Once again Paul returns to the Jewish problem. It must have been causing a great deal of unrest in Rome for Paul to spend so long on it.

Paul preached: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Ch10v13. It followed that those who did not call on the name of Jesus would remain unsaved. Paul's critics pointed out that the Jews on the whole refused to submit to Jesus and so, according to the little apostle, were lost to God. They then posed the question, "How can this be if the Jews are God's chosen people? Does God reject his people? v1.

The implication is that Paul is wrong. If he was correct and the gospel he preached true then surely the vast majority of Jews would believe in Jesus.

Paul neither accepted he was wrong nor did he believe that God had rejected his people. He answered the question: "Did God reject his people?" with an emphatic, "By no means."

I will look at how Paul answered his critics and in the process hope to demonstrate that the passage still has relevance for us in the 21st century.

(1) A personal testimony.

Paul writes: I am an Israelite myself ..... . This has certain implications:

(a) It was not impossible for a Jew to believe in Jesus and to depend on grace and not works for salvation. The Jews were not unable to believe because God had rejected them. Far from it! Paul believed notwithstanding the fact he was a true Jew, a proud Jew, a Pharisee of the Pharisees and for a time a bitter opponent of Christianity.

My friends NO ONE is unable to believe because God has not chosen them. This is a sad, sick tenant of Calvinism. I am a great devotee of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress but I can remember reading with horror a sermon of the famous Puritan. He commenced by saying that it didn't matter how much a person sought God's forgiveness or wanted to be a Christian it would avail nothing if that person was not one of the elect.

(b) Paul could never be accused of prejudice against the Jews. He was one himself! He was one moreover who could trace his ancestry back to Benjamin.

I have sometimes criticised Grace Baptists in these expositions. It is hardly because I am prejudiced against them. My brother, my father and my grandfather were all Grace Baptist pastors and I remain in membership with a Grace Baptist church.

(c) Paul was not an outsider - ignorant of Judaism and the Old Testament Scriptures. No, he was an insider. The apostle sat at Gamaliel's feet. He was a student of one of the most influential Pharisee scholars. As an insider any criticism he makes of the Jews must carry considerable weight.

Insiders know the weaknesses of a denomination or individual church better than outsiders. I think it is better to reserve our criticism for what we know about. Grace Baptists, for example, should look to their own weaknesses rather than pronounce on the failings of the Roman Catholic church about which they have no first-hand experience.

(2) The testimony of history.

Paul refers back to the prophet Elijah who made a blanket condemnation of all Israel: "Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars, I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me." v3. The prophet was convinced that all Israel had rejected God and defected to Baal. But this was untrue and provides a salutary warning that even insiders can get it wrong when they generalise. God informed Elijah, "I have reserved for myself 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal." v4.

LESSONS:

• It is dangerous to issue a blanket condemnation and to judge people en masse. Throughout Israel's history there was always a remnant who remained true to the God. This is a common theme of the prophets.

  This was true at the time of Jesus' birth. Elizabeth, Zechariah, Joseph, Mary, Simeon, Anna and others were all devoted to the Lord their God. Luke records of Elizabeth and Zechariah: Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing al the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly. Lk1v6.

• William Barclay observed in his commentary on Romans: There is a tremendous truth beginning to dawn here. God does not call men and women in crowds. Individuals must give their own hearts and surrender their own lives to God.

• Paul acknowledged that in his day and age there was a remnant chosen by grace. Some Jews did respond to the gospel Paul preached. They had faith in Jesus. The remnant depended not on keeping the Law but upon God's provision of salvation in his Son. They relied upon grace. Such were the children of promise - the true Israel.

  Throughout the last 2000 years there has always been a Jewish remnant who believe in Jesus and are beneficiaries of God's saving grace.

APPLICATION TO US:

It is very wrong for some militant Protestants to suppose that men and women who belong to the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Coptic churches cannot be saved because of the errors associated with them. In every denomination there is at least a remnant who depend upon Jesus and his saving work for salvation.

There is no doubt that much corruption existed in the Medieval church but the fact remains that reformers like Luther, Melanchthon and Calvin came out of that church. Even in the Middle Ages in a church bedevilled by ignorance, superstition, hypocrisy, greed and legalism there was a remnant of true believers.

The Association of churches to which I belong is Calvinistic. Recently, I was talking to an Anglican clergyman in the Low Church tradition who said, "Of course, there are Grace Baptist churches that are not evangelical." Now this is an easy conclusion to jump to. If a person's salvation was all cut and dried before the foundation of the earth you wouldn't expect Grace Baptist pastors to urge people to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and new life in him. You would hardly expect them to engage in mission. But of course they do - they ALL do! So why do they? It hardly sits easily with their doctrines of election and predestination. The reason Grace Baptists are evangelical is because that is what the Bible tells them to be.

(3) The testimony of the Prophets.

