02.18. III. Israel’s Rejection Is Neither Complete nor Final (Chapter 11).
III. Israel’s Rejection Is Neither Complete nor Final (Rom 11:1-36).
1. I say then, Hath God cast away his people? (Rom 11:1). Dr. Stifler says: This chapter from the historical point of view is logically necessary. The Old Testament clearly promises Israel headship or leadership in the world’s worship. This primacy they had held from the days of Moses until the days of Paul, when the latter became the chief instrument in transferring it to ‘another nation’ (Mat 21:43), composed of elect persons called from all peoples (1Pe 2:9-10). This promise of headship was made to Israel not on the ground of their national descent, as the 9th chapter above shows, but, after all, it was a national promise. It belonged to the natural descent, and constituted their ‘advantage.’ It could not possibly be realized in the church, because the latter knew no racial distinctions. The essence of Judaism was separation from other people. Two facts stood out prominently in Paul’s day: first, that the church for the present had displaced Israel in the leadership’ of God’s worship in the world; secondly, that Israel had a promise in their ‘oracles’ that was not realized in the church and could not be; for the aim of the latter was not national separation, but diffusion, or, more exactly, election from all nations. The first question Paul has already considered in Rom 9:1-33 and Rom 10:1-21. Israel was justly displaced, and by their own fault. With the second fact the present chapter deals. Israel as a separate people is to be restored and to realize the promises made to them in the Old Testament. God’s far-reaching plans in the riches of His wisdom for the salvation of the world are here disclosed, provoking the exultant hymn in Rom 11:33-36. Israel’s present failure proves to be the world’s wealth now and their own finally (Stifler).
2. God forbid! (Rom 11:1). This is Paul’s wish, that God would forbid and prevent such a thing as the casting away of Israel. They were still His people, though they were disobedient and gainsaying.
3. For I also am an Israelite (Rom 11:1). If Israelites as such were cast off, then Paul would be included; and the fact that he had been saved was a strong argument to show that God had not yet cast away His people which He foreknew (Rom 11:2). That Israel has not been forever set aside is the theme of this chapter. (1) The salvation of Paul proves that there is still a remnant (Rom 11:1). (2) The doctrine of the remnant proves it (Rom 11:2-6). (3) The present national unbelief was foreseen (Rom 11:7-10). (4) Israel’s unbelief is the Gentile opportunity (Rom 11:11-25). (5) Israel is judicially broken off from the good olive tree, Christ (Rom 11:17-22). (6) They are to be grafted in again (Rom 11:23-24). (7) The promised Deliverer will come out of Zion and the nation will be saved (Rom 11:25-29). That the Christian now inherits the distinctive Jewish promises is not taught in Scripture. The Christian is of the heavenly seed of Abraham (Gen 15:5-6; Gal 3:29), and partakes of the spiritual blessings of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 15:18); but Israel as a nation always has its own place, and is yet to have its greatest exaltation as the earthly people of God (Scofield Reference Bible).
4. Wot ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias? (Rom 11:2-4). The reference is to 1Ki 19:10-18. Elijah supposed that he alone of all Israel remained true to God. He was mistaken, for God had preserved a remnant of seven thousand who had not turned aside to Baal worship.
5. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace (Rom 11:5). Paul himself was a proof of this, as well as the others in Israel who had accepted the Messiah and found salvation in Him.
6. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. We have quoted the entire verse, the remaining words in the King James Version being spurious. The ‘no more’ is not temporal, but logical. Grace and works are mutually exclusive methods. If the remnant was selected on the ground of grace, their legal works had no part whatever in the selection, else the grace would have lost its character as grace (Stifler).
7. What then? (Rom 11:7). What is the conclusion? This: Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for. Israel sought for righteousness but failed to find it, because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law (Rom 9:31-32).
8. But the election hath obtained it (Rom 11:7). The elect remnant obtained what the nation as a whole failed to find.
9. And the rest were hardened (Rom 11:7, R. V.). The nation of Israel as such is lying under the judicial chastening of God.
10. According as it is written (Rom 11:8). The parenthesis here should be omitted, for the closing words of the verse are included in the quotation. The point is that in the Jew’s own Scriptures all this had been clearly predicted beforehand; therefore he had been fully warned of the consequence of turning from God.
