‘But I speak to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I glorify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them.'
Paul now turns his comments specifically to the Gentile element in the church at Rome. He explains to them that, as the Apostle to the Gentiles, he glorifies his ministry in the hope by any means of provoking his fellow-Jews to jealousy, so that some of them might respond and be saved. It is quite clear from this that he does not see them as already saved. Their only hope, as with everyone else, is to truly believe in the Messiah. And that is what he is seeking to make them do.
‘I glorify my ministry.' He makes it out to be a glorious ministry, something which he genuinely does believe, so as to arouse the jealousy of Jews in order that they might come back to the Messiah. He wants them to know that he has a great concern (already expressed - Romans 9:1-3; Romans 10:1-3) for the unbelieving among the Jews.
‘May save some of them.' We must remember that Paul has a different perspective from us. He does not see two thousand years lying ahead. Like all the early church he is anticipating Christ's soon return. Thus the fact that he only expects ‘some' Jews to be saved is significant. This appears to contradict the idea that ‘all Israel' will be saved as in Romans 11:26. But as we shall see, in our view ‘Israel' there includes the believing Gentiles. So while he is certainly confident that some Jews will be saved, and passes that confidence on in his words to the Gentile Christians in the Roman church, it is apparent here that he clearly is not expecting a huge revival among them in his lifetime.