has committed, it can read committed or imprisoned or consigned, all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. Now, why would God commit all to the idea behind the word disobedience here in the Greek is the unwillingness to believe, the willful unbelief. Why would God imprison people in that willful unbelief?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, because each person after Adam, along with Adam,
SPEAKER 02 :
suppressed God, chose not to have him in their consciousness. And God has to show the world what that suppression really does. It cuts us off from the source of life. It cuts us off from joy, from meaning. It brings guilt and shame and fear into our lives, anxiety and worry and trouble. And that is his imprisonment. So why is he imprisoning us? So that we can see that our state of living is intolerable, is too painful to endure, so that we look to him for mercy, so that he might have mercy on all. Let’s read it again. For God has committed them all, or one translation says, imprisoned them all in disobedience. The word them isn’t there, so let’s say it again. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience, the willful unbelief, that he might have mercy on all. That is his goal, and you can be absolutely assured that God is going to fulfill that goal. Remember Isaiah 45, verses 22 to 24. As I live, says the Lord. As I live, he’s swearing by his own existence, how could he possibly lie? The purity and righteousness of God never lies.
SPEAKER 01 :
As I live, says the Lord, I have made an oath that shall never be pulled back, never be revoked, that before me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall also take an oath that in me alone is their righteousness and strength.
SPEAKER 02 :
And even all those who have been angry with me will make this oath. You see, God understands human anger against God. God understands that a world that’s trying to believe in God nevertheless sees a world that is in chaos and evil. And if it is so, then why doesn’t God do something about it? They’re mad at him. But God is so persuasive that in the judgment he will be able to reveal all the grace that he has injected into the evil of the world and turned its effect into good for our salvation so that we finally become persuaded and our anger towards him falls flat on its face. And we are then awed and inspired by his glory and the beauty and the love and the mercy that he has shown us in Jesus Christ, the Lamb that is slain, that appears on the throne as once slain, so that we understand that the center of judgment, the whole rationale of judgment, is mercy. For Christ, slain as a lamb, is God’s full and total and absolute expression of mercy. And so when the world sees this, then comes those verses in Zechariah chapter 12, I think it is, that they shall see, look upon him whom they have pierced. That’s all of us, not simply Jewish people, but all of us, we have pierced Christ by our sins. They shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they will mourn. all the world will mourn and grieve over the loss that they created of the Savior Jesus Christ. Yet God in His love and in His mercy turned that loss into a gain so that we by our loss find the gain of salvation as we come in faith and humility and repentance of unbelief towards Him. Thank you for joining me today. Colin Cook here, and how it happens. You’ve been listening to this program, which you can hear any time of the day or night, and you can hear lots of archives any time of the day or night on your smartphone by simply downloading a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com or others like Spotify, Google, Apple, and keying in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. If you’d like to make a donation, it would be so much appreciated. You can do it simply online at faithquestradio.com. Thanks so much. I’ll see you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
Join Colin Cook on a journey through a challenging yet revealing passage that illustrates God’s unwavering commitment to mercy and salvation. Delve into the complexities of human disobedience, the transformation of anger into awe, and how God’s eternal promises remain steadfast. Reflect on the implications of being ‘imprisoned in disobedience’ and how this state paves the way for the eventual realization of divine grace and truth, leading to a global recognition of Christ’s sacrifice.
