Romans 11,25-32. 10. Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

Romans 11,25-32 4116

10. Sn. n. Trinitatis  055 

Joseph of Arimathea 

Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, France, ✠ 448 

Volker George, SELK pastor, 2011

31. Juli 2016 

1. O Almighty and everlasting God, who by Your Holy Spirit has revealed unto us the gospel of Your Son, Jesus Christ: We beseech You so to quicken our hearts so that we may sincerely receive Your Word, and not make light of it, or hear it without fruit, as did Your people, the unbelieving Jews, but that we may fear You and daily grow in faith in Your mercy, and finally obtain eternal salvation, through Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One True God, world without end.  Amen.  (Veit Dietrich for 10. Sn. n. Trinitatis). 

2. Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers and sisters: a partial hardening has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has been gathered in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written: »The Deliverer will arrive from Zion, He will banish ungodliness from Jacob« [Isaiah 59,20; 45,17]; »and this will be My covenant with them when I take away their sins.« [Isaiah 27,9] As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all.

  3. The Apostle Paul tells us in his epistle: »God has consigned all to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all.« It began in Genesis 3. Adam had disobeyed and sinned against God, and thus lost Paradise. Creation was cursed, man was punished and sin would now lead to our death. But God would not allow mankind to be consigned to disobedience; He promised mankind a savior who would undo the curse of sin, death and the devil. This promise was passed down through the patriarchs. 

4. The promise is: »I will put enmity between you, O Serpent, and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.« (Genesis 3,15). Later the Lord told Abraham: »I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.« (Genesis 12,1-3). Finally on the cusp of Jesus’ arrival, the Prophet Micah declared: »Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of His inheritance? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old« (Micah 7,18-20). 

5. The promise was given to Adam and all his descendants. The Lord chose Abraham through whom to fulfill it, and thus Israel was created the one nation of the world through whom the Lord would work His promise to redeem all mankind. All the nations would be blessed through Abraham and the messiah who would descend from his genealogy. Thus Paul’s summary in his epistle: »God has consigned all to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all.« „Behind this sentence is the center of our faith. That Jesus Christ died on our behalf, that we are indebted to the guidance and will of God, as He had already proclaimed in the Old Testament“ (Wenz ¶ 2). 

6. The irony of it all was: Israel rejected the very messiah they had awaited for two millennia. St. Paul explains that irony: »I want you to understand this mystery: a partial hardening has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has been gathered in. And in this way all Israel will be saved.« As Paul unpacks the theology of the Holy Scriptures, he explains it that Israel is that body of people who believe in the Jesus who is the promised messiah. This Israel has two natures: 1. Some of these believers are Jews who can trace their genealogy all the way back to Abraham according to the flesh; 2. Many more of these believers are Gentiles who can trace their genealogy all the way back to Abraham according to the spirit. Both have faith in Jesus, and this faith in Jesus as the messiah is the same faith that Abraham had. „Paul says that only a portion of the people of Israel is damned. It is clear that there will be no salvation for Israel apart from Christ. It is also clear that Christians must never write off the Jewish people. In every era there are Jews who discover their Savior in Christ“ (Wenz ¶ 20.21). 

7. What was true of the Jews 2000 years ago is true of Christians today: People who once believed in Jesus may fall away into unbelief. How many nations were full of churches praising Jesus, but today stand empty and almost silent? „And then, decades and centuries later, this God fades into obscurity, He is cursed, mocked, ridiculed and forgotten“ (Wenz ¶ 15). Sounds like Christianity Europe and America, doesn’t it? And also other places around the world. The earliest churches were built in Palestine, Syria, Turkey and Egypt. In those nations today, Christianity is a small minority among the population, and the faith is often persecuted from time to time. The opposite is also true: those who have long rejected Jesus may believe in Him at some time in the future. The Holy Spirit creates faith when and where He desires, in those who hear the gospel, namely, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s merit, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake (Augsburg Confession 5,2-3). 

8. While Israel rejected their messiah, there was one who did not. Jesus, the Son of God sent to be Israel’s messiah, is also Israel reduced to one (Hummel 17). „Jesus is Israel, true man, but radically distinct from Israel, true God“ (Hummel 224). Jesus did not reject His messiahship; He did not reject His Father who sent Him to be the messiah. Jesus is »the Deliverer arrived from Zion, He banished ungodliness from Jacob« [Isaiah 59,20; 45,17]; Jesus is »His Father’s covenant with Israel when He took away their sins« [Isaiah 27,9]. In Christ Jesus, Israel has received, believed and confessed the messiah who has triumphed victorious over our sin, death and the devil. In Christ, God has mercy on everyone: to the Jew first, and then also the Gentile. Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise given to the patriarchs and the prophets. 

9. Thus all Israel has been saved. Jesus fulfilled the promise given to Israel to redeem all the nations. Those Gentiles who believe in Jesus are now added to the Jews who also believe in Him. Thus we still preach in season and out of season in this nation and to our culture that God is compassionate and merciful in His Only Son. He is the only Savior for the nations; He is the only Savior for Americans.  Amen. 

10. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, our Lord and our God, You are our Savior and have added us to be a part of the people of Your pasture and the sheep of Your hand so that we may enjoy the blessings You give to Your Church, which is Your Israel.  Amen. 

To God alone be the Glory 

Soli Deo Gloria

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4^th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27^th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.  

All quotations from the Book of Concord are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 12. Edition © 1998 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 

Hummel, Horace D. The Word Becoming Flesh. © 1979 by Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis.

Wenz, Armin. A sermon preached on 28. August 2011 (10. Trinity) in Oberursel, Germany on Romans 11,25-32. Copyright © 2011 The Rev. Dr. Armin Wenz. The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind, Tr. © 2011.