11. God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, unto this very day (Rom 11:8, R. V.). Isa 29:10 and Deu 29:4 are combined in the citation, and the passages should be pondered, with their contexts. The teaching is very solemn. Long-continued abuse of God’s grace brought a terrible punishment upon Israel. The principle is unfolded in Isaiah’s dreadful commission (Isa 6:1-13). Let the reader carefully meditate upon that impressive scene. Isaiah had seen a vision of the King, Jehovah of hosts (Isa 6:5. It filled him with horror on account of his own sinful condition, and that of his people.
There is nothing like a look at the Lord Himself to reveal to man his utter uncleanness.
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts. A seraph thereupon flew unto the prophet, with a live coal from the altar, and, touching his mouth with it, announced the purging and forgiveness of his sins. Then came the voice of the Lord: Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? The prophet answered, Here am I; send me. Now, carefully observe the precise terms of his commission. We quote from the Revised Version: And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed (‘continually’ margin), but understand not; and see ye indeed (‘continually,’ mg.), but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn again, and be healed. The horror of the prophet at hearing these terrible words may well be imagined. His agonized query was, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities be waste without inhabitants, and houses without man, and the land become utterly waste, and Jehovah have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land. And if there be yet a tenth in it, it also shall in turn be eaten up: as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stock remaineth, when they are felled; so the holy seed is the stock thereof.
Over and over again this Scripture is quoted in the New Testament and its fulfillment pointed out. In Mat 13:1-58, replying to a query as to why He had begun to teach the people in parables, our Lord replied:
Because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: for this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I should heal them.
“But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not (Mat 13:10-16; compare Mark 4:12; Luk 8:10). In John 12:39 it is declared that certain of our Lord’s hearers were unable to believe. The whole passage is in John 12:37-41, as bearing upon this point: But though He had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? (Isa 53:1). For this cause they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and He hardened their heart; lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and should turn, and I should heal them. These things said Isaiah, because he saw His glory; and he spake of Him. The passage is again cited in Acts 28:26-27. The connection there also is full of solemn import. Paul had reached Rome in chains, and had called together the leaders among the Jews in that city (Acts 28:17). We quote Acts 28:23-28 : And when they had appointed him a day, they came to him into his lodging in great number; to whom he expounded the matter, testifying the kingdom of God, and persuading them concerning Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets, from morning till evening. And some believed the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Spirit through Isaiah the prophet unto your fathers, saying, Go thou unto this people, and say, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: for this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you, that this salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles: they will also hear.
Thus there had come upon Israel to the uttermost the thing that was threatened, the inevitable consequence of hearing the Word of God and doing it not (compare Jas 1:22-25). And this judicial hardening continues upon Israel unto this very day also. Although nineteen centuries have come and gone since the epistle to the Romans was written, Israel is still hardened, still far from God, still a people scattered and peeled, still dispersed and despised, still reckoned a curse among the nations.
12. And David saith (Rom 11:9-10). The Scripture quoted in these two verses is from one of the confessedly Messianic Psalms, Psa 69:1-36 (Psa 69:22-233). If anyone doubts that Christ is the theme of this Psalm, let him compare Psa 69:9 with John 2:17 and Rom 15:3; Psa 69:21 with Mat 27:34; Mat 27:48; Mark 15:23; Luk 23:36; John 19:28-30; Psa 69:22 with Rom 11:9-10; and Psa 69:25 with Mat 23:38; Luk 13:35; Acts 1:20. The Speaker throughout Psa 69:1-36 is undoubtedly Christ. At Psa 69:20 He says:
Reproach hath broken My heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity,-but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave Me also gall for My food; and for My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink. This was fulfilled, as we know, on the cross (John 19:28). Then the divine Sufferer goes on, in the words of Psa 69:22-23, the words quoted in the passage we are now studying in Romans:
Let their table before them become a snare; and when they are in peace, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see; and take their loins continually to shake.
