Ro 11:1–36. Same
Subject Continued and Concluded—The
Ultimate Inbringing of All Israel, to Be, with the Gentiles, One Kingdom of God on the Earth.
1.
I say then, Hath—“Did”
God
cast away his people? God forbid—Our
Lord did indeed announce that “the kingdom of God should be taken from
Israel” (Mt 21:41); and when asked by the Eleven, after His resurrection, if He
would at that time “restore the kingdom to Israel,” His reply is a
virtual admission that Israel was in some sense already out of covenant (Ac
1:9). Yet here the apostle teaches that, in two respects, Israel was not
“cast away”; First, Not totally; Second, Not finally. First, Israel is not wholly cast
away.
for
I also am an Israelite—See Php
3:5, and so a living witness to the contrary.
of
the seed of Abraham—of pure descent from the father of
the faithful.
of
the tribe of Benjamin—(Php 3:5), that tribe which, on the
revolt of the ten tribes, constituted, with Judah, the one faithful kingdom of
God (1Ki 12:21), and after the captivity was, along with Judah, the kernel of
the Jewish nation (Ezr 4:1; 10:9).
2–4.
God hath—“did”
not
cast away his people—that is, wholly
which
he foreknew—On the word “foreknew,” see on Ro
8:29.
Wot—that is, “Know”
ye
not that the scripture saith of—literally,
“in,” that is, in the section which relates to
Elias?
how he maketh intercession—“pleadeth”
against
Israel—(The word “saying,” which follows,
as also the particle “and” before “digged down,” should be omitted, as without
manuscript authority).
3.
and I am left alone—“I only am left.”
4.
seven thousand, that have not bowed the knee to Baal—not “the image of Baal,” according to the supplement of our
version.
5.
Even so at this present time—“in
this present season”; this period of Israel’s rejection. (See Ac 1:7, Greek).
there
is—“there obtains,” or “hath remained”
a
remnant according to the election of grace—“As
in Elijah’s time the apostasy of Israel was not so universal as it seemed to
be, and as he in his despondency concluded it to be, so now, the rejection of
Christ by Israel is not so appalling in extent as one would be apt to think:
There is now, as there was then, a faithful remnant; not however of persons
naturally better than the unbelieving mass, but of persons graciously chosen to
salvation.” (See 1Co 4:7; 2Th 2:13). This establishes our view of the argument
on Election in Ro 9:1–29, as not being an election of Gentiles in the place of
Jews, and merely to religious advantages, but a sovereign choice of some of
Israel itself, from among others, to believe and be saved. (See on Ro 9:6.)
6.
And, &c.—better, “Now if it (the
election) be by grace, it is no more of works; for [then] grace becomes no more
grace: but if it be of works,” &c. (The authority of ancient manuscripts
against this latter clause, as superfluous and not originally in the text,
though strong, is not sufficient, we think, to justify its exclusion. Such
seeming redundancies are not unusual with our apostle). The general position
here laid down is of vital importance: That there are but two possible sources
of salvation—men’s works, and God’s grace; and that these are so essentially
distinct and opposite, that salvation cannot be of any combination or mixture
of both, but must be wholly either of the one or of the other. (See on Ro 4:3, Note
3.)
7–10.
What then?—How stands the fact?
Israel
hath not obtained that which he seeketh for—better,
“What Israel is in search of (that is, Justification, or acceptance with
God—see on Ro 9:31); this he found not; but the election (the elect remnant of
Israel) found it, and the rest were hardened,” or judicially given over to the
“hardness of their own hearts.”
8.
as it is written—(Is 29:10; De 29:4).
God
hath given—“gave”
them
the spirit of slumber—“stupor”
unto
this day—“this present day.”
9.
And David saith—(Ps 69:23), which in such a
Messianic psalm must be meant of the rejecters of Christ.
Let
their table, &c.—that is, Let their very
blessings prove a curse to them, and their enjoyments only sting and take
vengeance on them.
10.
Let their eyes be darkened … and bow down their back alway—expressive either of the decrepitude, or of the servile
condition, to come on the nation through the just judgment of God. The
apostle’s object in making these quotations is to show that what he had been
compelled to say of the then condition and prospects of his nation was more
than borne out by their own Scriptures. But, Secondly,
God has not cast away His people finally. The illustration of this point
extends, Ro 11:11–31.
11.
I say then, Have they stumbled—“Did
they stumble”
that
they should fall? God forbid; but—the
supplement “rather” is better omitted.
through
their fall—literally, “trespass,” but here
best rendered “false step” [De Wette];
not “fall,” as in our version.
salvation
is come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy—Here, as also in Ro 10:19 (quoted from De 32:21), we see
that emulation is a legitimate stimulus to what is good.
