Two silver candlesticks are placed into the very hands that stole the silverware. In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, the bishop's gift to Jean Valjean is not a reward for innocence. It is the possibility of a new life, opened once more to someone who has done wrong. With this scene in mind, we turn to the Romans 11 sermon of Pastor David Jang, founder of Olivet University in the United States, and ask why the grace of salvation can never become grounds for boasting. Someone who had no merit to claim cannot look down on others because of a life freely received.
Even at the Edge of Despair, Grace Preserves a Remnant
The question running through Romans 9–11 unsettles our confidence in ancestry and personal worthiness. Not all who belong to Israel by descent are truly Israel, and salvation is received by faith rather than earned through works. How, then, are we to understand the reality that many among the people who received the promise reject the gospel? Paul does not turn a blind eye to Israel's unbelief, but neither does he conclude from it that God's promise has failed.
In Romans 11:1, he asks whether God has rejected his people and answers emphatically that he has not. Paul himself is a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin, and a believer in Christ. His own faith already bears witness to the existence of a remnant within Israel. Here, "the remnant" is not a name for people who survived because they were more exceptional than others. Rather, it testifies, in the midst of despair, that there are people whom God has preserved by grace.
Elijah's lament sheds light on this same truth. When the prophet believed that he alone remained, God told him that he had kept seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. The prophet could see only his own isolation, yet God was preserving people beyond the limits of his sight. We cannot conclude that unseen grace has vanished simply because the failures before our eyes loom large.
Yet this comfort also calls us to humility. The moment we make the name "remnant" a basis for feeling superior, we begin to speak more loudly of our own faithfulness than of the grace that preserved us. If salvation begins in God's grace, the ground of its preservation and completion also lies in God. Reflection on election, then, should not stop at determining who is a better person. It should lead us to ask who holds us fast.
For Paul, the unbelief of his own people was no reason for hatred. His posture matters: even as he spoke plainly of their rejection of the gospel, he did not relinquish his love for the Jewish people. If a faith that wrestles with election and reprobation is not to drift into exclusionary self-satisfaction, it must learn this spirit of reconciliation alongside its understanding of doctrine.
Faith That Has Been Grafted In Is Humbled Before the Root
In the wake of Israel's stumbling, the gospel reaches the Gentiles. Yet Paul does not interpret this as a story in which one side is displaced and the other triumphs. He longs for Israel, too, to return to God through the riches of salvation the Gentiles now enjoy. The explanation in Romans 11:11–12 that the salvation of the Gentiles is meant to make Israel jealous must also be understood within his hope for their eventual return. His apostolic zeal embraces both the spread of the gospel and a love that longs for the restoration of his own people.
There is a similar reason for the sermon's reference to Joseph at this point. The tragedy of being sold by his brothers and taken down to Egypt was ultimately used to preserve those very brothers and many other lives. Here we see the wisdom of God, who does not allow human wickedness and unbelief to have the final word in history. In the same way, our response to Israel's failure must not linger over another's misfortune with satisfaction. Our eyes must turn toward the God who continues to work beyond that failure.
The image of the cultivated olive tree and the wild olive tree reveals where a recipient of grace stands. Some of the natural branches are broken off because of unbelief, and a branch from a wild olive tree is grafted in to receive nourishment from the root. The fact that life flows through a branch does not make that branch the source of life. The salvation of the Gentiles is not a reason to erase the covenant God has carried forward through Israel. It is a reason to remember the root and give thanks.
Pastor David Jang warns against treating salvation as a possession we can take for granted or a reward for our own excellence. Having received grace gives us no right to mock another person's failure. Rather, the memory that we could not save ourselves becomes the starting point of compassion for others. The moment we turn grace into merit, gratitude disappears and comparison begins.
Paul's warning becomes severe at precisely this point. If even the natural branches were broken off because of unbelief, the grafted-in branches cannot take arrogance and unbelief lightly either. Confessing faith in grace does not give us permission to abandon the obedience of faith. When we witness another person's fall, our first concern should not be how much better we are, but whether our own faith still depends on grace.
Because the Way of Repentance Remains Open, Hope Does Not Close the Door
Yet the fact that branches have been broken off does not bring the story of salvation to an end. In Romans 11:25–26, Paul speaks of a partial hardening that has come upon Israel until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, while looking toward the salvation of all Israel. This hope refuses to judge the whole of God's promise by the present reality of rejection. Because we believe in the God who has preserved a remnant, we do not close off the possibility of restoration for those who have not yet returned.