Again we have quoted from the Revised Version. The form of the words in Romans is that of the Septuagint, where the passage reads:
Let their table before them be for a snare, and for a recompense, and for a stumbling-block. Let their eyes be darkened, that they should not see; and bow down their back continually. In the word ‘table,’ says Dr. Stifler, there is a picture of men feasting, eating and drinking, unconscious that their enemies are just upon them. The Jew’s carnal security while trusting in the law proved his spiritual ruin. But the quotation is poetic, and need not be rigidly defined. ‘And bow (Thou) down their back alway’ under the heavy legal yoke (Acts 15:10). The ‘alway’ does not mean forever, or the whole discussion concerning Israel must end here. ‘Alway,’ converted in a few cases by some editors into a phrase, occurs about seven times, and means continuously or without interruption (Luk 24:53; Heb 13:15). It is not an indefinite, but a limited term, limited by the circumstances of which it speaks.
13. I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? (Rom 11:11). That they have fallen cannot be denied; but is this the end? Has Israel no future in God’s purpose? Must we conclude that, since Israel has been unfaithful to God, therefore God will be unfaithful to Israel? Shall He forget His covenant? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Israel has stumbled, and fallen. Is this the end?
14. God forbid! (Rom 11:11). This is not the final outcome of their history. God had a purpose even in their stumbling and fall, and that purpose was a gracious and benign one. Through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles. And even this was not for the sake of the Gentiles only, for it was in God’s mind by this means to provoke them (that is, the Jews) to jealousy. Emulation stands for the same Greek word in Rom 11:14, and is to be preferred, notwithstanding the action of the Revisers in using jealousy in both verses. Parazeloo is, literally, to stimulate alongside, and its force here is to excite to rivalry (Strong). The same word occurs in Rom 10:19 and 1Co 10:22. Dr. Moule calls attention, in connection with this chapter to the divine benignity which lurks even under the edges of the cloud of judgment. Continuing, he says: And observe, too, thus close to the passage which has put before us the mysterious side of divine action on human wills, the daylight simplicity of this side of that action; the loving skill with which the world’s blessing is meant by the grace of God to act, exactly in the line of human feeling, upon the will of Israel.
“But would that ‘the Gentiles’ had borne more in heart that last short sentence of St. Paul through these long centuries since the apostles fell asleep! It is one of the most marked, as it is one of the saddest, phenomena in the history of the church, that for ages, almost from the days of St. John himself, we look in vain either for any appreciable Jewish element in Christendom, or for any extended effort on the part of Christendom to win Jewish hearts to Christ by a wise and loving evangelization. With only relatively insignificant exceptions this was the abiding state of things till well within the eighteenth century, when the German Pietists began to call the attention of believing Christians to the spiritual needs and prophetic hopes of Israel, and to remind them that the Jews were not only a beacon of judgment, or only the most impressive and awful illustration of the fulfilment of prophecy, but the bearers of the yet unfulfilled predictions of mercy for themselves and for the world. Meanwhile, ail through the Middle Age, and through generations of preceding and following time also, Christendom did little for Israel but retaliate, reproach, and tyrannize. It was so of old in England: witness the fires of York. It is so in this day in Russia, and where the ‘Judenhetze’ inflames innumerable hearts in central Europe.
