# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1859_S330
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

330 Whether Rom. 11:25, 26, 27 [teaches] a solemn [conversion of the Jews] still to be expected, etc.

fruit of the dough, was holy, and as the branches are holy if the root is holy, so God could not have simply and utterly rejected the descendants of an Abraham, with whom he had established his covenant of grace (v. 16). True, indeed, some of the branches of Israel's olive tree have been broken off, and a number of Gentiles grafted in among them instead, as a wild olive tree; but that gives the latter no right to boast against the former (v. 17, 18). If the Gentile should say that the branches were broken off so that he might be grafted in, this is, in itself, certainly true; but the Jew was rejected not out of God's absolute hatred, but on account of his unbelief; and the same could therefore also befall the Gentile, and indeed all the more readily, since he does not belong to the natural branches (v. 19–22); just as the Jew, if he does not remain in unbelief, will again be grafted in, and indeed all the more readily, as a natural branch, since even the Gentile, as a wild branch, was grafted contrary to nature into the good olive tree (v. 23, 24).

Now that the apostle has thus proved a priori that God has not absolutely rejected the people Israel nor absolutely received the Gentiles, he continues: "I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own conceits: Blindness has happened in part to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel shall be saved, etc." And by this he means to say: Know, you who were once Gentiles, it is not only, as I have shown, unthinkable that God should have utterly cast off his people; a mystery has also been revealed to me which sets a permanent limit to all your exalting of yourselves over the Jews. This mystery consists, namely, in this: that the people of the Jews will never fall entirely into hardening, that their hardening will always remain only partial, so that as long as Gentiles are being converted, Jews too will be converted; so that as long as the age of grace for the Gentiles lasts, the age of grace for the Jews will likewise continue, and so a time will never come in which only Gentiles enter the kingdom of Christ. Let the Jews go on having crucified and rejected their own Messiah; let them now, with very few exceptions, rage and rave against those who believe in their Messiah; let them everywhere be the chief obstacle to the spread of the messianic kingdom; let it therefore seem impossible that even God's patience should not come to an end; let God's justice seem to require that God finally reject them all and shut the door of grace against them: yet God will never let himself repent of his gifts and calling; he will keep his promise; he will therefore see to it, first, that there is always, until the Last Day, a Jewish people, and then, that from among them, always until the Last Day, some are converted, pardoned, and saved. And so, in this glorious way — worthy of wonder and worship — out of God's incomprehensible faithfulness, truthfulness, mercy, patience, and long-suffering, all of Israel, foreknown by him beforehand (v. 2), will be saved, not a single soul excepted. Will you, then, still go on being proud, you Gentile Christians?