"For I Am Also An Israelite"

The first answer to the important question "Hath God cast away His people?" is the great Apostle to the Gentiles. We read in the first verse, "For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew." The Holy Spirit points then first of all to the Apostle and puts him before us as a proof that God has not completely and finally rejected Israel. It is a significant fact that in each of the three chapters which compose the dispensational part of Romans the Apostle Paul stands in the foreground. "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great grief and uninterrupted pain in my heart, for I have wished, I myself, to be a curse from the Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to flesh." Thus the ninth chapter begins and in the tenth we read of his prayer for Israel, not his prayer alone but surely the prayer of the Holy Spirit. "Brethren, the delight of my heart and my supplication which I address to God for them is for salvation" (x:l). In our chapter, besides mentioning himself in the beginning, he says: "For I speak to you, Gentiles, inasmuch as I am Apostle of the Gentiles. I glorify my ministry; if by any means I shall provoke to jealousy them which are my flesh and shall save some from among them" (verses 13, 14). The instrument used to make known the mystery of God and the unsearchable riches among the Gentiles declares his great love for his kinsmen and prays for their salvation. While Gentiles, the nations' receive blessings, Israel is still "beloved for the Father's sake" and not forgotten.

But why is Paul personally mentioned immediately after the question concerning Israel's position? It is generally said that by referring to himself he wishes to prove that it is possible for an Israelite to accept the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved; he, an Israelite full of hatred against the Christ, had been saved, and this proves that God has not cast away His people. However, the question before us is not whether an individual Jew can be saved or cannot be saved; it is a national question with which we have to deal. Besides this, the possibility of the salvation of Jews had been fully demonstrated on the day of Pentecost. The three thousand who believed on that day were all Jews, as well as the thousands who believed after the memorable day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We have therefore to look for a deeper meaning of Paul's name in the beginning of this chapter.

The key to this deeper meaning is the fact that the Holy Spirit makes the conversion of Saul of Tarsus not alone very prominent, but also speaks of that event as a pattern. He has given us three lengthy accounts of it in the Book of Acts (chapters ix, xxii and xxvi). In First Timothy we read: "But for this reason mercy was shown me, that in me the first, Jesus Christ might display the whole long suffering, for a delineation of those that should hereafter believe on Him to eternal life" (1 Tim. i:16). And again it is written: "And last of all He was seen of me also as of one born out of due time" (literally "an abortion") (1 Cor. xv :2). These are inspired statements which tell us we have to seek for a deeper significance of the conversion of him who calls himself "a Hebrew of the Hebrews" (Phil, iii :5). It has often been remarked that Saul's conversion is the model conversion and the different steps are reproduced in every genuine conversion. But this is far from being correct. Saul of Tarsus' conversion was an altogether unique one. There has, up to this time, never been a conversion like this one. Never again were the heavens opened and a light shone brighter than the sun; never again did a sinner, such a blind persecutor, behold Jesus in glory and hear His voice, and never again was one called in such a way "to be an elect vessel" and to bear the Name of the Lord "before both nations and kings and the sons of Israel." His conversion is certainly not a pattern or outline of every other conversion and yet it is a delineation, a hypotyposis.

All the great men of the Old Testament, priests, prophets and kings, were in their lives and experiences patterns, types. The great Apostle to the Gentiles, making known the salvation to the nations, himself a Jew, is no less a type. His wonderful conversion is typical of the future conversion of the nation to whom he belonged according to the flesh. What God did in his case He can and will do for Israel in a future day. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus is the type and earnest of Israel's conversion. In this light the full meaning of the quoted passages from the first Epistle of Timothy and Corinthians can be easily understood. In Saul's conversion Christ showed mercy "the first" or "as a first one." There are others to whom that mercy is to be shown and to whom mercy will come under the same circumstances and by the same heavenly manifestation of the glorified Son of Man, and the people to whom this will happen is Israel. When we read of Paul that he saw the Lord as one born out of due season, it is the same thought which underlies this statement. The untimely birth, before the time, suggests another birth time as well as another birth, the birth of the nation, when Israel, the remnant of His people, will be born again by looking upon Him in glory, whom they have pierced.

The comparison of Saul's conversion with the future conversion of Israel as revealed in the prophetic Word is extremely striking. The delineation is perfect.

1. Saul of Tarsus in unbelief typifies the state of Israel as a nation throughout this present age. He was a learned Pharisee, a fierce persecutor, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, blind and unbelieving. Such is Israel, another unbelieving Saul, and, like him, zealous for God without knowledge.

2. The opened heavens, the vision and voice of the glorified Jesus, by which Saul of Tarsus was arrested in his career, are typical of the coming day when the heavens will be opened again and the Lord Jesus Christ will be manifested in power and in glory. At His second visible and glorious coming the remnant of Israel will behold Him and learn by His glorious appearing that Jesus is their Messiah and King (Zechariah xii: 10-14, Matthew xxiv:29, 30, Revel. i:7). The opened heavens, the great light flashing forth, the vision and voice of Jesus, the prostrate Saul there on the road to Damascus, was but a little sample of what God will do for the remnant of His earthly people and how they shall at last know Him and receive Him.

3. Paul's service to nations and kings foreshadows Israel's coming ministry to the nations of the earth. All nations are yet to know the glory of the Lord, but world conversion is only possible after Israel is converted. Through Israel all the nations of the earth will at last be blessed.

These three great facts seen in the conversion of Saul, typifying Israel's unbelief, the manner and result of their conversion, we shall follow throughout the chapter and learn from the Scriptures some of the revealed details. We understand therefore why the Holy Spirit puts the Apostle Paul immediately after the question of the chapter is asked. What manifestation of the grace and wisdom of God! The instrument chosen to reveal the mysteries hidden in former ages and to complete the Word of God, the one to whom is given the full knowledge of the Gospel of Grace to be preached among the Gentiles, while Israel is set aside for a time, is also made a type, a pattern of what Israel is to be and to receive in the future, when God will arise and have mercy upon Zion.