Romans 11:7-32

 

Throughout Romans 9-11, Paul has been attempting to understand God's working throughout history and, especially, with the Jewish people. Here Paul tries to bring this issue to a conclusion. This is a long and complex passage, and so we are going to approach it in a somewhat different way.

Verse 32 is an important verse, not just for this passage, but for the entire book of Romans. Paul says that God has concluded them all in unbelief. The word translated 'conclude' comes from two different words; one which means to close or shut and the other meaning with or together. (See Strong 4788) Adam Clarke paraphrases it: “God hath shut or locked them all up under unbelief.” And then he goes on to expand the picture: “[The Jews and Gentiles] are represented here as having been accused of their transgressions; tried at God's bar; found guilty on being tried; condemned to the death they had merited; remanded to prison, till the sovereign will, relative to their execution, should be announced; shut or locked up, under the jailer, unbelief; and there both continued in the same state, awaiting the execution of their sentence.”

Way back in Romans 1, we saw that the refusal to accept or acknowledge God is the beginning of sin—in other words, the root of sin is unbelief. The first sin was committed because Eve doubted the authority of God's command and the certainty of His judgment. Unbelief leads to sin and unbelief holds men in sin. The entire human race is locked up together in the prison of sin and unbelief—and so we all would be still if it were not for God who desires to show mercy on all. 

This is the heart of the gospel. All men have sinned and God desires and is working for the salvation of all. God's mercy is as universal as sin. All mankind is locked up together in the same prison—and God has unlocked the gates for anyone willing to come out. God is merciful and God's plans are fueled by mercy. Mercy and grace form the solid backdrop for everything Paul says in this chapter.

Now, we move to the main subject of this section, the relationship between the Jews, the Gentiles, and the church. In verse 28, Paul makes this statement about the Jews:  “As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.” The sad truth was that the general mass of the Jewish people were enemies of the Christian church—both the Jews and Gentiles within the church had to consider the general Jewish population as an enemy, even if they followed the command to love their enemy. Up to this point in the history of the church, the Jews had done far more to persecute and hurt the church than the Gentiles had.

In Exodus 23:22, God gave this promise to Israel as they prepared to go into the promised land, saying that He would send a messenger to lead and instruct them and adding: “But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.” This is an echo of the promise to Abraham that God would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him. But now the Jewish people—as a political or social unit—was being an enemy to the true people of God. And so God was in the position of an enemy to them. In speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon, God said: “I myself will fight against you” (Jeremiah 21:5) and once again that holds true. But while all that is true, it is not the whole truth.

We began this chapter with the question: has God cast off his people? Paul's answer there was that God's true people were always those who have faith, not a social or ethnic group. But here we have another side to the answer. Even the Jews, as a general group, who were in the position of enemies to God—even they were "beloved for the fathers' sake."

Who are the fathers? Most likely this refers specifically to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These patriarchs stand over the Jewish heritage as the fountainhead and foundation of all that follows. 

Paul already spoke extensively about Abraham in chapter 4. There his conclusion was that Abraham was justified by faith because he believed God's word and that was counted as the efficient cause of his righteousness. But what was it that God promised to Abraham which Abraham put his faith in? “For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.” (Genesis 13:15) “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:7-8)

Obviously, there are other verses dealing with God's promises to Abraham, but I want to highlight these two specifically because they show one fact—that God's promise was not solely to Abraham but also to his descendants. God made a promise to be with  Abraham's descendants and to give them the land of Canaan forever; this is said to be an everlasting covenant. 

God repeated this same promise in different forms to both Isaac and Jacob. But I want to look particularly at what God said to Isaac. “And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” (Genesis 26:4-5) God is making a promise to Isaac and to Isaac's seed, but the basis of that promise was Abraham. It was because Abraham had answered God in faith and obedience that God gave Him the promises He did and therefore they were extended to Isaac.

It wasn't an automatic blessing all the sons of Abraham—since, as we talked about back in chapter 9, Ishmael and his descendants were not included in this promise. There was always an election, a choice, a selection. But the point I want to emphasize is that God chose the Jewish people and made certain promises to them, promises said to be everlasting, on the basis of the character of Abraham. In other words, they were beloved for the fathers' sake. 

We see this further developed in Deuteronomy 10:14-17 “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward.” Do you see the progression? God chose the fathers, the patriarchs and, as a consequence, he chose their descendants, that is, the Israelites living in the time of Moses. The entire universe belongs to God—He could have chosen anyone or anything to be used in his plan, but he chose Abraham and the seed of Abraham.

