Day 172, Romans 11
When Paul quoted Deuteronomy in Chapter 10, it may have looked as though God was turning His back on the Jewish people by welcoming everyone to His arms. Paul takes care to dismiss that wrong conclusion, and correct those who would embrace replacement theology (where the Church replaces Israel as the focus of God’s love).
Israel is the root of this great olive tree of relationship with God, and we non-Jews have been grafted in. Some branches (the Jews and heretical branches of the Church) have been cut off, but God is ready to graft in any branch that meets the criteria we saw in Chapter 10: being persuaded by the whisper of God to accept the free gift of grafting.
In God’s perfect economy, the resistance and opposition of some opens the door to the salvation of many, and the mercy this demonstrates becomes the means by which the resistant are saved!
As Paul says: “out of him, the sustainer of everything, came everything, and now everything finds fulfillment in him.”
Have a great day!
Mark.