12.
Now if the fall of them—“But if
their trespass,” or “false step”
be
the riches of the—Gentile
world—as being the occasion of their accession to Christ.
and
the diminishing of them—that is,
the reduction of the true Israel to so small a remnant.
the
riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness!—that is, their full recovery (see on Ro 11:26); that is,
“If an event so untoward as Israel’s fall was the occasion of such unspeakable
good to the Gentile world, of how much greater good may we expect an event so
blessed as their full recovery to be productive?”
13,
14. I speak—“am speaking”
to
you Gentiles—another proof that this Epistle was
addressed to Gentile believers. (See on Ro 1:13).
I
magnify—“glorify”
mine
office—The clause beginning with
“inasmuch” should be read as a parenthesis.
14.
If … I may provoke, &c. (See on Ro 11:11.)
my
flesh—Compare Is 58:7.
15.
For if the casting away of them—The
apostle had denied that they were east away (Ro 11:1); here he affirms it. But
both are true; they were cast away, though neither totally nor finally,
and it is of this partial and temporary rejection that the apostle here speaks.
be
the reconciling of the—Gentile
world,
what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?—The reception of the whole family of Israel, scattered as
they are among all nations under heaven, and the most inveterate enemies of the
Lord Jesus, will be such a stupendous manifestation of the power of God upon
the spirits of men, and of His glorious presence with the heralds of the Cross,
as will not only kindle devout astonishment far and wide, but so change the
dominant mode of thinking and feeling on all spiritual things as to seem like a
resurrection from the dead.
16.
For—“But”
if
the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root … so the
branches—The Israelites were required to
offer to God the first-fruits of the earth—both in their raw state, in a sheaf
of newly reaped grain (Le 23:10, 11), and in their prepared state, made into
cakes of dough (Nu 15:19–21)—by which the whole produce of that season was
regarded as hallowed. It is probable that the latter of these offerings
is here intended, as to it the word “lump” best applies; and the argument of
the apostle is, that as the separation unto God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
from the rest of mankind, as the parent stem of their race, was as real an
offering of first-fruits as that which hallowed the produce of the earth, so,
in the divine estimation, it was as real a separation of the mass or “lump” of
that nation in all time to God. The figure of the “root” and its “branches” is
of like import—the consecration of the one of them extending to the other.
17,
18. And if—rather, “But if”; that is, “If
notwithstanding this consecration of Abraham’s race to God.
some
of the branches—The mass of the unbelieving and
rejected Israelites are here called “some,” not, as before, to meet Jewish
prejudice (see on Ro 3:3, and on “not all” in Ro 10:16), but with the opposite
view of checking Gentile pride.
and
thou, being a wild olive, wert—“wast”
grafted
in among them—Though it is more usual to graft
the superior cutting upon the inferior stem, the opposite method, which is
intended here, is not without example.
and
with them partakest—“wast made partaker,” along with
the branches left, the believing remnant.
of
the root and fatness of the olive tree—the
rich grace secured by covenant to the true seed of Abraham.
18.
Boast not against the—rejected
branches.
But if thou—“do”
boast—remember that
thou
bearest not—“it is not thou that bearest”
the
root, but the root thee—“If the
branches may not boast over the root that bears them, then may not the Gentile
boast over the seed of Abraham; for what is thy standing, O Gentile, in
relation to Israel, but that of a branch in relation to the root? From Israel
hath come all that thou art and hast in the family of God; for “salvation is of
the Jews” (Jn 4:22).
19–21.
Thou wilt say then—as a plea for boasting.
The
branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.
20.
Well—“Be it so, but remember that”
because
of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest—not as a Gentile, but solely
by
faith—But as faith cannot live in those
“whose soul is lifted up” (Hab 2:4).
Be
not high-minded, but fear—(Pr
28:14; Php 2:12):
21.
For if God spared not the natural branches—sprung
from the parent stem.
take
heed lest he also spare not thee—a
mere wild graft. The former might, beforehand, have been thought very
improbable; but, after that, no one can wonder at the latter.
22,
23. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them that fell,
severity—in rejecting the chosen seed.
but
toward thee, goodness—“God’s goodness” is the true
reading, that is, His sovereign goodness in admitting thee to a covenant
standing who before wert a “stranger to the covenants of promise” (Eph 2:12–20).
if
thou continue in his goodness—in
believing dependence on that pure goodness which made thee what thou art.
23.