But now note the consequence of this—the inference from this is not: “Therefore since you are chosen it doesn't matter how you live.” The inference is: “Because God chose you you must be careful how you live.” The people are being exhorted to be obedient and consecrated to God specifically because God had chosen them. And we have the statement that God is not a regarder of persons—which seems to mean that even though God had chosen the Israelites that didn't mean that God would ignore their sin or let them slide through. And this is definitely something we see throughout the Old Testament. If anything, God held Israel to a higher standard than the rest of the world, specifically because they were the chosen people.

And that brings us back to Romans 11, specifically the point where Paul carries on from his argument of the last section. “What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.” (Romans 11:7)

So we have the mass of Israel as a social and ethnic unit, the totality of those who were descendants of Abraham and who, by participation in circumcision, attached themselves to that Abrahamic covenant. And within this group, we have a smaller group that Paul describes as the remnant or the elect, the chosen ones. Just as God chose Abraham out of all the peoples in the world, and then chose Isaac out of all the sons of Abraham, and then chose Jacob out of the sons of Isaac—so God had chosen out a remnant from the totality of Israel. But while those choices were exclusive, this choice was inclusive. As we've seen several times in the passages leading up to this point, what sets the elect apart is one thing specifically--it is faith.

The elect, the remnant are those Jews who, like Paul himself, respond to God's gracious offer of salvation in faith. And so we have this divide between the Jews as a whole and the elect. There were many among the Jews who were truly part of Israel, were truly sons of Abraham and yet they did not find what they were looking for—this seems to be pointing back to the end of chapter 9 and the beginning of chapter 10, where Paul talked about how zealous many of the Jews were to find righteousness.

You meet people in the world who don't seem to care about right or wrong at all; who just do whatever will fulfill their own desires. Some might almost consider 'doing right' or 'being good' as an insult. There were many like that among the Jews as well—that seems to have been the kind of man Zacchaeus was before he met Jesus. But this wasn't the character of many of the Jews.

And even today in the world, you will meet many people who 'follow after the law of righteousness' even if they don't use that term—you meet many people, even outside the church, who want to do what is right, who care about what is just, who, (in whatever way they define it) want to be good people. Paul is giving that character to the Jewish people as a whole—they were a people that wanted to be good, who wanted to be right. But they sought this on their own efforts and with their own resources. As Paul says in Romans 9:32, “they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law.”  They were looking in the wrong place and therefore they did not find what they were looking for. Only the elect, who looked in the right place—where the faith had marked the sacred cross on the map—found it.

And then, after Paul establishes that, he adds this ominous afterward: “and the rest were blinded.”

Because while we have been discussing all this in static terms, the actual state of the Jewish people did not remain static. The elect were saved by faith. And therefore we can say that the rest of the Jews were lost because of unbelief. But these two realities—faith and unbelief—do not simply sit around existing. In our study of Romans 5-8, we saw the progress that faith makes—when he put our faith in God, that puts in motion a process of transformation that changes the entire heart and life of the believer and which will someday spill over to the body of the believer and from there to the entire natural order. Faith leads to transformation.

But the sad fact is that unbelief also leads to a kind of transformation; it leads to a blinding or hardening of the heart. The word translated 'blinded' in verse 7 literally means to petrify (see Strong #4456) or grow hard. It is a term used in medicine for a callus—for a spot of skin that becomes thick and hard. The result of the unbelief is a callus on the heart—a hardening or blindness. Burnes commented about sin that “it hardens 'a within/And petrifies the feelings.”

Paul makes this point with a couple of quotations from the Old Testament. “(According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.” (Romans 11:8-10)

The words of David are especially interesting here; they come from Psalm 69, where David pictures himself surrounded by enemies, with words that seem prophetic of the crucifixion of Jesus. And it is on these people—these people who have deliberately made themselves the enemy of God's representative, who have striven to end God's work and torment God's servant—it on those people that David pronounces this curse.

This goes back to what we said in a previous lesson, regarding the case of Pharaoh. The Bible says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart but also that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. One commentator used this analogy—if a man sticks his hand into a fire, he can honestly say: “I burned my hand”; “The fire burned my hand” and ultimately “God burned my hand.”

There are two things that are important to understand about this. First, this hardening or blindness comes in answer to man's own free will. There is a proverb that God helps those who help themselves; for our purposes here, we can say that God blinds those who blind themselves. The result of turning from light is to be in darkness. Bear in mind, this blindness is not irrevocable—Paul himself had once been one of those who had been blinded—but that does not change the general fact, which is that it is a dangerous thing to reject the truth, because then you have left is lies, and only the truth can set one free. 

