What was the Jewish response to the salvation of the Gentiles in the early church, and what did God want that response to be?
In the early church, as Paul and Barnabas preached and Gentiles were saved while still loving the Jew, the Jews were filled with envy. God wanted that envious response; Romans 11 is cited to show Israel’s blindness and stumbling, not the later hatred Christianity provoked.
Les teaches that in the early days, as Paul and Barnabas witnessed to Gentiles and Gentiles were being saved, those Gentiles still had love for the Jew. The Jews, however, were filled with envy, and that is what God wanted. Later, after Christianity began to permeate the Roman Empire, the response changed: instead of causing the Jew to envy, it caused the Jew to hate him, because Christianity began to hate the Jew, accusing them of being Christ killers, so that getting rid of the Jew was considered doing God a service. Romans 11 is then used to show Israel’s condition: Israel did not obtain what he sought, but the election obtained it and the rest were blinded. God gave them a spirit of slumber, eyes that should not see, and ears that should not hear. David says their table became a snare, trap, and stumbling block; their eyes were darkened and their back bowed down always. This speaks of the nation of Israel, not the individual Jew.