And they also—“Yea, and they”
if
they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft
them in again—This appeal to the power of
God to effect the recovery of His ancient people implies the vast difficulty of
it—which all who have ever labored for the conversion of the Jews are made
depressingly to feel. That intelligent expositors should think that this was meant
of individual Jews, reintroduced from time to time into the family of
God on their believing on the Lord Jesus, is surprising; and yet those who deny
the national recovery of Israel must and do so interpret the apostle.
But this is to confound the two things which the apostle carefully
distinguishes. Individual Jews have been at all times admissible, and have been
admitted, to the Church through the gate of faith in the Lord Jesus. This is
the “remnant, even at this present time, according to the election of
grace,” of which the apostle, in the first part of the chapter, had cited
himself as one. But here he manifestly speaks of something not then
existing, but to be looked forward to as a great future event in the economy of
God, the reingrafting of the nation as such, when they “abide not in
unbelief.” And though this is here spoken of merely as a supposition (if their
unbelief shall cease)—in order to set it over against the other supposition, of
what will happen to the Gentiles if they shall not abide in the faith—the
supposition is turned into an explicit prediction in the verses following.
24.
For if thou wert cut—“wert cut off”
from
the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and wast grafted contrary to nature
into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, &c.—This is just the converse of Ro 11:21: “As the
excision of the merely engrafted Gentiles through unbelief is a thing
much more to be expected than was the excision of the natural Israel,
before it happened; so the restoration of Israel, when they shall be brought to
believe in Jesus, is a thing far more in the line of what we should expect,
than the admission of the Gentiles to a standing which they never before
enjoyed.”
25.
For I would not … that ye should be ignorant of this mystery—The word “mystery,” so often used by our apostle, does not
mean (as with us) something incomprehensible, but “something before kept
secret, either wholly or for the most part, and now only fully disclosed”
(compare Ro 16:25; 1Co 2:7–10; Eph 1:9, 10).
lest
ye should be wise in your own conceits—as
if ye alone were in all time coming to be the family of God.
that
blindness—“hardness”
in
part is happened to—“hath come upon”
Israel—that is, hath come partially, or upon a portion of Israel.
until
the fulness of the Gentiles be—“have”
come
in—that is, not the general conversion
of the world to Christ, as many take it; for this would seem to contradict the
latter part of this chapter, and throw the national recovery of Israel too far
into the future: besides, in Ro 11:15, the apostle seems to speak of the
receiving of Israel, not as following, but as contributing largely to bring
about the general conversion of the world—but, “until the Gentiles have had
their full time of the visible Church all to themselves while the Jews
are out, which the Jews had till the Gentiles were brought in.” (See Lu
21:24).
26,
27. And so all Israel shall be saved—To
understand this great statement, as some still do, merely of such a gradual
inbringing of individual Jews, that there shall at length remain none in
unbelief, is to do manifest violence both to it and to the whole context. It
can only mean the ultimate ingathering of Israel as a nation, in
contrast with the present “remnant.” (So Tholuck,
Meyer, De Wette, Philippi,
Alford, Hodge). Three confirmations of this now follow: two from the
prophets, and a third from the Abrahamic covenant itself. First, as it
is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and
shall—or, according to what seems the true reading, without the
“and”—“He shall”
turn
away ungodliness from Jacob—The
apostle, having drawn his illustrations of man’s sinfulness chiefly from
Ps 14:1–7 and Is 59:1–21, now seems to combine the language of the same two
places regarding Israel’s salvation from it [Bengel]. In the one place the Psalmist longs to see the
“salvation of Israel coming out of Zion” (Ps 14:7); in the other, the
prophet announces that “the Redeemer (or, ‘Deliverer’) shall come to (or
‘for’) Zion” (Is 59:20). But as all the glorious manifestations of
Israel’s God were regarded as issuing out of Zion, as the seat of His
manifested glory (Ps 20:2; 110:2; Is 31:9), the turn which the apostle gives to
the words merely adds to them that familiar idea. And whereas the prophet
announces that He “shall come to (or, ‘for’) them that turn from
transgression in Jacob,” while the apostle makes Him say that He shall come “to
turn away ungodliness from Jacob,” this is taken from the Septuagint
version, and seems to indicate a different reading of the original text. The
sense, however, is substantially the same in both. Second,
27.
For—rather, “and” (again); introducing
a new quotation.
this
is my covenant with them—literally,
“this is the covenant from me unto them.”
when
I shall take away their sins—This,
we believe, is rather a brief summary of Je 31:31–34 than the express words of
any prediction, Those who believe that there are no predictions regarding the
literal Israel in the Old Testament, that stretch beyond the end of the Jewish
economy, are obliged to view these quotations by the apostle as mere
adaptations of Old Testament language to express his own predictions [Alexander on Isaiah, &c.]. But how
forced this is, we shall presently see.