The second thing to understand, the second fact that comes from these scriptures is the fact that this blindness—though it is the result of man's free choice—is not merely a passive and automatic result. It is a judicial act of God. It is a just punishment that those who misuse their opportunities should lose them—like taking away a man's driver's license because of his reckless driving. This takes us all the way back to chapter 1 of Romans, where Paul is describing the course of sin among the Gentiles. They refused to acknowledge God and therefore their heart was darkened and God gave them up to their own lusts.

This is a general truth. It is a general reality that a refusal to believe God's word leads to a blindness—and it may be that the greater amount of light refused, the greater darkness which results. If you wanted, you might be able to make some application here regarding the present state of culture in the Christianized western world. But for the purposes of Romans, we have to remember that Paul is speaking of the general state of the Jews in the first century. This group—the general Jewish population, excluding the elect—had rejected Christ and had rejected Christianity. Some within this number had actively helped to crucify Christ and some had actively helped to persecute Christianity. And so the general state of this group was blindness and hardness. They had rejected the truth and so were bound in lies. Paul asked earlier if God had forsaken his people and here were have the answer—God's people had forsaken Him.

There is a certain popular Country “Christmas” song in which the singer describes being deserted by her boyfriend. The chorus goes: “Last Christmas I gave you my heart/But you threw it away the very next day./This year to save me from tears/I'll give it someone special.” Well, on the first Christmas, God gave His heart to the Jewish people and they crucified it. So it would make sense if He decided to reject them and give His love to the Gentiles instead.

But that is exactly what didn't happen. “I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” (Romans 11:11) Just a few verses before this, Paul mentioned a stumblingblock; Christianity and the Jewish refusal to believe it had led to them stumbling. Like London Bridge, they were falling down, falling down, falling down. But you can trip and still regain your balance before you hit the ground. Falling bridges can be rebuilt if you have the right materials. 

So this was the case for the Jews. The mass of the Jewish people had rejected God. Once during the wilderness wandering, the Jews turned against God and God threatened to narrow his plan to Moses and his family and cast off the rest of the people. Here, God could have done the same thing; narrowing his plan to the elect and leaving behind the others. But Paul's answer to this is God forbid; certainly not; decidedly no; uh uh.

We return to what we said before. The Jewish people as a unit were chosen by God because of Abraham and God had a plan for them, but that did not mean that they could live any way they liked or that God would give them a free pass to be disobedient. They had turned against God and God had, in a judicial sentence, blinded them. But they were still beloved for the sake of the fathers and God still had made promises to them. God had not rejected the Jews even if they had rejected him.

But verse 11 introduces a second side to this whole equation: the Gentiles, basically, the rest of the world aside from the Jews. And among this group, as among the Jews, there were some who believed; there was an election by faith. And these two groups—the Jews and the Gentiles who had faith—compose the church. That is important to remember; it is "the church" singular. Even if there were individual churches scattered around the Mediterranean world—some of which were more predominately Jewish or Gentilish—they were all fragments of the single universal church of Christ in which there was neither Jew nor Greek nor bond nor free. Faith is the key here.

And like the Jews, there were many among the Gentiles who were not within the church and lived instead in disbelief. And therefore they were on the path to hardness, something Paul showed in Romans 1. However, the Gentile world had not had nearly as much light to reject and so they were not in the same position as the Jews. Most of the Gentiles had never even heard of Christ at this point. However, the rest of the Gentile world does not particularly concern Paul here, but only that part which believed the Gospel.

That brings us to the statement that Paul makes in verse 11: “through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles.” The word 'fall' here is different from the word Paul used earlier in the verse; it is usually translated 'trespass' but the literal idea behind the word is to fall or slip; Jamiesson-Faussit-Brown argues that here it should be translated: “misstep.” The Jews had made the wrong choice—rejecting God—but that choice was not the end of the Jews. They had stumbled and slipped but hadn't fallen so far that they could not be brought back. But the point I want to highlight is that through this transgression, this misstep, this wrong decision of the Jews, salvation had gone out to the Gentiles.

What does this mean? I do not believe that means God didn't care about saving the Gentiles and only did that as a backup plan when the Jews rejected Him; I do not believe that if the Jews had accepted the Gospel, God wouldn't have worried about doing anything for the Gentiles.

