Over the years, I have taught
and preached from these verses many times, and the more that
I study them and read them and deal with them, the more convinced
I am that the most popular views of Israel today is just simply
bad theology, and don't understand what I'm saying. Somebody might
ask me, say, well, should the United States support the nation
Israel? And I say yes, emphatically,
economically, and militarily, politically, but not religiously. Only in the sense that we look
at Israel, the nation Israel, like we look at any other nation,
centers in need of salvation by the grace of God, and we pray
for their salvation. But we're to pray for the salvation
of all sorts of people, the scripture tells us. We're not to be prejudiced
or biased and say, well, I'm going to pray for this one or
this nation and not for that nation. But we're to pray for
all people because our salvation I'm a sinner saved by grace,
and a sinner who perishes in unbelief, what do I have to say? It's there but for the grace
of God go I. Isn't that right? I am what I
am by the grace of God. What I have in Christ is not
deserved or earned by me. Has nothing to do with my nationality,
my race, anything like that. is sinners saved by grace. So
the point that Paul is making here by the inspiration of the
Spirit is this. God's chosen people will be saved
by his grace through the blood and righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's God's elect. God's chosen
people. But who are God's elect? Who
are God's chosen people? Well, as I said last week, most
people will say, well, that's talking, when you use the term
elect, that's talking about Israel under the, back then, the nation
Israel. Well, they were God's elect in
a temporal, ceremonial, temporary way under the old covenant, but
that's over. And so who is the true Israel?
And of course, he's answering the question here. If God promised
to save all Israel, which he promised to do, Then what's the
problem? Because all Israel, the nation,
the majority of them perished in unbelief. So what's wrong
here? Did God just not keep his promise?
Was he unfaithful? Was he not powerful enough to
keep that promise? Was he just playing a joke? No. Who is the Israel of God? whom God will save without fail
by his grace. And so he says in verse six,
look at it, he says, not as though the word of God hath taken none
effect. The fact that the nation Israel
under the old covenant broke that covenant, did not believe,
did not believe in Christ, but rejected Christ, the true Christ,
it doesn't mean that God's word is not effectual. Doesn't mean
that God is not keeping his promise. It doesn't mean that God is not
powerful enough. And here's the answer. Look at
it. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Now that's
plain, isn't it? How can you get any plainer than
that? There's a distinction here that Paul's making. There's physical Israel, a physical
nation. But then there's another Israel,
which is a spiritual nation. And this spiritual nation, just
because a person is a physical Israelite, does not mean that
they are one of God's elect. Doesn't mean that they're of
spiritual Israel. Now Paul had been making that
point all the way through the book of Romans, really. If you
think about it, you go back to Romans chapter one, and in verse
18, Well, what's he doing? Beginning at verse 18 of Romans
chapter 1, what he's doing, you remember he said, the gospel
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and the Greek also. He's talking about in time it
came to the Jews and then to the Greek or the Gentile also. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the
just or the justified shall live by faith." In other words, if
we're justified before God, we live by faith, by God-given faith,
looking to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. And
those who don't look to Christ have no biblical foundation to
call themselves one of God's elect. Now they may be. They
may be lost sheep, you see. But if they're lost sheep, God's
gonna find them. Christ is gonna find his sheep
and they're gonna hear his voice in the preaching of the gospel.
And then, not because they're a physical Jew or a physical
Gentile or any reason, then and only then can they biblically
claim to be one of God's chosen people. Now, what's he doing
here, like in Romans 118? Well, he's showing here, all
right, why do we need the righteousness of God? Why is that necessary? What is the righteousness of
God? That's Christ. That's the glory of the person
and finished work of Christ to earn and secure the salvation
of all for whom he lived, died, was buried, and rose again. That's
the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Well, why do we
need that? Well, verse 18 of Romans 1, he says, for the wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who do what? Who hold the truth in unrighteousness. And he starts off by showing
how man by nature in his state of spiritual deadness rejects
the revelation of God in creation. What does man buy? You know,
somebody told me one time, said, well, anybody who walks in the
light they've been given is saved. Well, that's true. The problem
is we, by nature, don't walk in the light that we've been
given. If left to ourselves, we will reject the light that's
been given. And he says even the light of creation that declares
the glory of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God, what
does man do with it? Well, ultimately, he ends up
worshiping the creature rather than the creator. He worships
the creation, they worship the sun, they worship the moon, they
worship themselves. And that's what man by nature
does. Now that particularly applies to the Gentile, but it applies
to the Jew too. So the Gentile holds the truth
in unrighteousness. That's why he needs the righteousness
of God. That's why he needs salvation by grace. But what about the
Jews under the law, the Mosaic law, the Law Sinai? What do they
do? And then in chapter 2, Paul begins
to deal with the Jew under the law. And what he says essentially
is that by nature, the unbelieving Jew under the law, he holds the
truth in unrighteousness too. He's no better off than the Gentile.
