Why does God’s acceptance of the Jews mean life from the dead?

When Jews who had previously rejected the Messiah proceed to repent and embrace him, Paul writes that this is nothing short of life from the dead (Romans 11:15). Yet how could Israel be identified with the dead, and how does this same people then later again become identified with the living? Should this be understood as the consequence of divine judgment and re-adoption? Many translations (including the KJV, ESV, and NIV) give that impression. In these translations the verse hinges on the concepts of divine rejection and acceptance. Yet how does one reconcile this with the extensive preceding discussion regarding Israel’s unbelief? Up to this point there was never any mention of a rejection of Israel. Besides, what does such a rejection even mean when it is followed by an acceptance? And does the world truly owe its salvation to the fact that God’s rejected his own people?

A number of commentators (including Cranfield¹) mitigate this dilemma somewhat by restricting the reference to Israel’s leaders pronouncing their sentence on Jesus of Nazareth. Because they rejected him, through his death on the cross and in his resurrection, he became the reconciliation of the world. Thereby, in a certain sense, he atoned for our sins by virtue of the condemnation of the Sanhedrin. God adjudged that condemnation by the Jews negatively and that, in effect, is what is meant by their rejection. When the gospel is preached, however, many of these rejected people come to faith in Jesus which, in effect, constitutes new life from death. However, in the context of Romans 11:1–36 it is not really possible to apply this rejection and the reconciliation of the world that followed upon it specifically to Good Friday. Throughout Romans 11:1–36 Paul is constantly speaking about the situation of the Jews following Pentecost. They rejected the gospel of the Crucified and Resurrected One that had been preached to them. Thereafter the gospel is preached to the Gentiles who in turn do come to faith. This is how the world is reconciled to God through faith. Should Jews also come to this faith, then this would constitute for them (just as it did for the Gentiles who were once spiritually dead, see Ephesians 2:1–10) resurrection from the death of unbelief.²