The sermon acknowledges that the expression "all Israel" has received various theological interpretations. Yet it holds fast to a central conviction: God does not abandon Israel, and he leaves open the way for them to repent and return. Such patient waiting rests on the assurance that God's promises and calling are irrevocable. Faith that looks toward an ending not yet seen stands not on human optimism but on the faithfulness of the One who made the promise.
The words about waiting until the full number of the Gentiles has come in also speak to our present responsibility to proclaim the gospel. This sermon does not separate world mission from the hope of the last days, but views them together within God's plan of salvation. Waiting is not a matter of observing another person's restoration from a distance. It becomes a way of life in which we proclaim the gospel and join in seeking that restoration.
This hope, however, is not an optimism that makes repentance unnecessary. We cannot speak of God's kindness while erasing his severity. Throughout the sermon, sovereign grace and the obedience of faith remain inseparable, and the warning against unbelief stands alongside the promise that God will graft back in those who return. Repentance is not an attempt to accumulate the merit needed to save ourselves. It is a response that turns from stubborn unbelief to depend on grace.
This teaching also challenges the way we judge people today. Discerning someone's wrongdoing is not the same as giving up on that person's restoration. It prompts us to ask whether we plead for understanding of our own failures while passing final judgment on the failures of others. To know the gospel is not to take sin lightly. It is also to refuse to lose compassion for those who have fallen into sin.
The More Deeply We Know Salvation, the More Humbly We Worship
Paul's discussion, tracing the story of Israel and the Gentiles, of stumbling and restoration, finally arrives at praise. In Romans 11:36, he confesses that all things come from God, exist through God, and return to God. Human beings are neither the architects of this plan of salvation nor advisers who add to God's wisdom. Theological insight becomes reverence when, rather than boasting in what we have understood, we kneel before a wisdom we cannot fully fathom.
This confession also resonates with the praise of Romans 16:27, which gives glory to God through Jesus Christ. Having surveyed the history of salvation, Paul exalts neither his own explanation nor the achievements of the Gentiles, but God. Glory belongs to the One who preserves the remnant, grafts in branches that were once strangers, and brings about Israel's restoration. To know salvation more deeply is not to find ourselves standing above others, but to recognize more clearly that we stand before God.
The meditation Pastor David Jang guides us through likewise connects this praise to everyday devotion. Just as the confession of Romans 11 leads into the appeal in Romans 12:1 to offer our bodies as a holy, living sacrifice, gratitude for the grace we have received takes shape in concrete ways of living. Words that do not ridicule another person's fall, repentance that acknowledges our own pride, and obedience that seeks reconciliation even amid conflict become our response. Faith deepens not into a force that pushes others aside to protect our own position, but into a life of learning to love from the place where God holds us.
When we remember that the life flowing through us is not something we created by our own strength, we begin to look at others with greater humility. A heart that waits for those who have not yet returned grows from the memory that we ourselves first received grace. Today, am I using the grace I have received to exalt myself—or is that grace the very reason I cannot bring myself to give up on someone else?
Dr. David Jang has proclaimed the gospel in various regions of the world through field missions and digital media ministry, and as the fruit of that ministry, many people devoted to the Great Commission have been raised up. Based on this missionary vision, Olivet first began as a small church school for missionary training. Later, in order to provide more systematic theological education and cultivate missionary leaders, Olivet Theological College and Seminary was established in Los Angeles and Seoul in 2000.
As the school grew, Dr. Jang officially founded Olivet University in San Francisco in 2004. In the diverse and dynamic environment of San Francisco, Olivet expanded its educational fields beyond theology to include music, journalism, art and design, and technology. The university also strengthened its educational capacity by recruiting faculty members, including Dr. William Wagner, and in 2005 moved to the former UC Berkeley Downtown Extension campus, further solidifying its foundation as a university.
In 2006, Dr. Jang transferred the presidency to Dr. David James Randolph in order to focus more fully on missionary work, while continuing to lead global missions as International President. Olivet University later received institutional accreditation in 2009, added a language education college and a business college, and continued to grow as a Christian educational institution for world missions by expanding its degree programs and international partnerships.