The Jews never obtained the very thing they sought so earnestly. They looked forward to the coming of a Messiah, God's anointed and great David's greater son. The coming One would establish a new kingdom, greater in every way than David's or Solomon's.

The Jews never received what they sought because they rejected Jesus, the Son God sent. The bone-headed, obdurate, hard-hearted opposition of the Jewish leaders to Jesus is brilliantly described in John's gospel. See, for example, exposition on John10v22to42.

Paul's explanation: the Jews were:

(a) Hardened or calloused. The religious establishment in the time of Christ had calloused hearts. Over the years scholars and teachers had high-jacked the Law for their own ends. It had attracted definitions, rulings and additions and taken on a life of its own. The Law and the record of past interpretations allowed experts to make their living and acquire status by pronouncing on it. Jesus said that the Pharisees and lawyers paid no attention to what God really wanted: justice, mercy and faithfulness.

As a consequence the very men who should have welcomed Jesus with open arms were just not on his wave-length. They failed to do the one thing God wanted of them - believe on the one he had sent. Instead, as John poignantly put it: He came to his own and his own received him not."

(b) Sleepy or torpid. See Dt29v4. They were like wasps after they have gorged themselves on fermenting fruit! They were like some of the children I taught on hot summer's afternoons following a strenuous P.E. lesson. They were overcome with a delicious languor. They let the drone of my voice lull them into an irresistible sleepiness. With eyes almost closed not a word I said made any impression. The slightest concentration was too much for them - nothing registered. See Is29v10.

Many Jews were just like this when it came to Jesus' teaching. They didn't really listen to him. They couldn't understand what he was getting at. They were not prepared to think hard about what he said. There were topics even the disciples didn't want to hear about. Jesus had to change his teaching strategy and stick to telling stories because of the unresponsive nature of his hearers. He told his disciples that there were things he could not tell them because they were just not ready to take them in - but when the Holy Spirit came he would lead them into all truth.

(c) Complacent. Paul quotes Ps69v22. In this psalm David writes about his enemies: They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst. The psalmist goes on to express a desire that what they feast on will lead to their ruin: May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap. (Paul rarely quotes with perfect accuracy.)

Paul's Jewish opponents feasted on their racial superiority, infallible knowledge, own righteousness and devotion to the Law. This was meat and drink to them and on such a feast they became self-satisfied and complacent.

But this feast became a snare and a trap. The Jews remained unenlightened and in the dark as to God's grace. Their backs were bent under the heavy responsibility of earning God's approval. They carried, too, the weight of their own sins. The unbelieving Jews were like John Bunyan's Pilgrim with that awful load on his back - a load that rolled away when he came to the cross. Many, many Jews never came!

APPLICATION TO OUR DAY: Men and women all over the world display the same destructive traits as the Jews.

• Many people brought up in Christian homes, who attend church for a considerable time out of habit, resist the gospel call over and over again. Perhaps in the first instance they were stirred and challenged by the love of Jesus but as time passes and their hearts become calloused it means less and less. A classic example of this is the well known nineteenth and early twentieth century English poet, writer and critic, Edmund Gosse. As a boy Gosse had a comprehensive grasp of the Christian Gospel. He could speak with eloquence about man's sin, the need for repentance, the saving work of Jesus on the cross and the gift of eternal life to the believer. He wished to be good and holy and earnestly desired to follow where his pious father led. However, through thick and thin he clung to a hard nut of individuality, deep down in his childish nature. To the pressures from without he resigned everything else, his thoughts, his words, his anticipations, his assurance, but there was something that he never resigned, his innate and persistent self. He could not do it - surrender his life to another. The more he resisted the easier it became to stop as he was until he became insensible to the saving work of Jesus altogether.

• It is very difficult to interest the vast majority of people in Western Europe in the teaching, example and work of Jesus. If the subject comes up they switch off. They are as dozy as torpid wasps. Their energies are expended working and pleasuring and they have no intention of wasting time with Jesus.

  This is true of some who attend church. As soon as the sermon starts certain members of the congregation become sleepy and begin to day dream. They take in very little of what the preacher is saying. Their minds are full of other things: how the roast beef will turn out, an afternoon watching the cricket on the telly, the rocketing price of wheat and so on.

  Relatively few folk in Britain seriously investigate the claims of Jesus. They just cannot be bothered.

• Some religious people believe that it is still necessary to earn God's favour by obeying the teaching of the CHURCH. So if they are baptised, take communion, attend church occasionally, confess their sins and give generously Jesus can be dispensed with as a personal saviour. Such sad folk carry the awful responsibility of meriting God's favour. Their loveless, graceless, legalistic religion is often associated with guilt. It is a religion that bends men's backs to the point of breaking.

  Jesus came to earth and offered himself as a sacrifice for sin on the cross so that or sins might be forgiven and his righteousness imputed to us. If we believe in Jesus, all the privileges and blessings attendant upon being a child of God become ours.