Because why was the law given to the Jew? Well, it was given
to him to show him the impossibility of working righteousness by his
deeds of the law. But what does the Jew by nature
do? Well, why did Paul call them
lost? Romans nine, because they sought
righteousness, not by faith, not by looking to Christ, but
by their deeds of the law. They held the truth in unrighteousness.
So he comes to the conclusion over in Romans chapter three,
you remember he says there in verse nine, what then, are we
better than they? Are we Jews any better off than
the Gentiles by nature? in our works and our deeds, no,
in no wise. For we have before proved, both
Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, none righteous,
no, not one. In other words, the Jew under
the law, who rejects the light of truth, is just as much in
need of the righteousness of God, the grace of God in Christ,
as the Gentile is. And that's what he's saying.
But with all the advantages of being a Jew under the Mosaic
Law, what did they do? Well, they rejected it. Now there was a remnant. All
through that time, there was a remnant, you remember? Isaiah
talks about that especially. He said, you remember, he said
in Isaiah 1, except the Lord of Sabaoth hath left us a remnant,
We'd be as Sodom and Gomorrah, the whole kit and caboodle would
be under God's wrath. But there was a remnant. And over in Romans 11, Paul calls
it a remnant according to the election of grace. Remember,
he goes on to say the election, they see it, but the rest were
blinded, all of that. So go back to Romans 9 now. What
does he say? It's not as though the word of
God had taken none effect. God's word is effectual to accomplish
whatever purpose God sends it. It's always effectual. And I
think about 2 Corinthians 2 there where Paul said, we are always
victorious in Christ. You know, when we preach the
gospel, It doesn't matter if we're like
Peter at Pentecost and 3,000 come to Christ or brought to
Christ. Or if we're like Stephen and
everybody rejects it and stones us, which I don't want to happen. But either way, you know, both
Stephen and Peter were both victorious. Now that just goes against our
natural way of thinking, doesn't it? It's like these preachers
today, they gauge their ministry on how many come down the aisle,
how many get baptized, how many attend. That's why they have
the numbers game, you know, count them. You know, we gotta have,
you know, we're gonna, our goal is to have so many, you know.
I've often said the moment a preacher ask himself this question, what
can I do to get more people in here? He's going against the
Bible. I tell you what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna preach the gospel.
That's it. But Paul, in 2 Corinthians 2
there, he says we're always victorious because Christ is preached. To
some, he says, we're the saver of life unto life, and that's
a joy. Some, he says, we're the saver
of death unto death, and that's sorrowful, that's sad. But either
way, if Christ is preached, we're victorious. So it's not as though
the word of God has taken none effect, for they are not all
Israel, which are of Israel. Now, you remember what Paul,
I wrote these verses down in your lesson. You remember what
Paul said in Romans 2, 28. He says, for he is not a Jew,
which is one outwardly. You know, the name Jew is a derivative
of the tribe of Judah. And the name Judah means praise. Praise the Lord. The name Israel
means victory. It means coming to grips with
God in the way of being accepted. That's what it means. Some people
say it means a prince of Israel, but literally it means gaining
access to God, victorious with God. You remember Jacob got that
name when he wrestled with the angel. Now how do we have victory
with God? How do we gain access to God?
Through Christ. How do we praise God? The name
Jew, what's that mean? We praise Him through Christ.
You remember back in the 70s and 80s, that false ministry
called PTL? They weren't praising the Lord,
they were praising an idol. Without Christ, as he's identified
and distinguished in the word of God, in the gospel of God's
grace, you're not praising the Lord. Those are just words. That's all it is, it's not worship.
We come to God through Christ, based upon the merits of his
blood and righteousness. And so, he says in Romans 2,
28, for he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, physically,
neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh,
29, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision
is that of the heart, the circumcised heart. What is the circumcision?
That's the new birth. That's when God takes the stony
heart out of our flesh and gives us a new heart. And he says in
the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but
of God. You remember over in Philippians
chapter three, When Paul makes this statement to the Philippian
believers, made up both of Jew and Gentile, and he says in Philippians
3, 3, 4, we are the circumcision. Now what's he talking about? I would go as far as to say that
many of these Philippian believers weren't physically circumcised.
