“Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Insofar as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if I might somehow make my own people jealous and save some of them. For if their rejection brings reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? Now if the firstfruits are holy, so is the whole batch. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever benefited from an opportunity that someone else missed? I was waiting for a table at a busy restaurant with limited seating the other day. While I was sitting there the hostess called for two different groups who weren’t there anymore. She scratched both names off the list and ours moved up. We wound up not having to wait nearly as long as we thought. Just before we were seated, though, one of them came back to see if they could still get a table. They could, but it was going to mean starting over at the bottom of the long list. Paul says Israel’s missing out on God’s kingdom because of their rejection of Jesus gave this kind of an opportunity to the rest of the world. Let’s take a look at what he’s saying here.

For three chapters now, and with a few more verses to go, Paul has been writing about Israel’s rejection of God’s Messiah and His offer of salvation in Christ. Having established a whole number of ideas related to this on Israel’s side of things, here at the end of the section Paul is beginning to turn his attention to the Gentiles in his audience.

Paul was known to be “the apostle to the Gentiles.” This was a title he claimed for himself, but it was also the reputation he carried as he did his ministry in the regions of Greece and Asia Minor. More than even that, it was his calling from God. When God set him apart for ministry, He specifically called Paul to proclaim the Gospel among the Gentiles – that is, the non-Jewish people of the world. After blinding Paul on the road to Damascus, when God sent the disciple, Ananias, to restore Paul’s sight, He told him that Paul was his “chosen instrument to take my name to Gentiles, kings, and Israelites.”

Given all of this, the Gentiles in Paul’s audience might have been wondering at this point why he was so worked up about the Israelites. If they were to be his primary target audience, why not give up worrying about this whole other group of people who had abandoned faithfulness to God, choosing instead their own version of God to continue to worship falsely, and just focus on the people who were showing themselves to be remarkably willing to entertain this new message.

Paul explains a bit of that here. “Insofar as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if I might somehow make my own people jealous and save some of them.” Yes, Paul was supposed to go to the Gentiles with the Gospel message. But if he could persuade some of the Jews he encountered to accept the truth, all the better. Paul’s hope was that he was so effective at proclaiming the Gospel among the Gentiles that Jews heard, got jealous for what they were now missing out on in terms of a relationship with the God they had thought they were following all this time, and return to that relationship through Jesus. How much greater would his ministry be in this case? How much more glory would God receive by this outcome?

And, if he managed to start seeing some of the Jewish people return to faith after having rejected it, what an encouragement this would likely be for the Gentiles. Indeed, if these people who were previously known to be dead set against this message now started receiving it, surely that would make it even more attractive to those who had not yet heard it to be able to reject it or receive it. “For if their rejection brings reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” The Jews may have missed their spot in line by not showing up when their name was finally called, but they could still get on the list. They may have abandoned God, but He wasn’t done with them if they were willing to give Him another try.

At the end here, Paul says something that’s not immediately clear at first read. “Now if the firstfruits are holy, so is the whole batch. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.” He’s using two different analogies here to make the same point. What he is pointing to here is the hope that remains for Israel, but also the hope that allows the Gentiles to take part in the Gospel.

The firstfruits would be Israel. They were the first people to whom God revealed Himself and His plans for His world. He set them apart from the rest of the world so that He could use them to reveal Himself and His goodness to the rest of the world. As He said to Abraham, He was going to bless them to make them a blessing so that all the world would be blessed through them. All those who take part in the “batch” that Israel introduced to the world would be able to share in the holiness God called them to and enabled those who desired to walk in it to enjoy. The fruitfruits were holy, and so was the batch.

In the second analogy, switching from baking to horticulture, Paul emphasizes the source of this holiness. The holiness did not originate in Israel. The holiness originated in God. It is His holiness that He shares with us. He makes us like Him, to reflect more and more fully His goodness and righteousness. When we are set apart, we are set apart in Him, not ourselves. God’s holiness is such that anyone who is connected to Him – who is a branch off of His root – shares in that holiness. This illustration will allow Paul to reflect on how the Gentiles were being brought into God’s kingdom, but that will have to wait for next week.

For now, if you are following Jesus, it is ultimately because of the work God did in and through Israel to reveal Himself to the world. They may have lost the plot along the way, but the book of their story isn’t closed quite yet. What that will look like Paul didn’t know and we don’t know, but the Gospel continues to advance and expand its reach and impact. And the peace of Christ continues to advance as it does. The good news really is for everyone.