Salvation to the Jews

The gospel of Christ is not simply for the Gentiles, but for the Jews as well.

This chapter deals with Paul's letter to the Romans, and more specifically, his burden for the Jewish people.

In this letter Paul gave free expression to his burden in behalf of the Jews. Ever since his conversion, he had longed to help his Jewish brethren to gain a clear understanding of the gospel message. "My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is," he declared, "that they might be saved." pg. 374

 I was taught as I was growing up that the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7:54-60 marked the end of the Jewish nation as God's chosen people, and that this event marked the end of the Jewish era, and the beginning of the Christian era. Later on in life I became uncomfortable with that concept partially because whenever it was explained to me, those explaining it walked a conceptual tightrope saying that God rejected the nation, but didn't reject the people. I wondered how that was possible considering the nation was comprised by the people. Stephen is not mentioned in this chapter, but E.G. White does have this to say.

Through unbelief and the rejection of Heaven's purpose for her, Israel as a nation had lost her connection with God. But the branches that had been separated from the parent stock God was able to reunite with the true stock of Israel --the remnant who had remained true to the God of their fathers. "They also," the apostle declares of these broken branches, "if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again." "If thou," he writes to the Gentiles, "wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. pgs. 378,379

God has always had a remnant, something that is evident in the fact that many of the early Christian believers came from Jewish backgrounds.

At the time of the Saviour's advent there were faithful men and women who had received with gladness the message of John the Baptist, and had thus been led to study anew the prophecies concerning the Messiah. When the early Christian church was founded, it was composed of these faithful Jews who recognized Jesus of Nazareth as the one for whose advent they had been longing. It is to this remnant that Paul refers when he writes, "If the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches." pg. 377

There is more to the chapter, but the point I want to make is similar to the one she made. We are to work for the Jewish people just as much as for Gentiles.

Among the Jews are some who, like Saul of Tarsus, are mighty in the Scriptures, and these will proclaim with wonderful power the immutability of the law of God. The God of Israel will bring this to pass in our day. His arm is not shortened that it cannot save. As His servants labor in faith for those who have long been neglected and despised, His salvation will be revealed. pg. 381