28,
29. As concerning the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes—that is, they are regarded and treated as enemies (in a
state of exclusion through unbelief, from the family of God) for the benefit of
you Gentiles; in the sense of Ro 11:11, 15.
but
as touching, the election—of
Abraham and his seed.
they
are beloved—even in their state of exclusion
for the fathers’ sakes.
29.
For the gifts and calling—“and the
calling”
of
God are without repentance—“not to
be,” or “cannot be repented of.” By the “calling of God,” in this case,
is meant that sovereign act by which God, in the exercise of His free choice,
“called” Abraham to be the father of a peculiar people; while “the gifts
of God” here denote the articles of the covenant which God made with Abraham,
and which constituted the real distinction between his and all other families
of the earth. Both these, says the apostle, are irrevocable; and as the point
for which he refers to this at all is the final destiny of the
Israelitish nation, it is clear that the perpetuity through all time of the
Abrahamic covenant is the thing here affirmed. And lest any should say that
though Israel, as a nation, has no destiny at all under the Gospel, but
as a people disappeared from the stage when the middle wall of partition was
broken down, yet the Abrahamic covenant still endures in the spiritual
seed of Abraham, made up of Jews and Gentiles in one undistinguished mass of
redeemed men under the Gospel—the apostle, as if to preclude that supposition,
expressly states that the very Israel who, as concerning the Gospel, are
regarded as “enemies for the Gentiles’ sakes,” are “beloved for the fathers’
sakes”; and it is in proof of this that he adds, “For the gifts and the
calling of God are without repentance.” But in what sense are the now
unbelieving and excluded children of Israel “beloved for the fathers’ sakes?”
Not merely from ancestral recollections, as one looks with fond interest
on the child of a dear friend for that friend’s sake [Dr. Arnold]—a
beautiful thought, and not foreign to Scripture, in this very matter (see 2Ch
20:7; Is 41:8)—but it is from ancestral connections and obligations,
or their lineal descent from and oneness in covenant with the fathers with whom
God originally established it. In other words, the natural Israel—not “the remnant
of them according to the election of grace,” but the nation, sprung from Abraham according to the flesh—are
still an elect people, and as such, “beloved.” The very same love which chose
the fathers, and rested on the fathers as a parent stem of the nation, still
rests on their descendants at large, and will yet recover them from unbelief,
and reinstate them in the family of God.
30,
31. For as ye in times past have not believed—or,
“obeyed”
God—that is, yielded not to God “the obedience of faith,” while
strangers to Christ.
yet
now have obtained mercy through—by
occasion of
their
unbelief—(See on Ro 11:11; Ro 11:15; Ro
11:28).
31.
Even so have these—the Jews.
now
not believed—or, “now been disobedient”
that
through your mercy—the mercy shown to you.
they
also may obtain mercy—Here is an entirely new idea. The
apostle has hitherto dwelt upon the unbelief of the Jews as making way for the
faith of the Gentiles—the exclusion of the one occasioning the reception of the
other; a truth yielding to generous, believing Gentiles but mingled satisfaction.
Now, opening a more cheering prospect, he speaks of the mercy shown to the
Gentiles as a means of Israel’s recovery; which seems to mean that it will be
by the instrumentality of believing Gentiles that Israel as a nation is at
length to “look on Him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him,” and so to
“obtain mercy.” (See 2Co 3:15, 16).
32.
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief—“hath
shut them all up to unbelief”
that
he might have mercy upon all—that
is, those “all” of whom he had been discoursing; the Gentiles first, and after
them the Jews [Fritzsche, Tholuck, Olshausen,
De Wette, Philippi, Stuart,
Hodge]. Certainly it is not “all
mankind individually” [Meyer, Alford]; for the apostle is not here
dealing with individuals, but with those great divisions of mankind, Jew and
Gentile. And what he here says is that God’s purpose was to shut each of these
divisions of men to the experience first of an humbled, condemned state,
without Christ, and then to the experience of His mercy in Christ.
33.
Oh, the depth, &c.—The apostle now yields
himself up to the admiring contemplation of the grandeur of that divine plan
which he had sketched out.
of
the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God—Many able expositors render this, “of the riches and wisdom
and knowledge,” &c. [Erasmus, Grotius, Bengel,
Meyer, De Wette, Tholuck,
Olshausen, Fritzsche, Philippi,
Alford, Revised Version].
