Romans 11:11 –
Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But he wanted his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves.
When you read this and look at the state of our nation and the world today we have hope. Fortunately God is compassionate or we would all be hosed! I find it interesting the reason God has shown favor onto the Gentiles, to spawn jealousy. At the same time the last Commandment is not to covet and is God creating a paradox with trying to get His people jealous?
There are many so called paradoxes in the Bible like “receiving from giving” or “strength through weakness” but this one seems strange. The others actually follow the Law and do not contradict it. Now in this instance is jealously the same as coveting? That is a tough one but let’s look at definitions first. Both are very close even when you go back to the original context. Thesaurus’ even use both words are synonyms so it becomes difficult to break down unless we go back to Exodus 20:17 and notice the coveting is other people’s possessions.
Although our salvation is a possession it’s not something that anyone else can’t have also, so they are jealous of a relationship which they can have also. In this use of the word God is not asking us to violate a commandment. No here He wants everyone to join in on the “party” and instead of looking over the fence and being jealous. God offered this as a gift to everyone, not just “His people” since He knew the barriers that would need to be overcome before an entrenched people could change. The easiest way was through jealousy since they would have to yearn for that personal relationship to break the chains of the Law.
I want to also touch on verses13-24 since this an important analogy to understand. What God is describing is how the Gentiles are being grafted into God’s family and how the branches which are dying need to be pruned away. Now one very important thing to notice is the grace described in this section as which you may be grafted back into the tree if you are ready to return. So if you feel, like I did, that your drifting away means no more relationship with God these verses are for you. Like the prodigal son, God will welcome anyone back with open arms!