They answered, “He will destroy those evil people. Then he will lease the vineyard to other workers who will give him his share of the produce when it is ready.”
Paul and Barnabas told them boldly, “We had to speak God’s word to you first. Since you reject the word and consider yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, we are now going to turn to people of other nations.
So I ask, “Has God rejected his people Israel?” That’s unthinkable! Consider this. I’m an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin.
So I ask, “Has Israel stumbled so badly that it can’t get up again?” That’s unthinkable! By Israel’s failure, salvation has come to people who are not Jewish to make the Jewish people jealous.
That would be unthinkable! God is honest, and everyone else is a liar, as Scripture says, “So you hand down justice when you speak, and you win your case in court.”
Now, did something good cause my death? That’s unthinkable! Rather, my death was caused by sin so that sin would be recognized for what it is. Through a commandment sin became more sinful than ever.
What should we say, then? Are the laws in Moses’ Teachings sinful? That’s unthinkable! In fact, I wouldn’t have recognized sin if those laws hadn’t shown it to me. For example, I wouldn’t have known that some desires are sinful if Moses’ Teachings hadn’t said, “Never have wrong desires.”
Don’t you realize that your bodies are parts of Christ’s body? Should I take the parts of Christ’s body and make them parts of a prostitute’s body? That’s unthinkable!
If we, the same people who are searching for God’s approval in Christ, are still sinners, does that mean that Christ encourages us to sin? That’s unthinkable!
Does this mean, then, that the laws given to Moses contradict God’s promises? That’s unthinkable! If those laws could give us life, then certainly we would receive God’s approval because we obeyed them.
But it’s unthinkable that I could ever brag about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his cross my relationship to the world and its relationship to me have been crucified.