The words will certainly bear this sense, “the depth of God’s riches.” But “the
riches of God” is a much rarer expression with our apostle than the riches of
this or that perfection of God; and the words immediately following limit our
attention to the unsearchableness of God’s “judgments,” which probably
means His decrees or plans (Ps 119:75), and of “His ways,” or the method
by which He carries these into effect. (So Luther,
Calvin, Beza, Hodge,
&c.). Besides, all that follows to the end of the chapter seems to show
that while the Grace of God to guilty men in Christ Jesus is presupposed
to be the whole theme of this chapter, that which called forth the special
admiration of the apostle, after sketching at some length the divine purposes
and methods in the bestowment of this grace, was “the depth of the riches of
God’s wisdom and knowledge” in these purposes and methods. The
“knowledge,” then, points probably to the vast sweep of divine comprehension
herein displayed; the “wisdom” to that fitness to accomplish the ends intended,
which is stamped on all this procedure.
34,
35. For who hath known the mind of the Lord?—See
Job 15:8; Je 23:18.
or
who hath been his counsellor—See
Is 40:13, 14.
35.
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him—“and shall have recompense made to him”
again—see Job 35:7; 41:11. These questions, it will thus be seen,
are just quotations from the Old Testament, as if to show how familiar to God’s
ancient people was the great truth which the apostle himself had just uttered,
that God’s plans and methods in the dispensation of His Grace have a reach of
comprehension and wisdom stamped upon them which finite mortals cannot fathom,
much less could ever have imagined, before they were disclosed.
36.
For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom—“to Him”
be
glory for ever. Amen—Thus worthily—with a brevity only
equalled by its sublimity—does the apostle here sum up this whole matter. “Of Him are all things,” as their eternal
Source: “through Him are all
things,” inasmuch as He brings all to pass which in His eternal counsels He
purposed: “To Him are all things,” as being His own last End; the manifestation
of the glory of His own perfections being the ultimate, because the highest
possible, design of all His procedure from first to last.
On this
rich chapter, Note, (1) It is an unspeakable consolation to know that in
times of deepest religious declension and most extensive defection from the
truth, the lamp of God has never been permitted to go out, and that a faithful
remnant has ever existed—a remnant larger than their own drooping spirits could
easily believe (Ro 11:1–5). (2) The preservation of this remnant, even as their
separation at the first, is all of mere grace (Ro 11:5, 6). (3) When
individuals and communities, after many fruitless warnings, are abandoned of
God, they go from bad to worse (Ro 11:7–10). (4) God has so ordered His
dealings with the great divisions of mankind, “that no flesh should glory in
His presence.” Gentile and Jew have each in turn been “shut up to unbelief,”
that each in turn may experience the “mercy” which saves the chief of sinners
(Ro 11:11–32). (5) As we are “justified by faith,” so are we “kept by the power
of God through faith”—faith alone—unto salvation (Ro 11:20–32). (6) God’s
covenant with Abraham and his natural seed is a perpetual covenant, in equal
force under the Gospel as before it. Therefore it is, that the Jews as a nation
still survive, in spite of all the laws which, in similar circumstances, have
either extinguished or destroyed the identity of other nations. And therefore
it is that the Jews as a nation will yet be restored to the family of God,
through the subjection of their proud hearts to Him whom they have pierced. And
as believing Gentiles will be honored to be the instruments of this stupendous
change, so shall the vast Gentile world reap such benefit from it, that it
shall be like the communication of life to them from the dead. (7) Thus has the
Christian Church the highest motive to the establishment and vigorous
prosecution of missions to the Jews; God having not only promised that
there shall be a remnant of them gathered in every age, but pledged Himself to
the final ingathering of the whole nation assigned the honor of that
ingathering to the Gentile Church, and assured them that the event, when it
does arrive, shall have a life-giving effect upon the whole world (Ro 11:12–16,
26–31). (8) Those who think that in all the evangelical prophecies of the Old
Testament the terms “Jacob,” “Israel,” &c., are to be understood solely of the
Christian Church, would appear to read the Old Testament differently from
the apostle, who, from the use of those very terms in Old Testament prophecy,
draws arguments to prove that God has mercy in store for the natural Israel
(Ro 11:26, 27). (9) Mere intellectual investigations into divine truth in
general, and the sense of the living oracles in particular, as they have a
hardening effect, so they are a great contrast to the spirit of our apostle,
whose lengthened sketch of God’s majestic procedure towards men in Christ Jesus
ends here in a burst of admiration, which loses itself in the still
loftier frame of adoration (Ro 11:33–36).
Excerpt from:
A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown
Rick Meyers. e-Sword ®: www.e-sword.net
