14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" [h] 17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. 18 But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did:
"Their voice has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world." [i]
19 Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says,
"I will make you envious by those who are not a nation;
I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding." [j]
20 And Isaiah boldly says,
"I was found by those who did not seek me;
I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me." [k]
21 But concerning Israel he says,
"All day long I have held out my hands
to a disobedient and obstinate people."
Dig Deeper
John 13-17 is an incredible record of Jesus’ last and very private night with his closest disciples. His overall intention for that evening was to encourage his disciples who were a bit worried about what would happen to them if Jesus was going to die as he was seemingly indicating that he would. There is much good news recorded by John during that evening but there is some bad news as well. Jesus indicates clearly that he is leaving them, things will get rough, one of them will prove himself to be a betrayer to their cause, and they will have to face a great deal of hardship and persecution. Those may seem like peculiar topics to bring up if your intention is to bring encouragement to someone but Jesus makes is clear why he has been so frank in 16:1. He says, “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away.” Jesus did want to encourage them, but we have to remember that “encourage” means to give someone courage not just to say things that make them feel better. He was telling them these things so that when they happened their faith would not be rocked. The toughest challenges, I believe, that we have in life are when things hit us unexpectedly. Jesus did not want that to happen to his disciples so he prepares them. When these things came then, rather than destroying or weakening their faith, they would build it because Christ had told them all along that this would be part of following him. The hard times would actually serve as a confirmation that they were heading down the right path.
This is such a key concept because most Christians at one time or another struggle with the same question that Paul turns to now. If the gospel is so incredible and it is the fulfillment of God’s covenant plan to reconcile the world to himself then why aren’t more people responding? When that happens is there something wrong with the message? Shouldn’t more people be streaming in to the kingdom of God. Paul recognizes that that was a very real concern in his day every bit as much as it is in ours. It is a legitimate question. One that should not be dodged and Paul will not duck it. His response is similar to the concept that Christ used on his last night. When people reject the gospel, it should not come as a surprise this is what God had said all along would happen.
Paul declared in the previous section that the gospel is the fulfillment of God’s promises to return Israel from their long exile from God and the promises to bring Gentiles into the family. The gospel is a universal opportunity for all those who call on the name of the Lord. Remembering this helps to guide us through a section that has long been a puzzle. An argument rages on over whether Paul is speaking of Jews or Gentiles in this passage (the TNIV has made their choice added the word “Israelites” as an explanatory help in verse 16 when it is not there in the original Greek). Paul has been discussing Israel’s role in the preaching of the gospel but he has also been stressing the universal appeal of the gospel and how that plays into Israel’s role. Thus, I don’t believe that we have to choose whether Paul speaks of Jews or Gentiles here. He speaks of all people, but no doubt, with a special consideration of the role of the Jewish people within the truism that he is discussing.
If the gospel is available to all, any talk of not needing to take the gospel to any specific group of people should be immediately quashed. People cannot call on the Lord unless they have believed in the gospel. And they cannot believe unless they have heard. And they cannot hear unless someone preaches the gospel to them. And, finally, they cannot encounter preaching unless those preaching are sent by God. If people are to be saved then God ultimately has to send people to take the message to them. But as Isaiah declared in 52:7, a passage concerning the coming Messiah and the fact that people would know the life, or name, of the Lord through the message being passed by those bringing good news. The last condition necessary for the salvation of all people has been met. The messengers have been sent, says Paul, referring at one level to his own apostolic mission, but surely on another level to the role that each believer takes up in spreading the message of the gospel (Matt. 28:18-20).
That is wonderful news, says Paul, but what about the fact that not everyone has accepted the good news? As mentioned earlier, the TNIV adds “Israelites” and is probably correct that the emphasis here is on Jews but Paul probably intentionally left his words vague so that the principle could be applied beyond just ethnic Israel. Not everyone has accepted the gospel. How can that be explained? Is there a problem with the gospel? Is there a problem with the preachers that are carrying the message? The fact is there are lots of people that have heard the message but have not believed. Paul’s answer to all of this is that this is what God said would happen all along. Paul points to Isaiah’s question in 53:1, “who has believed our message?” as proof that this message would not be believed by all who hear it.