“No doubt there is more than one side to the persistent phenomena. There is a side of mystery; the permissive sentence of the Eternal has to do with the long affliction, however caused, of the people which once uttered the fatal cry, ‘His blood be on us, and on our children!’ (Mat 27:25). And the wrong-doings of Jews, beyond a doubt, have often made a dark occasion for a ‘Jew-hatred,’ on a larger or narrower scale. But all this leaves unaltered, from the point of view of the gospel, the sin of Christendom in its tremendous failure to seek, in love, the good of erring Israel. It leaves as black as ever the guilt of every fierce retaliation upon Jews by so-called Christians, of every slanderous belief about Jewish creed or life, of every unjust anti-Jewish law ever passed by Christian king or senate. It leaves an undiminished responsibility upon the church of Christ, not only for the flagrant wrong of having too often animated and directed the civil power in its oppressions of Israel, and not only for having so often neglected to seek the evangelization of Israel by direct appeals for the true Messiah, and by an open setting forth of His glory, but for the deeper and more subtle wrong, persistently inflicted from age to age, in a most guilty unconsciousness—the wrong of having failed to manifest Christ to Israel through the living holiness of Christendom. Here, surely, is the very point of the apostle’s thought in the sentence before us: ‘Salvation to the Gentiles, to move the Jews to jealousy.’ In his inspired idea, Gentile Christendom, in Christ, was to be so pure, so beneficent, so happy, finding manifestly in its Messianic Lord such resources for both peace of conscience and a life of noble love, love above all directed towards opponents and traducers, that Israel, looking on, with eyes however purblind with prejudice, should soon see a moral glory in the church’s face impossible to be hid, and be drawn as by a moral magnet to the church’s hope. Is it the fault of God (may He pardon the formal question, if it lacks reverence), or the fault of man, man carrying the Christian name, that facts have been so woefully otherwise in the course of history? It is the fault, the grievous fault of us Christians. The narrow prejudice, the iniquitous law, the rigid application of exaggerated ecclesiastical principle, all these things have been man’s perversion of the divine idea, to be confessed and deplored in a deep and interminable repentance. May the mercy of God awaken Gentile Christendom, in a manner and degree as yet unknown, to remember this our indefeasible debt to this people, everywhere present with us, everywhere distinct from us;—the debt of a life, personal and ecclesiastical, so manifestly pure and loving in our Lord the Christ as to move them to the jealousy which shall claim Him again for their own. Then we shall indeed be hastening the day of full and final blessing, both for themselves and for the world (Handley C. G. Motile).
15. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world . . . how much more their fullness? (Rom 11:12-15). Everything worthwhile has come to the Gentile world through Israel. If such blessing has come through their stumbling and falling, far greater blessing is to come through their return to their own place in God’s love and favor. Paul, as the apostle to the Gentiles, sought to stir his own kinsmen to emulation, for only through Israel’s recovery is the worldwide blessing to come. Their casting away has brought reconciliation to Gentiles, but their own reconciliation will be as life from the dead. It is ever God’s plan to bless the world through the Jew. In His own time,
He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit (Isa 27:6).
It is to this nation that the prophet calls, saying,
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples: but Jehovah shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising (resurrection from the dead!) (Isa 60:1-3). This is the order everywhere in the Scriptures of God. Israel must first come into the blessing, and then the Gentiles. Hear God’s nation sing, in Psa 67:1-7 :
God be merciful to us, and bless us; and cause His face to shine upon us; that Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy salvation among all nations. . . . God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.
16. For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches (Rom 11:16). Num 15:21 interprets the former of these two figures. A handful of dough was presented to God as a token of the lump from which it was taken. By the first fruit here, Paul means the saved Jewish remnant, including himself and all believers in Israel. By the lump he means the whole nation. The root, strictly speaking, is Abraham (Gal 3:29), and the natural branches are his descendants according to the flesh through Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
17. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches (Rom 11:17-24). In this discussion the point is that just as the nation of Israel through unbelief has temporarily lost its place of primacy and favor in the counsels of God, exactly so shall the Gentile peoples, if they believe not, be also cast aside. Men do not graft wild branches into good trees. God has acted contrary to nature in bringing salvation to Gentiles. To bring salvation to His own covenant people, which He will surely do in due time, will be a perfectly logical proceeding. And God is able.
18. For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery (Rom 11:25-27). The Spirit of God here whispers a secret into the ear of the church of God—a revelation concerning God’s eternal purpose for His beloved ancient people. Lest we should be wise in our own conceits, God would have us to know that blindness (a hardening, R. V.) in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. The reader’s attention is directed to the comments on Rom 11:7-10, above. Observe, in addition, that the blindness, or hardening, is neither complete or final. It is not complete, for it is only in part. A remnant in Israel is turning to the Messiah (Rom 11:5, above). And it is not final, for it is only until the church is complete, which is His body, the fulness of Him (Eph 1:22-23).