I think we will understand what Paul means if we look back at the history of the church. “Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 11:19-2)

Whatever might have happened if the Jews had accepted Christ, what actually happened was that the Jews reject Christ and persecuted the church so that many of the Christians were forced out of the Jewish-concentrated area of Israel into Gentile cities where they eventually ended up preaching to the Gentiles. We see this same pattern later in Acts. When Paul was ministering in Corinth, he began working with the Jews in the Jewish synagogue; but the bulk of his ministry was based in a private house —do you know why? Because of how the Jews responded to Paul's preaching: “And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.” (Acts 18:6) Over and over again, in one way or another, the Jewish opposition to the Gospel resulted in the Gospel being spread farther and farther among the Gentile world. What might have happened otherwise is anybody's guess—but what actually happened is that we have the shape of the Christian church today largely because of the rejection and opposition of the Jews.

Just as God used the disbelief of Pharaoh to lay the foundation for the Israelite nation, so God used the disbelief of the greater Jewish people to lay the foundation for the church—and specifically for the spread of the church among the Gentiles. 

God brought something good for the world out of the opposition of the Jews. All nations of the world were blessed through Abraham even while many of the sons of Abraham were busy cursing everyone. However, that is not the whole picture, because of what Paul says at the end of verse 11—God is using the spread of the gospel among the Gentiles for a purpose; "'to provoke [the Jews] to jealousy." Out of context, that sounds like a bad thing, since we usually use the word jealousy in a negative sense. Paul clarifies his thought in Romans 11:13-14. “For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.”

First, we should note that Paul is specifically speaking to the Gentiles—whether just in these verses or in the entire chapter. Even though the Roman church was probably a hybrid church with both Jews and Gentiles, here Paul is specifically speaking to the Gentiles within the church. And that seems a little odd for an entire section dedicated to God's working with the Jews—but as we will see in a few verses, the practical application of this whole doctrine regards the attitude of the Gentiles towards the Jews.

Paul, perhaps the most Jewish of all the apostles, had received the special mission of preaching to the Gentiles—this was something God had commissioned him, though it also coincided with the fact that the Jews usually tried to kill him every time he preached to them. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles—and so far from being ashamed of this, he was proud of it; he magnified his office.

But even though he had been sent to the Gentiles, this didn't mean he ceased to care about the Jews. This is something we've seen already in Romans. Paul obviously cared about his people—but here he makes the statement that even in his ministry to the Gentiles, one of his motives was his love for the Jews.

He said he hoped to provoke them to emulation. The word translated 'emulation' literally means 'to stimulate alongside.' It means something like this—suppose your coworker works a lot of overtime and is able to afford a really nice car; you also want a nicer car and so you decide to start working more overtime. You are stimulated to do something because of comparison to someone else. That is emulation—and you can obviously see why it is both a good and a bad thing. That kind of comparison and competition can lead to achievement but it can also lead to bitterness and strife.

The Jews persecuted the church often because they were bitter and jealous of the success of the church. But Paul's hope was that that very jealousy could also be used for good—that as the Jews saw the Gentiles finding peace and satisfaction through the Gospel that it would inspire them to embrace the gospel. And this goes back to a verse we read in a previous lesson—all the way back at Moses, God had prophesied that this would happen; that God would use the world outside of Israel to provoke them to jealousy.

Paul might have preached to the Gentiles, but Paul's concern was not solely for the Gentiles but also for the Jews. And Paul is addressing the Gentiles specifically because he wanted to make sure that they also had a concern for the Jews. Beginning at verse 16, Paul begins drawing a word picture of the relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles, using the image of an olive tree. And here he seems to be rebuking an attitude of some Gentile Christians—or at least warning them against a possible temptation.

“For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. 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. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.” (Romans 11:16-18)

Here Paul introduces the concept of grafting. Full disclosure: I am not a farmer and I know basically nothing about how to grow plants and certainly nothing about grafting. However, my understanding is that it basically works like this. You cut part of one plant and then fuse it into another plant; the plant that is grafted in will take nutrients from roots like a natural part of the plant while retaining its own character. There are accounts of farmers having an apple tree that will grow multiple variations of apples on a single tree because branches from different apple trees were all grafted onto a single trunk. 

And here Paul pictures Israel like an olive tree—the mass of unbelieving Jews had been cut off; pruned like the branches which produced no fruit. And the believing Gentiles—who once had been aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise—had brought near, grafted into God's people, joined with the elect from among the Jews to make one church.

