ISRAEL S SECOND WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS SAMUEL WHITEFIELD

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1 I. INTRODUCTION A. Romans 9-11 is one of the most significant passages in the New Testament because it is Paul s most concise summary of how gentile believers should relate to Israel in light of God s future plan for Israel. To understand Romans 9 properly, we must understand what it is and what it is not. Romans 9 is not primarily Paul s summary of how individual salvation works. By the time he gets to Romans 9, Paul has already spent several chapters developing his understanding of individual salvation. In Romans 9, Paul is primarily answering the question, why is Israel not yet saved? B. We have to remember that Paul preached primarily from the Old Testament. Therefore, when Paul preached, he used the story of Israel as his beginning point and then proclaimed, primarily to gentiles, that Israel s long awaited Messiah had appeared as God in the flesh. For gentile communities this provoked an obvious question if the Messiah Israel has been waiting for has appeared to save Israel and the nations, why is Israel by and large not saved? C. The apostles proclaimed that an event far greater than the Exodus had occurred. The long awaited deliver had come to Israel in the flesh and this is why they warned the nations to submit to Israel s King (Acts 17:7). However, even as the apostles walked the roads of the Roman Empire commanding gentiles to submit to Israel s King, they also had to wrestle with the fact that Israel was not submitting to Israel s King. This is an especially significant question since Israel s prophetic history promises that when Messiah comes, all Israel will be saved (Jeremiah 31:34). D. We are so accustomed to the rejection of Jesus by most of Israel that we have lost sight that Jesus was first the Jewish Messiah (Matthew 15:24) and that when the apostles proclaimed Jesus to the nations as the long promised delivered of Israel the gentiles no doubt asked a very sober question: If Jesus is the Deliver of Israel, why is it that most Jews are not receiving Him as such? E. Therefore, in order to properly understand Romans 9, and the chapters that follow it, we have to understand that Paul is making his case, from Scripture, for why all of Israel has not yet been saved. Romans 9 has implications for how God deals salvifically with individuals, but it is not Paul s primary point and when we make it his primary point we end up missing the primary thing Paul wants us to understand in this passage. F. In Romans 9, Paul summarizes key moments in Israel s redemptive history and demonstrates how, in each of these significant moments, there were individuals who were positioned to receive blessing from the promise of God and yet ended up being cut off. In other words, Paul is showing how this tragedy of all of Israel rejecting Jesus not entering into Israel s salvation is not new tragedy in Israel s history. Once we understand that this is Paul s primary theme in Romans 9, we can properly understand Romans 9-11.

2 PAGE 2 II. PAUL S UNCEASING ANGUISH A. Israel s rejection of Jesus was in the pattern of what happened after the Exodus and Paul s intercession in Romans 9:1-3 dramatically joins Israel s condition after Jesus ascension with Israel s condition after the covenant at Sinai. 1 I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. (Romans 9:1 2 NKJV) A. Paul says very plainly that he is in continual grief, which can also be translated as unceasing anguish (ESV, NIV, NET) for Israel. He feels anguish over the fact that YHWH has come in deliverance, but most of Israel has not entered into that deliverance. The word translated here as anguish is deep pain, both emotional and physical. This anguish is also unceasing meaning that it never leaves Paul. No matter how many gentiles receive the gospel, he has unceasing pain that all of Israel has not received it. B. Paul s agony launches him into sober words of intercession that are almost impossible to comprehend unless we understand the depths of the anguish Paul was in. This is nothing less than the divine anguish over the condition of Israel. This is not merely the anguish of a man. It is the anguish of the One who literally was accursed and cut off for the sake of Israel and Paul was so near to Him that His anguish became Paul's anguish. C. In verse 3, Paul s intercession immediately connects him to another Jewish man who lived over a thousand years before him and also saw most of Israel reject YHWH s deliverance. 31 Then Moses returned to the LORD and said, Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! 32 Yet now, if You will forgive their sin but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written. (Exodus 32:31 32 NKJV) 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, (Romans 9:3 NKJV) D. Both Moses and Paul were found in grief and intercession because both saw Israel reject the deliverance of YHWH. Both were in such pain that they would cut themselves off if only it would secure Israel s redemption. Understanding their intercession and Israel s predicament is what enables us to understand both Romans 9-11 and Israel s history over the last 2,000 years. III. ISRAEL S REJECTION OF GOD S COVENANT A. Moses and Paul both lived through monumental transitions in Israel s history. In fact, there are only three such transitions in this age that is how rare they are. The first is the Exodus, the second is the first coming of Jesus and the third is the second coming of Jesus. In all three transitions God physically comes down and dramatically changes the way He relates to His people. To understand Israel s history, we must understand how the first two comings both left Israel in the same predicament.

