Jesus Christ Being Rejected
Isa_53:1-3; Mar_8:31; Luk_9:22; Luk_17:24-25.
The Reward For Rejecting Knowledge
Hos_4:1-6.
The Reward For Rejecting The LORD
1Sa_8:4-18; 1Sa_15:23; 2Ki_17:15-23; Jer_6:10-19.
The Stone Which The Builders Rejected
Psa_118:19-22; Mat_21:42; Luk_20:9-18; Act_4:9-11; 1Pe_2:4-8.
Those That Reject Jesus Christ
Joh_12:44-49.
Who The LORD Rejects
Hos_4:1-6.
REJECTION.—The word ‘rejection’ does not occur in the Gospels, but the idea of ‘casting-off, despising, rejecting’ is familiar to the writers of the NT. Mat 21:42, under the figure of the cornerstone, refers to the rejection of Jesus by the Jews; and in Mar 12:10 and Luk 20:17 the same reference occurs. Jesus knew that He would be rejected, and anticipated the result to Himself (Mar 8:31, Luk 9:22; Luk 17:25), to the Jewish nation (Luk 19:43), and to the world (Joh 12:48). Regarding Himself as a prophet, He expected a prophet’s treatment (Luk 13:33-34, Mat 23:37). Jesus regarded Himself as the test applied to nations and individuals, and according to their acceptance or rejection of Him would be their progress or decay. When the Jews rejected Jesus, they wrote their own sentence of doom, while the Gentiles who have accepted Jesus have secured the leadership of the world. As the national rejection of Jesus was attended by national disaster, so the individual rejection is marked by loss of character. See also art. Despise.
Coll. A. Macdonald.
Rejection is an idea expressed by more than one word in the NT. (1) ἀðïäïêéìÜæåéí, which means ‘to reject after trial,’ is used of our Lord in His own Person (Mar_8:31, Luk_9:22; Luk_17:25), and of our Lord as ‘the stone which the builders rejected’ (Mat_21:42, Mar_12:10, Luk_20:17, 1Pe_2:4; 1Pe_2:7, in all these places quoted from Psalms 117 (118):22, although St. Luke, in reporting St. Peter’s words in Act_4:11, uses of the rejected stone ἐîïíèåíçèåßò) and of Esau (Heb_12:17); (2) ἀðïâÜëëåéí (in the forms ἀðüâëçôïí, 1Ti_4:4, and ἀðïâïëὴ, Act_27:22, Rom_11:15) and (3) ἀðùèåῖóèáé (Act_7:27; Act_7:39; Act_13:46, Rom_11:1-2, 1Ti_1:19) are used in a general sense in most of the references.
In the references to Romans, (2) and (3) are employed in the special sense of the rejection of Israel to make way for the Gentiles as recipients of the gospel. It was a cause of deep distress (Rom_9:2-3) to St. Paul that God’s chosen people whom He foreknew seemed to be rejected, and it was taken by opponents as a reflexion upon his apostleship that Israel as a nation rejected his gospel. But St. Paul did not admit the final rejection of Israel. ‘did God cast off his people (ìὴ ἀðþóáôï ὁ èåὸò ôὸí ëáὸí áὐôïῦ, Rom_11:1)? God forbid.… God did not cast off his people which he foreknew.’ He then proceeds to show that Israel’s rejection is not final, and does not exclude individual members of the chosen race from the acceptance of gospel blessing. But Israel itself as a nation rejects the gospel (Act_13:46) in order that the offer of it may be made to the Gentiles, who had no hereditary claim to it and were not oven seeking it (Rom_10:20).
The unbelief or disobedience of Israel is noted by St. Peter (1Pe_2:8), who points out also, in language as strong as St. Paul’s, that Israel’s stumbling and rejection had a place in God’s great purpose in the salvation of men ‘whereunto they were appointed.’ This is a great mystery which St. Paul sets forth (Rom_11:25), but in Gentile communities and under the conditions of Gentile life, the gospel had scope for world-wide extension and universal acceptance which were not possible among the Jewish people. Such, however, is the inherent genius of the Jewish people for religion that when they mark the blessedness and joy of Christian believers and the manifestations of grace in those who bear the name of Christ, they will be stirred up to seek as their own the righteousness and holiness manifested in the lives of Christians. ‘And so all Israel shall be saved’ and their election at the first upheld, seeing that the gifts and calling of God are incapable of being revoked (Rom_11:25; Rom_11:29). ‘did they stumble that they might fall?’ asks the Apostle. ‘God forbid: but by their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles.… For if the casting away of them (ἡ ἀðïâïëὴ) is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?’ (Rom_11:11-15).
Thomas Nicol.