Romans 11:1-2, Romans 11:11
No, God has not completely rejected his people (Romans 11:1–2a). Romans 11:1–36 begins in a similar way as the earlier section concerning the promise: But it is not as though the word of God has failed
(Romans 9:6). Whereas the earlier section had emphasized that only the children of the promise are counted as true children, the apostle now highlights that the same promise ensures that there will always be (a remnant of) the people. God’s promise distinguishes faith from unbelief, but at the same time it also creates and ensures that the faith is transmitted from one generation to the next. God wants to create a people and never abandons his plan, even if it might have appeared that way in Paul’s days. The Jewish people as a whole reject Jesus and Paul. However, upon closer investigation, one discovers another reality—the reality of those Jews who do believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Paul was the first among them: For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
God has not rejected Abraham’s descendants, nor has he rejected the tribe of Benjamin. Out of them he called Saul of Tarsus to faith in his Son. To all Gentile Christians, Paul is proof of God’s faithfulness to his promise1 : God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew
(Romans 11:2a).
Yet in case the readers would still misunderstand the apostle Paul by assuming that he is writing off the Jewish nation as a whole, he later reiterates it once again in Romans 11:11 that this is not the case: “So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous." The salvation of the Gentiles should make the Jews who reject the crucified one jealous and bring them to repentance. Just because they stumbled on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion and thereafter, this does not mean that they have now been reduced to a people that can no longer be helped. Following Pentecost, the apostles were specifically equipped to preach the offer of forgiveness and grace to the Jews in Jerusalem first. It is not God’s will that they fall over Christ, even though they stumbled over him themselves. And the fact that the Gentiles are now streaming through the gates does is not so they can replace the Jews but rather to make them jealous, so that they as yet can rise up again in faith.2
1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.