3 PAGE 3 B. When God delivered Israel from the oppression of Pharaoh, He took them into the wilderness to make covenant with them and in the process physically came down on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:11, 17-18) as the entire nation audibly heard His voice (Deuteronomy 4:9-13; 4:32-36; 5:1-4). This was an unparalleled event in history that soon became tragic. 1. Though Israel had been delivered and had heard the voice of God, they fashioned their own god, declared it to be the one who had delivered them from Israel and worshipped it rather than relate to YHWH as He had revealed Himself to them. 4 And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt! (Exodus 32:4 NKJV) 2. This disastrous event is what provoked Moses dramatic intercession on behalf of Israel in Exodus 32: C. This same scenario played out the next time God came down in the sight of all the people. This time YHWH came down even closer to them in the person of Jesus. Once again they heard the audible voice of God as a nation (John 1:1, 14). He came to deliver them again, this time as the ultimate Passover Lamb. 1. This time the reaction of Israel went beyond the Exodus and they end up crucifying and rejecting YHWH. 2. Just as they had forged the golden calf in the wilderness with their own hands and claimed it as their deliverer, this time they rejected YHWH as He had revealed Himself and instead forged an unseen, incorporeal deity and ascribed Israel s long history to this false god. Though they kept the name YHWH for their new god, it was still another god. For a second time, national Israel rejected God as He had revealed Himself to them. 3. This disastrous event is what provoked Paul s unceasing anguish and dramatic intercession in Romans 9. D. In both cases, the root issue was the rejection of the knowledge of God as He in fact is. In Moses generation, they wanted something more tangible and touchable something they could control. In Paul s generation, God came much more tangible and touchable, but He was still God and unable to be controlled. This time they formed a distant god who would be negotiated with and controlled by religious service. IV. THE COVENANT CRISIS A. Both generations experienced a covenant crisis that prevented Israel from coming into her covenant promises of security dwelling in the land promised to her. In Moses generation, God decreed 40 years of wandering in the wilderness until the unfaithful generation perished and another generation emerged who could enter the land (Numbers 14:33-34).

4 PAGE 4 B. The same judgment that struck Israel in Moses generation struck again in the first century. Again, Israel would not be established in the land, but forced to wander in the wilderness of the nations. This time the rejection of YHWH was far deeper and therefore the resulting judgment was also much more dramatic. As a people they would wander the nations as a people for nearly 2,000 years. C. Just as God told Moses He could not go near the people after their infidelity in the desert (Exodus 33:3), this time God warned that He would go away and hide His face from the people. He would appear distant to them again for a season of time (Isaiah 8:17; Micah 3:4; 5:3; Hosea 5:15; Romans 11:7, 8, 25). D. In Moses generation, Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years one physical generation. Israel s wandering after the rejection of Jesus was far more serious, and Jesus warned that there was a generation that would not pass away until He brought Israel into her full deliverance (Matthew 24:34). This is the unfaithful generation of Israel that has resisted Him throughout Israel s covenant history and Israel would not be secure in the land until this generation was finished. V. THE PROMISE A. Though Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years after the Exodus and wandered the nations for nearly 2,000 years after Jesus first coming, Paul s intercession is due to one fact YHWH is still committed to doing what He promised and bringing all of Israel into her glory. Though the nation has disqualified herself, God will bring her into final glory to demonstrate the depths of His love and the strength of His salvation. B. It is the strength of God s continuing promise to Israel that sets the foundation for Paul s teaching in Romans Israel s final condition remains secure because Israel s God has secured it. This is why Paul s exhorts the gentile church in Romans 10:14-21 to maintain a constant witness to Israel, repeating the Old Testament promises that God will offer mercy to a gentiles so that Israel is provoked to her salvation (Deuteronomy 32:21; Isaiah 65:1-2). C. Moses and Paul both understood that, no matter Israel s sin and her experience of judgment for it, God must bring Israel into all her promises if He is to be true to His own word. This is the basis for Moses intercession for Israel and for Paul s prediction that the end of the gospel mission would be Israel coming into all the glorious promises. 15 Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, 16 Because the LORD was not able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness. 17 And now, I pray, let the power of my LORD be great, just as You have spoken, saying, (Numbers 14:15 17 NKJV) 25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; (Romans 11:25 26 NKJV)

