The Lord Desires to Save All

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Romans 11

The lectionary epistle reading for this Sunday comes from Romans 11. Earlier at the crest of the letter Paul asked, “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” For Paul, it’s not a rhetorical question. For Paul, it’s a question at the beating heart of the Bible.

If God is for us— all of us— if God is determined to reconcile and redeem all of us, then what could stand in God’s way? “What can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” the apostle asks. And then, one by one, Paul proceeds to eliminate the possibilities. Except, the Apostle Paul does leave one possibility off his list; see if you can spot it:

Hardship

Injustice

Persecution

Famine

Nakedness

Peril

War

Death

Rulers

Powers

Notice there is one possibility missing from Paul’s list, one potential dis-qualifier lingers still.

You.

Can you finally separate yourself from the love of God?

Can I?

Have we been made with the ability to sever ourselves forever from the love of our Maker? If Injustice and Persecution and War can’t leave our ledgers permanently in the red, can our Refusal?

Do sinners possess the stubborn strength to fight God to an everlasting draw? Can we separate us ourselves from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?

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On the one hand, it appears we are able.

After all, scripture is unwavering in the sole qualification for salvation.

“Christ is the end of the law of righteousness,” the Bible says, “for everyone who believes.” “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord,” says scripture, “and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” The bar is the same in the Old Testament too. The Book of Joel says quite clearly, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord [in faith] will be saved.”

Can we separate us ourselves from the love of God? On the hand, it certainly seems so, for unfaith abounds.

On the other hand, though, Paul insists that the word of God cannot fail.

“My word will not return to me void,” the Lord tells the prophet Isaiah. The word of God can only work what it says, do what it decrees, accomplish what it announces. And the word says clearly, the Lord’s not content with just you and you and you. God wants all of you.

For the apostle Paul, this question is no theological abstraction.

The reason that famous passage in Romans is so impassioned is because Paul is agonizing over the fact of Israel’s unfaith.

The God of Israel has raised his eternal Son from the dead, yet the Israel of God believes not these tidings.

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