And you remember whenever Gentile believers Whenever false Judaizers
came and tried to put the law down on them and have them circumcised,
Paul said, if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.
In other words, for that reason, circumcision itself, physical
circumcision, doesn't damn your soul. But if you be circumcised
thinking that it's part of your salvation or makes you righteous
before God, you're denying Christ. But he says here in Philippians
3, 3, for we are the circumcised. What's he talking about? He's
talking, we're the children of God. We're the elect of God.
We're the born again, regenerated believers. How do you know you've
been spiritually circumcised? He said we worship God in the
spirit. We worship God from the heart
as God reveals himself to us. How do we know we do that? We
rejoice or we have confidence or we glory in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. So he is a Jew. So a person who
is physically circumcised in the flesh is not necessarily
one who's been spiritually circumcised by the Spirit of God in heart.
So who is the true Israel? Well, those who've been circumcised.
They are not all Israel which are of Israel. Look at verse
seven. So here's the bottom line now. There is no hope of salvation
for any Jew or any Gentile but by God's grace through the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Equally, being a physical Jew
didn't give you a leg up on being accepted before God or being
saved. And sometimes it became the greatest hindrance. You remember,
I always think about what Christ said, I think it's Matthew 23
if I'm not mistaken, where he talked about the zeal of the
unbelieving Jews to gain converts out of the Gentile nations, to
make them be circumcised, to make them Jews. And he said,
you compass sea and land to make one convert. And when you make
that one convert, you remember what he said? You make him twofold
more the child of hell than you are. You seal him in a false
profession of religion. I think that's one of the greatest
hindrances of the natural man in salvation. Of course, we know
the spirit of God can overcome it. False professions of salvation. You go around and ask the average
person today if they're saved, most of them go back to some
experience they had when they were a child and they walked
an aisle and got baptized. Doesn't matter what they were
hearing. But that's, you know, well I got saved back when I,
my friend, salvation. We're gonna talk about that in
the message today. What is salvation? We're going to talk about things
that accompany salvation? Well, if you're going to know
the things that accompany salvation, you better know what salvation
is, hadn't you? Salvation is God bringing a sinner to see
his sinfulness and depravity, and that if God were to ever
judge us based upon our best efforts to keep the law or to
serve him, we'd be damned forever. Our only hope is Jesus Christ,
the Lord our righteousness. Jesus Christ, crucified, buried,
and risen from the dead. He is my right, and he's my only
righteousness. Look at verse seven, he says,
neither because they are the seed of Abraham, he's talking
about the physical seed, are they all children, that is children
of God. That's what the context tells
us there. But in Isaac shall thy seed be
called. Well, you remember Christ in
John chapter eight, he dealt with this issue. Let's just look
over there just for a moment. I didn't write this, didn't print
this, because it actually goes from John 8, 32 to John 8, 59.
So there's a lot of scripture there. But let me give you some
of the highlights here in John 8. Now remember what he's teaching
here. That is, neither because they are the seed of Abraham
are they all children. If you think, say, well, because
they have the seed of Abraham, they're all children. Some people
say, well, they're talking about Ishmael there. Well, we're gonna
talk about Ishmael. But Ishmael was of the seed of
Abraham. Now, he was the seed of Abraham
through a different mother, but he was still the seed of Abraham.
He was a child of Abraham, wasn't he? Abraham was his physical
father. So to say, well, that's just
talking about Isaac and Ishmael as a nation, that doesn't make
sense here. And especially in light of what
Paul's already said. He is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly. We're all in need of grace, all right. So he says,
neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all
children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. that in Isaac
shall thy seed be called, that comes from the book of Genesis,
we'll look at that in just a moment. But look at this John chapter
8 and look at verse 32, Christ speaking to physical children
of Abraham here. He says, and you shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free. Well, they answered
him, we be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any
man. How sayest thou, you shall be made free? You know, that's
kind of weird to me, that they would say that. Because you know,
at this time, they were in bondage to the Caesar of Rome, weren't
they? They wouldn't even recognize
that. That's how blind people are. So he said, verse 34, Jesus
answered them, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth
sin is the servant of sin. And he says, and the servant
abideth not in the house forever, but the son abideth forever.
If the son, therefore, shall make you free, you shall be free
indeed. I know that you are Abraham's
seed, physically, that's what he's talking about, but you seek
to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that
which I have seen with my father, and you do that which you've
seen with your father. And they answered and said unto
him, Abraham is our father. And Jesus saith unto them, if
you were Abraham's children, you'd do the works of Abraham.