5 PAGE 5 D. Israel s sin at Sinai and her sin in the rejection of Jesus did not disqualify her for her future because she never had the ability to secure the future God had promised. God brought Israel into the land after a season of discipline in Moses generation as a signpost that He would be able to finally bring them into the land after a longer season of discipline when Israel rebelled in the future. E. Ultimately God promised Israel something only He was able to do and her infidelity only serves to demonstrate His faithfulness. Israel ultimately failed because Israel was composed of fallen men. Her fall is serious, but her ability never could secure the promises of God Israel failed because Israel was composed of fallen men. However, God has a self-assigned mission impossible in this age and it is to display His glory on, in, and through fallen men. God will defeat the powers of the age by transforming humans who have no right to be transformed and no power within them to be transformed. From among His enemies, He will fashion men after His own image. F. This is why God s honor is staked on Israel entering into her promises. What God does in each redeemed individual, He has also committed to do with one nation. This is why Paul was in anguish and exhorted the gentile church to speak to Israel about her promises and labor until that glorious day when all of Israel is saved. God did not cut off Israel because of her unfaithfulness because if men s faithfulness became the condition of entering into God s promises, there would be no one left to inherit the promises. VI. UNDERSTANDING THE PROPHETIC SEASON A. Just as God gathered the people to take the land after 40 years of wandering, so too He has suddenly gathered the people to the land again. Just as we understand that Israel s rejection of Jesus in the first century resulted in a second, and greater, wandering in the wilderness, we should also understand the significance of the fact that Israel has now been brought to the threshold of the promised land again. A Jewish state in the land is a prophetic signpost that tells us that the end of Israel s discipline is near and that the season of God hiding His face is drawing to a close. The time for intercession for Israel to come into the promises has never been greater because the time is near. Moses and Paul are groaning for it before the throne and the Spirit wants to give the apostolic burden again to the church. B. There is one more thing we must understand from Israel s wandering. When Israel ended her wandering in the wilderness, one thing was required before the people could enter the Promised Land. Joshua had to gather the people together and again confirmed the covenant because the people had strayed as they wandered in the wilderness. The uncircumcised were circumcised and the people celebrated Passover again (Joshua 5). Only then could they begin to take the land and see their enemies driven out.

6 PAGE 6 C. So too at the end of the age, before Israel possess the land securely, the covenant will have to be secured again. All Israel will have to embrace Jesus as YHWH s ultimate covenant with Israel. A greater Passover will be celebrated when the Greater Joshua appears again to drive out all of Israel s enemies from before her. Right now the armed resistance that is within Israel s borders is God s reminder to Israel that He has brought her back, but there is still unfinished business between Him and her before she can possess the land in peace and safety. D. Therefore the only biblical response to Israel s current tenuous position in the land is unceasing intercession until God fulfills all His promises in the sight of the nations. Until the nation that first heard the promises enters into them, we should bear in our inner man, as the apostle Paul did the divine unceasing anguish for her salvation. He brought them out of the wilderness and drove out Israel s enemies once before and He will do again a final time and this time it will be as life from the dead for the nations (Romans 11:15).