There is a day coming in which there shall be a national conversion of the Jews to Christ as stated by the Rev. Thomas Boston in his sermon, ‘The Conversion of the Jews’. There are many promises of this in the Old Testament but I shall confirm it from Romans, chapter 11, where the Apostle purposely insists upon it . . . The covenant made with their fathers, particularly with Abraham, Genesis 17, that He would be the God of his seed after him secures their conversion. It was with that covenant, in respect of them, as with some rivers of which it is observed that they run a good way above ground, and then are swallowed up in the earth, and so run many miles underground, but at length break out again, and run above ground till they come to the sea. So the covenant runs visibly till the day of the Apostles, but now its visible efficacy is interrupted, but it will break forth again in their conversion, never to be rejected more. So the Apostle tells us, They are thereby still the holy nation, verse 16, The nation particularly dedicated to God, and He will not always want what is consecrated to Himself. The national election is still their privilege, for, verse 28, ‘as touching the election they are beloved for the fathers sakes‘. And by virtue of the covenant made with their fathers, God has a love to the nation: and God’s will will certainly terminate in good deeds at length: and that because the gift and calling of that nation to the adoption and covenant are irreversible, verse 29 ‘For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.’
The Apostle expressly asserts it in verses 25, 26. In these he shows that the blindness of the Jews is only in part, and to last only to a certain time, when there shall be a national conversion and so all Israel shall be saved. This is not meant of the spiritual Israel, for their conversion could be no mystery as this is. But as the conversion of the Gentiles was a mystery to the Jews, and to Gentiles themselves under the Old Testament (Eph. 3:3-6), so is that of the Jews to the Gentiles and Jews themselves under the New Testament. And so many Jews then would not believe the one, so many Christians now believe not the other.
Believe it and help it on by your prayers. Ply the Throne of Grace earnestly for it. Join cordially in the public prayers for it and remember it in your family and secret prayers. Be ashamed to say, what is it to us?
They were concerned for us when we were in their case and they in ours, and therefore it is but just that we repay them thus. Song 8:8-9, remember the case seriously. What think ye of Pharoah’s butler that remembered not Joseph who was so kind to him in the prison. Brethren we of the Gentile world were shut up in the prison of unbelief, then they walked at liberty, but minded us. Now they are in that prison and we are let out, and should we forget them. ‘For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all’.
God Himself hath shown a peculiar concern for them, not only of old, when He took them for His peculiar people: but since, in that He hath made a particular promise of the conversion of the nation, when that of other nations had been wrapped up in a general promise.
All the means of grace, and acceptance through Christ, that we have now we had originally from them. They were our masters in the knowledge of God, and first put the book, even the book of God into our hands. Isa. 2:3; Luke 24:47. It was their Moses, their prophets, their Apostles (all of them Jews) that wrote this book by which eternal life is brought to us. Nay, it is their countryman Jesus who is the ground of all our hopes, who we believe is the Son of God. ‘For of them as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.’ He was the light that came out from among them, that enlightened our dark part of the world. And now that their teachers are blinded, will we not put up a petition for them. Lord that they may recover their sight.
It is their olive tree unto which we are engrafted, they are the natural branches.
Have you any love to, or concern for the Church, for the work of reformation, the reformation of our country, the reformation of the world? Any longing desire for the revival of that work now at a stand; for a flourishing side of the Church, that is now under decay? Then pray for the conversion of the Jews.
Are you longing for a revival of the Churches, now lying like dry bones would you fain have the Spirit of life enter into them? Then pray for the Jews. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world; what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the deed. That will be a lively time, a time of great outpouring of the Spirit, that will carry reformation to a greater height than yet has been.
(Extracts from Sermon)
The most tremendous judgments will not reform a nation, without an outpouring of the Spirit; but an outpouring of the Spirit will do it without any outward calamity at all.
Thos. Boston