These verses may recall to your mind the image of the vine and the branches from the gospel of John. But there Jesus Himself is the vine to which the branches attach. Here it seems to be Israel. What does it mean to say that we, as Gentile Christians, are grafted into Israel?

To understand that, we have to understand something about how Paul viewed the Christian faith. “And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” (Acts 13:32-33) “But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets.” (Acts 24:14) “And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews.” (Acts 26:6-7)

These different scriptures all point to one thing—that to Paul, there was not a sharp division between Christianity and Judaism. No matter how abrupt the change must have seemed to him at first, his statements all mean this: he did not leave or reject Judaism; rather Christianity was the completion or fulfillment of Judaism. Paradoxical as this may sound, it was the orthodox Jews who had broken with the Jewish religion.

Suppose a military leader began a revolutionary movement, gathering a group of soldiers to fight and overthrow the government. Once the revolution succeeded and the old government had been replaced, those soldiers who were truly loyal to the leader and to his cause would stop fighting and work to help support the new regime. Those soldiers who just went on fighting and causing trouble after the war had been won were clearly missing something.

Just so, the Christian Jews who were following the cause of the Messiah were the ones who had kept true to the faith; it was the rest of the Jews who were going on with Judaism and ignoring Christ who were missing something. Christianity was not an alternative to Judaism or a replacement for Judaism—rather Christianity was the fulfillment or consummation of Judaism.

And that is why Gentile Christians can be said to be grafted into Israel—even though Gentiles did not have to change their ethnicity or cultural identity; even though the Gentiles did not have to be circumcised or engage in the ritual machinery of Judaism—yet they were united to the core of the Jewish covenant, which was the promise of God to Abraham

And to us, this all may seem a little strange. It seems odd to connect our faith in God today with the faith of a wandering Shemite thousands of years ago. Nobody would say, for instance, that we are grafted into Pythagoras, just because we still use some of his mathematical formulas. 

But Paul makes it clear that there is some sense of solidarity among all of those who are saved by faith. Notice what he says in verse 16. He mentions the rite of firstfruits; under the Old Testament law, before any of the harvest could be eaten, part of it had to be offered to God, and only then could the rest be eaten. I'm not entirely sure of the reason behind this ritual, but I think the idea was that this offering was a recognition of the fact that the entire harvest truly belonged to God.

The first fruits were physically given to God and therefore the entire harvest was ritually clean and able to be used. Abraham and the other patriarchs lived a separate and even strange life because of their response to God's call. And therefore the Jewish nation as a whole is God's chosen people and belonged to him—even if many of the Jews cut themselves off from these benefits because of their unbelief—and therefore even Gentile Christians have some kind of solidarity or connection with Abraham and with the Jewish covenant.

But there is more to it than this. The connection of all Christians to Abraham is not merely founded on the Abrahamic covenant. As previously mentioned, the analogy Paul uses here is very similar to one used by Jesus in John 15, and in that place, it is Jesus Himself who is the vine or trunk and all Christians who are the branches. To be a Christian is to be 'in Christ'--to be connected in a vital union to Jesus as the source of our life. And Jesus, as a man, was a descendant of Abraham—not merely one son of Abraham, but the embodiment of the promises made to Abraham. The connection of the Christian to Abraham is not biological or symbolic, but a spiritual connection through Christ.

God's choice of Abraham (and Abraham's faith in God's promises) are the root of the tree.  And from this initial choice, we have the entire fabric of Judaism growing out; the law, the prophets, the priests, the kings—all grow out of this initial promise to Abraham; like a vast tree growing up from the roots. And all of this exists for one reason; the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of God’s plan to save mankind. Jesus--and all He did to provide atonement--are the consummation of that trunk. The gospel was always at the heart of Judaism and all God’s spokesmen from Abraham to Malachi had been preaching it, even if they hadn’t understood it. And so, those Jews—those who Paul calls the Elect or the Remnant—who believed in Christ and accepted salvation by faith through him were the true Jews, the true inheritors of the covenant of Abraham, like branches coming off of this central trunk, sharing in the lifeblood of the tree. The rest of the Jews—those who would not believe the gospel and instead try to find salvation through their own good works—had been cast off, like branches pruned from a tree and thrown away.  They could not share in the life of the tree, because that life is founded on faith. And like a branch that is cut off from a tree begins to whither and dry up, so because of their unbelief, these Jews were being hardened or blinded. But those among the Gentiles who had faith were allowed to share in the life of the tree, like branches from another tree that had been grafted in. While the Gentiles did not become Jewish, they did share in the life of that central trunk that runs from Abraham to Christ. The promises and covenants which were given to one specific people group can now be claimed by one with faith. The book which was the special property of a single nation can now be read and believed and followed in every place on earth.