19. And so all Israel shall be saved (Rom 11:26-27). The difficulty connected with these verses, which has given so much concern to commentators, will disappear when the punctuation is corrected. The statement is clear enough when we read, And so all Israel shall be saved as it is written. Everything is bound to come to pass as it is written. The Scriptures are emphatic in predicting that a time is coming when God will save the nation of Israel as such. Not a remnant, but the whole nation then living shall be converted and saved. This does not touch the case of Israelites who die in this present age rejecting the salvation of God, but it covers the whole nation that shall be left upon the earth at the time when the great blessing comes. All this will be brought about, of course, by the Lord Jesus Christ. He it is that shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. He has already come as the Redeemer, the Goel, to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob (Isa 59:20); but the nation refused to receive Him. Yet the foundation of God standeth sure, and all Israel shall be saved as it is written. He has not forgotten His promise, and in due time He will fulfill it in every jot and tittle. For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. Let us look at the terms of His covenant unto them:
Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith Jehovah: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith Jehovah, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah: for they shall ALL know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more (Jer 31:31-35).
20. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes (Rom 11:28-31). The Jews have rejected the gospel, and that puts them in the place of God’s enemies for the time being. Let the Gentiles take advantage of the opportunity; this is preeminently the Gentiles’ day. Let them not forget, though, that Israel is still an elect nation, and that to the fathers God made great and sure promises. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Having bestowed gifts and calling upon Israel, God will never take those gifts or that calling back; they are theirs forever; he does not change. The Gentiles have by their disobedience brought upon themselves the mercy of God; and just so shall the children of Israel by their disobedience bring upon themselves the mercy of God.
21. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief (Rom 11:32). The Revision is to be preferred here: For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all. His whole action with both Jew and Gentile comes to this, that He ‘hath concluded (locked up as in a prison), them all in unbelief (with this grand purpose), that He might have mercy upon all.’ There is nothing richer than His mercy. If the Jews, for instance, had obeyed Him, they could have experienced only His fidelity. Mercy, which wholly excludes privilege or merit, is the grand idea (Eph 2:4-5). The Jew will find his gifts and calling, but they come to Him as a matter of mercy—mercy that excludes ‘boasting’ (3:27).
“Authorities are divided on the meaning of ‘all.’ It certainly does not refer to the elect; the whole context forbids that. But does it mean all men, all individuals (Meyer, Alford), or all nations, the Jews and the Gentiles about whom Paul has been speaking? The context is decisive for the latter. This general principle, as some have failed to notice, describes God’s attitude toward men, and not the outcome of that attitude. It does not contradict other plain Scriptures by teaching universal salvation, or salvation without faith. ‘The Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe’ (Gal 3:22). The principle says nothing about the outcome of the divine mercy toward all. It simply declares that God has actively and directly locked up all in sin so that he may have mercy toward all; and that if they are saved they are saved by mercy.
“This is the final and complete explanation of the Jew’s fall. He was by nature a sinner: God hedged that nature about with a rigid law to show him what his real character was. He tried to find liberty within its iron bars, but gets only slavery. Mercy alone can deliver him.
“The Gentile in Paul’s day had no law, but sought liberty in wisdom, his own wisdom (Rom 1:21-22), and in his quest became a fool and a slave to his lust. God knows that man cannot save himself, that no form of civil government and no system of ethics, even though it be that of the Old or of the New Testament, can attain to liberty. But man does not know it; he is in the rough prison, shut up under sin to learn it, to learn that salvation cannot be reached by human effort, that it comes down from God, the absolute gift of His mercy.
“This divine purpose of mercy is not only the explanation of the Jew’s fall, but of the continuance of the world in sin. It is the key to those terrible first chapters of the epistle. Universal condemnation leads to the universal principle of mercy. And what Paul saw in his world-wide view in his day, is still sadly true. The nations are in sin; Israel still refuses the Christ. The lesson of sin’s prison-house is not yet learned; but what the elect have found out all along— that there is no hope in themselves—the nations will learn in due time, and man’s works will cease, and God’s principle of mercy toward all will bring salvation. God now elects men from both Jew and Gentile; Jew • and Gentile will then elect God. This thirty-second verse is the climax of the epistle (Stiller).
22. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! (Rom 11:33-36). Here the chapter, and the section, closes with a song of praise to God. How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! It is only as He reveals Himself that we can know Him at all (Compare Job 5:9; Job 11:7; Job 15:8). For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? (Isa 40:13-14). Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? (Job 35:7; Job 41:1). For of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all things: to Whom be glory forever. Amen.