If you were Abraham's children spiritually, you'd believe in
the son. You'd believe Christ. You'd believe
God's gospel. You'd submit to the righteousness
of God. Later on, he tells them in verse
44, you're of your father the devil. You know, the Jews, The
unbelieving Jews had basically three things that they boasted
in, that they thought proved them to be saved. Number one
was their physical connection to Abraham, and of course that's
blown out of the water here. Number two was their physical
circumcision, and the circumcision of the males who represented
the whole family, even the women. And of course, remember Paul
said, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ
by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.
He said, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
availeth anything but a new creation. What he's saying there, it doesn't
matter if you're physically circumcised, have you been circumcised in
heart, in ears, as Stephen put it. You hear the gospel, you
believe it. And then there works under the
law of Moses. We keep the law, we have Moses.
Remember Christ in John 5, he says, he said, the Moses in whom
you trust will be your judge. He'll condemn you. The very law
that you brag about as far as making you a child of God, it'll
be your condemnation. Isn't that something? We'll go back to Romans 9 now.
He says in Isaac, Thy seed shall be called. Now the significance
of this is not simply in God fulfilling his promise to give
Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age. Now that was part of
the promise and that was a miracle, wasn't it? Abraham was like 100
and Sarah was 99 or something like that. And by God's power,
they conceived a child and had it named Isaac. And so these things were included,
but the eternal significance of this Isaac promise is that
it was through Isaac's lineage that the Messiah would be born,
that Christ would be born. And you see that in Galatians
chapter three, it's kind of like a commentary on this. In other
words, thy seed refers to Christ as the offspring of Abraham according
to the flesh. And if you look at Galatians
3.16, which I cited here in your lesson, remember he says, now
to Abraham and his seed were the promises of made. He saith
not and to seeds as of many, but as of one and to thy seed,
which is Christ. That's the significance here
of the promise of Isaac. He wasn't just talking about
the Jewish nation physically. That was included. God made a
distinction between Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac was the child
of promise. Ishmael was not. He was the child
of the flesh. And that's very significant.
But it wasn't just through Isaac and the physical nation Israel
that this promise and its connection to eternal salvation would be
fulfilled. It was through Isaac that Christ
would come, the Messiah, the salvation of his people, the
consolation of Israel. What's his name? Luke. Who was that? Simeon, that's
who I was trying to think of. Oh, Simeon called him the consolation
of Israel. And that's what he's talking
about here. He says, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Verse eight, look at it. That
is, now he's gonna go on to explain it here. That is, they which
are the children of the flesh, the physical descendants of Abraham,
even Isaac himself, these are not the children of God. These
are not the spiritual nation, the elect of God, whom he promised
before the foundation of the world to save, gave to Christ,
whom Christ redeemed by his blood on the cross, whom God justified
based upon Christ's righteousness imputed, whom God sends the Spirit
to spiritually circumcise these in the heart and bring them to
a saving knowledge of Christ, and then bring them to glory.
These are not the children of the flesh, he says, but the children
of the promise are counted for the seed. Now, who are the children
of the promise? Well, look at your lesson here. In the last two citations, Galatians
3, 26, for you are all the children of God by faith Christ Jesus. Who's the all there? All those
who have faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ, united to Christ,
and you believe on Christ. There's neither Jew nor Greek.
That distinction's gone. That's what he's saying. There's
neither male, bond nor free. There's neither male nor female.
Those distinctions which have their place like male and female. You know, people today, they
want to say, well, there's no distinction between male and female today.
That's crazy. God created man. He created woman.
Marriage, one man, one woman united together. That's what
marriage is. It's not two men or two women. So that distinction
is important, you see. And that's a picture of the church,
Christ being the husband and his church being the bride. So
that's important. But as far as salvation, as far
as how sinners are saved, as far as being forgiven of our
sins, as far as being righteous before God, it's not in your
maleness or your femaleness. Being a woman doesn't recommend
you unto God. Being a man doesn't recommend
you unto God. The only thing that recommends
you unto God is the grace of God in Christ, his righteousness
imputed, his blood shed as the payment for all my sins. That
distinction does not give you a leg up or put you any hindrance. And so he says, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus, and if you be Christ, if you belong to Christ,
then are you Abraham's seed. and heirs according to the promise.
Now that's the promise that he's talking about. So who is the
true Israel? Every sinner who has been brought by God to faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Christ of the Bible, every sinner
who's been brought by God to repentance of dead works and
a former idolatry. That's who the elect, that's
the true Israel of God.