Israel’s Turning To Christ Would Be Life From the Dead
I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? Romans 11:13-15
In 11:13 and 14 Paul interrupts his sketch of God’s plan for salvation history to hint at the practical purpose for what he is saying. He addresses directly the Gentile Christians in the church at Rome to make them realise that God has not abandoned Israel (11:17-22,25) and so they must not boast over their fellow Jewish Christians. What he says about his own ministry here highlights this concern. While God’s original call to him included ministry to both Jews and Gentiles, Paul was commissioned as ‘the apostle to the Gentiles,’ to open up the Gentile world to the gospel. One can imagine Gentile Christians citing Paul’s own focus on Gentiles as further evidence that God had turned His back on Israel. But Paul makes it very clear that his ministry to Gentiles does not mean he is unconcerned about his own people.
‘I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of (literally: ‘glorify’) my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them’ (11:13,14). His ultimate purpose in bringing the gospel to Gentiles is to arouse Israel to envy and so ‘save some of them.’ Envy isn’t always wrong. If we define envy as wanting something someone else has, then whether the envy is good or bad depends on the nature of the thing desired and on whether I have a right to have it. If the thing desired is right and good in itself (here God’s blessing which He wants all His people to enjoy), to want it and envy those who have it, is not wrong.
Some have questioned why Paul would write ‘and save some of them’ (11:13,14) when he has set his sights on the ‘fullness’ of the Jews. Does he expect some or many to be saved? He expects many to be saved but modestly writes his own contribution to the final number down.
‘For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?’ (11:15). Israel’s ‘fall,’ ‘transgression’ and ‘defeat’ have now become her ‘rejection’ by God, even though God has neither rejected His people altogether nor has He rejected them forever (11:1,2). The ‘salvation’ and ‘riches’ which the Gentiles have already received are now said to be ‘the reconciliation of the world’ (11:15), because Christ ‘has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility’ (Ephesians 2:11f) both between them and God and between them and the Jews. The fullness of restored Israel is now called their ‘acceptance,’ reversing their temporary and partial ‘rejection.’
The ‘much greater riches’ which Israel’s fullness will bring to the Gentiles is described as ‘life from the dead’ (11:15). Paul might be using this term literally, spiritually or figuratively. If literally he would be thinking of the resurrection of the last day. The conversion of Israel would be the final stage of the eschatological process initiated by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Certainly almost all the New Testament references to ‘from the dead’ use the term to describe the resurrection of the body. A weakness of this interpretation though is that it infers Paul believed his own ministry to Jews and Gentiles would trigger the return of Christ and the resurrection. He nowhere else infers this or makes such a claim. So this is probably the least likely of the three.
If Paul was using the term ‘life from the dead’ spiritually, he would be thinking of our being ‘raised with Christ.’ Earlier in Romans he wrote of ‘those who have been brought from death to life’ (6:13). But this is the status of all Christians, the experience Gentile Christians already enjoy. ‘Much greater riches’ infers something not yet happening.
The likelihood then is that ‘life from the dead’ was something Paul understood figuratively. He foresaw something so immense, so worldwide, so enriching to the Gentiles that it could only be likened to new life out of death. Paul might have been thinking back to Ezekiel’s vision where Israel’s restoration was seen as the coming together of dead, dry bones which were then given both flesh and life. Was he picturing something akin to this happening to the church?