Faith does come from hearing the message and the message is heard through the gospel of Christ, but if they are not responding in faith, does that mean that something is wrong with the gospel. Of course not. So the next question is could it be that they simply have not heard? Again, Paul speaks generally of all people but with special consideration to the Jewish people. Paul answers this question by appealing to God’s general revelation in Psalm 19 and making an analogy. Just as the voice of the heavens have declared God’s glory to the ends of the world, so has the message of the gospel been declared to all. Paul’s point is not that the gospel had been declared to every single human being in the late 50’s AD but his somewhat hyperbolic point is that the gospel has been declared universally and people have had the opportunity to respond. The problem is not with the message and it is not that the message has not been preached. So what does Paul do with the fact that many have heard and not responded? What do we do with that problem in our own day? More on that in a moment.
In verse 19, Paul turns to Israel specifically. Could it be that Israel has not responded because they did not know (the TNIV’s “understand” changes the meaning slightly) or, in other words, were not aware that God was going to have Gentiles streaming into the kingdom. In fact, as they held a tighter grip onto the idea that they were shown to be the people of God by following the works of the law and the more Gentiles came into the kingdom of God through the Messiah, the more likely Jews were to reject that as a possibility. If their paradigm of being the covenant family of God insisted on observing the works of the law that kept God’s people separate from non-believers then the more Gentiles came in and were not circumcised, or did not observe the Sabbath, or did not follow the food laws then the more confirmation that was for them that these people were not God’s covenant family. This is why Paul was so adamant in the previous chapters in explaining that the covenant status, going back to Abraham, was always about resurrection faith and was never about the works of the law.
Rather than the inclusion of the Gentiles turning away the Jews, they need to realize that this is what God had promised throughout his word. Again, Paul sees in the words of Moses and Isaiah, shadows pointing ahead to the time of the Messiah. God had foreshadowed that he would make Israel envious with uninvited guests. People who were not part of the family and did not have the wisdom and understanding of the law would be used to make Israel jealous and drive them towards salvation. This presupposes that the Jews would reject the gospel message and that God would subsequently use the acceptance of large numbers of Gentiles so spur on some Jews to hopefully see that this is what God promised and respond in faith. Isaiah declared that the Lord would be found by “those who did not seek” him and he would reveal himself to those who were not asking about what he was up to in the world. This thought looks back to 9:25-26 but also echoes Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22 in which the invited guests refused to come and so the banquet was opened up to people who didn’t even know that there was a wedding going on.
In verse 20, Paul applied Isaiah 65:1 to the Gentiles as those who were not seeking but found it anyway. In verse 21 he applies 65:2 to Israel. They were the people that God held his hands out to, wanting them to come to his banquet. He will continue to use the thoughts of Israel’s disobedience and the jealousy of the situation of the Gentiles coming into the people of God as the center points for his arguments in the following chapter. Paul has completed his argument concerning the history between God and Israel and how things have gotten to where they are. Now he will turn to take a look at God and Israel going forward from here on out.
This is all particularly relevant for those of us who have wondered why more people haven’t come into the kingdom of God. Why hasn’t our church grown? Why are so many people in our world rejecting the gospel? Just as God forewarned that Israel would in large part reject the gospel, so did Jesus warn us that more people would find destruction rather than life (Matt. 7:13-14) and that many would have a form of godliness and look quite good from a religious standpoint but would not embrace the genuine truth and be known by Jesus (Matt. 7:21-23). The rejection of the gospel should not shake our faith but be a reminder of how much more grateful we should be for those who do come to faith and motivate us to find the few who will respond to the gospel in faith.
Devotional Thought
Have you ever struggled with the frustration of wondering why more people have not responded to the gospel? What does this passage do to help your thought process on that important question?
No comments:
Post a Comment