Can God Change His Mind About Israel, or About Us?
What I’m about to write may seem unlikely. How is it possible that a topic unrelated to Bible prophecy could further validate my conviction concerning the Lord’s promise to restore a glorious kingdom to Israel?
I’m totally persuaded that Scripture confirms the nation’s continuing place in God’s sovereign plan for the future. But long ago, what I learned as I worked on my master’s thesis in seminary led to a deeper understanding of why this must be true.
The title of my paper was “Roman Catholic Justification in the Light of Scripture.” My understanding of what Paul wrote about justification by faith, first of all, solidified my belief in eternal security. The message of Romans 8:31-38 is clear: If God pronounces us righteous, it’s a done deal. No one can overturn His judicial verdict on our lives.
In other words, it’s impossible for justified saints to lose their salvation or walk away from it. Such things can never happen to those whom God declares forever righteous. Never!
Long ago, Roman Catholic theologians moved God’s justification of the sinner from the time of regeneration to the end of his or her life. I suspect they did this to add uncertainty to the lives of believers, which enabled the church to exert considerable control over their behavior. Perhaps they understood its finality, and if it happened at the moment that one became born again, absolutely nothing could change one’s rock-solid place of favor in God’s sight.
Satan’s tactics remain the same today; he still seeks to inject insecurity into the final outcome of our faith. He loves to make us feel as though we need to keep earning the Lord’s favor rather than believe what the Bible says about us.
What does our security in Christ have to do with the future of Israel? Paul sums up this vital link in Romans 11:29:
“For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.”
Please stay with me as I connect the dots between our permanent righteous standing before God and His promise to someday restore a glorious kingdom to Israel.
The Lord Cannot Renege on His Promises
As I worked on my thesis about justification by faith, I read a book by Erich Sauer, The Triumph of the Crucified. In it, he wrote:
The question of the Millennial kingdom is, therefore, not only a question of final history but touches, at the same time, the very heart of the Gospel (freedom from law, universality of the Gospel, gift by grace). To deny it makes either God a liar in relation to His prophecies or Paul a false witness to us. Romans 9–11 is no mere justifying of God, but a justification of Paul’s doctrine of justification.[1]
In Romans chapters 9-11, Paul points to Israel’s secure place in God’s redemptive program as confirmation that God can’t change His mind regarding those whom He justifies (Romans 8:31-39). The final outcome of His promises to both us and Israel is all about His character as a promise-keeping God. Human behavior can never negate God’s decrees whether it be on our behalf or that of Israel.
Paul thus assures us that because God can never renege on His covenants with Israel and David, we can know that we will bring all those He declares to be righteous to glory.
The One who has not rejected Israel (Romans 11:1-25) is the same One who affirms our absolute secure place as justified saints (Romans 8:28-39).
Nothing, not even the nation’s rejection of their Messiah in the first century AD, could alter His love for His chosen people or cancel His oft-repeated statements through the Old Testament prophets whereby He gave His solemn word pledging Himself to restore a glorious kingdom to Israel.
This does not mean, as some suggest, that all the Jewish people will receive eternal life or secure a place in Jesus’ future kingdom on the earth. Forgiveness of sins and eternal life has always come through faith in Jesus. In the Old Testament, saving faith sprang from believing what God progressively revealed about His Son and His future sacrifice for their sins. Today, we look back with a clear picture of all that His death and resurrection signify for our deliverance from the penalty of sin and our receipt of eternal life.
Scripture reveals that the time is coming when a Jewish remnant will turn to Jesus as they recognize Him as their Messiah and Savior. Zechariah wrote about a great repentance of a remnant of the people of Israel, which will happen during the last days (12:10-13:1). Paul certainly had this passage in mind when he confidently predicted the salvation of the Jewish people that would happen after the church age (Romans 11:25-36).
Christ Himself prophesied regarding this future group of redeemed Jews (Matthew 23:37-39). He declared that someday the residents of Jerusalem would greet Him with these words, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” They had done so a few days earlier, but He knew many of them would soon cry out for His crucifixion. As Jesus grieved over His beloved city, He found solace by looking to the future time when He would hear those same words from a truly repentant Israel.
God’s Amazing Mercy
God’s continuing mercy toward the nation of Israel despite its past and, might I add, their current state of unbelief and waywardness, speaks to the great depths of His amazing mercy toward us as New Testament saints. In Romans 11:30-32, the apostle wrote about God’s matchless mercy toward both us and Israel:
“For 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, that he may have mercy on all.” (Emphasis added)
For Israel, God’s mercy signifies that His covenants and promises are “irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). He will not fail to bring the nation to the place of repentance that Zechariah said would happen.
For us, it means that regardless of our behavior, wrong turns, sins, or failures, the words of Ephesians 1:3-14 will always define us. Once God pronounces us righteous in His sight, nothing whatsoever can diminish the unfailing and unending favor we enjoy in His sight.
It’s the Lord’s amazing mercy toward all that motivates us in our walk with Him, as Paul wrote in Romans 12:1:
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Do you see it? The phrase “mercies of God” is plural. Paul’s instructions for Christian living in Romans chapters 12-16 flow from God’s unalterable and steadfast love for both us and the nation of Israel. (The chapter break before Romans 12 came centuries after Paul wrote to the saints at Rome.)
Our response of service and sacrifice for the Lord flows from the realization that it’s not possible for Him to change His mind about those He chooses. We begin our walk with the Lord as those He declares to be forever righteous and forever remain in His favor.
In his book, New Morning Mercies, Paul David Tripp wrote the following on the message of Lamentations 3:23, “His mercies are new every morning:”
Not only does God lavish on you love that will never cease and grace that will never end, and not only is he great in faithfulness, but the mercy he extends to you and to me is renewed each morning. It is not tired, stale, irrelevant, worn out, ill-fitting, yesterday mercy. It is form-fitted for the needs of your day. It is sculpted to the shape of the weaknesses, circumstances, and struggles of each and every one of his children.
Is it any wonder that Paul sets our walk as believers in the context of the Lord’s amazing mercy that permeates all His dealings with both Israel and us?
Contradictions
The failure to fully understand God’s mercy, which lies at the heart of the Gospel, opens the door to at least a couple of inconsistencies in interpreting Scripture.
Many Bible-believing pastors correctly teach the finality of our salvation yet deny that same unending grace and mercy for the nation of Israel. Is it not contradictory to proclaim God’s unfailing love toward believers and yet deny it for the people that God chose so long ago and with whom He made everlasting covenants (i.e., Psalm 105:7-11)? I believe it is.
Do they not see the inseparable link between the finality of our justification and Israel’s continuing place in God’s redemptive program, which Paul addressed in Romans chapters 9-11? They teach the eternal security of the saints yet tell us that this same mercy doesn’t apply to the descendants of Jacob.
Is it not equally contradictory for those who preach God’s ongoing purposes for Israel to also teach that New Testament saints can lose their salvation or walk away from it? Yes, it surely is.
Those who understand God’s irreversible grace for the nation of Israel, regardless of her past or current state, err greatly by making our continuing place in God’s favor dependent on our behavior. Our security rests in the Lord’s love for us, never in our love for Him.
We don’t obey the Lord in order to gain or stay in His favor. It’s something we enjoy every moment of every day and can never lose. We serve Him because of His steadfast love toward us.
Paul David Tripp put it this way:
If you obey for a thousand years, you’re no more accepted than when you first believed; your acceptance is based on Christ’s righteousness and not yours.
Is there not unspeakable comfort and energizing encouragement in knowing that the Lord can never change His mind toward us? Such grand assurance flows from His character as a covenant-keeping God who will not fail to keep all His promises to all those He loves, whether it be the nation of Israel or us as those whom He has redeemed with His precious blood.
Why did my master’s thesis on biblical justification confirm my belief that the Lord will someday restore a kingdom to Israel?
It did so because I saw the unbreakable connection between Romans 8:28-39 and chapters 9-11. The God who can never change His mind about His promises to Israel is the same One who can never change His mind about those whom He declares to be forever righteous in His sigh.
Our security in Christ is never about us; it’s always about Him and solely because of Him. How can anyone expect that it would be any different for the nation of Israel to whom the Lord has pledged in no uncertain terms to restore as the means of defending His Holy Name (see Ezekiel 36:22-38)?
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In Eternal Perspective that Calms Our Fears in Perilous Times, I not only provide a compelling defense of our belief in the pre-Tribulation Rapture but explore its wonders for the redeemed. The glory ahead for us exceeds all our fanciful imaginations of what it might be. In the last section, I explore five amazing truths of the wonders that lie ahead for us as saints.
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[1] Erich Sauer, The Triumph of the Crucified (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, 1952), p. 150.
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