Speaking of God's work with the Jewish nation, this is what Paul says in Romans 11:29: “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” The word translated 'repentance' here literally means 'to be sorry afterward'. The idea may almost be: God doesn't feel any regret about everything He did for the Jews. Even though so many of the Jews had turned against God and God's work, God wasn't sorry for choosing them in the first place. And God wasn't going to change His mind regarding them or take back His promises. Now, God's purpose and plan for the Jews was very different from what most of the Jews expected or wanted and so, to them, it seemed as if He were going off script—but God's original plan never changed.

God never simply cancels out what He does. God has no undo button. From our perspective, God's plan is something far more vast and complex than it seemed to Abraham. We see more and understand more than Abraham (assumably) did. In one sense, we could say that Abraham has served his purpose. But God did not simply push Abraham aside and move on.

And what we have to remember is this—Abraham was a favored man, but Abraham was not the captain of his own destiny. Abraham was not the one in control of God's plan. The children of Abraham living in the first century were not the ones in control of God's plan. The Gentiles living in the first century were not the ones in control of God's plan. We are not in control of God's plan. God is the one who made this plan and God is the one who continues to control it.

We see this in Romans 11:19-22: “Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.  Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”

So, we have this picture of a tree. Abraham and God's covenant with him are the root and the Jewish people are the branches. God chose Abraham and made everlasting promises to him. But that didn't mean that the Jews were saved automatically. Many of the Jews were lost and blinded because they did not have faith—like branches cut off of a tree and cast aside. And the Gentiles, who had no connection to Abraham, were allowed to share in the blessings which originated in the Abraham covenant, solely because they had faith—they were grafted into this tree, sharing in the sap and nutrients of the roots though still retaining their own native character. 

Behind all this is the fact we mentioned earlier—that God is no respecter of persons. God chose the Jews but that didn't mean that God would simply ignore their shortcomings. As we've seen over and over again, faith is the key. So many of the Jews were lost, not because they were Jews, but because they lacked faith. So many of the Gentiles were saved because they had faith.

But why did so many of the Jews fail to believe in Jesus? Obviously, there may be many answers to that; many individual answers that we obviously can't know. But I can't help but think one major problem was complacency. From reading both the Old and New Testaments, it seems that too many of the Jews had the idea that because they were the Jews, because God had chosen them, then they could get away with anything. They didn't think they were in any danger simply because they were descendants of Abraham—and therefore they would not believe in the call of God asking for repentance and faith.

And that brings us to the practical application of the passage. In the verses we just read, Paul is reminding his Gentile readers that they are also in danger of complacency and self-righteousness—of looking down on the unbelieving Jews just as the Jews for generations had looked down on the Gentiles. Even though the gospel had made great strides among the Gentiles; even though a large percentage of the Christian church was composed of Gentiles; even though God was choosing to use the Gentiles for His plan—that didn't mean they had any sort of special privilege or pass from God, any more than the Jews had had. They stood by faith and if they turned to unbelief, they would be lost just like the Jews.

And if this was a danger for the Gentiles in the first century, it is even more so a danger for us today. For the last two thousand years, it has been the Gentiles—and mostly the Gentiles of western Europe and America—who have been the head and the backbone of the Christian church. But we have no more special claim on God than the Jews; if anything, less. Merely having a certain cultural heritage does not make you right with God now any more than it did in the days of Paul. Once again, we come back to the key fact of Romans—the just must live by faith. And those, who like Abraham, are justified by faith have no room to boast, either before God or other men.

Notice verse 22—we have a tension here we have seen before in Romans. We have the goodness and severity of God, the mercy and the judgment, the love and the wrath both of which are revealed from heaven towards man. Man blinds himself to his own sin, but God does not turn a blind eye towards sin, no matter who it is among. God punished the sins of the Jews and He would punish the sins of the Gentiles. The implication here is that if even the individual believing Jews and Gentiles turned away from the faith and went into sin, they would also be judged. But, alongside that, while God will judge sin, God also desires mercy and forgiveness. Back in Romans 9, when we were talking about God's election, God's plan, we saw that the background of God's choice was a desire for mercy and we see that again here.

Up to this point, we have emphasized the fact that God judged the unbelieving Jews for their unbelief. But that is only half of the picture of what Paul has to say regarding the Jews. This is how Paul finishes up his picture of the tree and the branches. “And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?” (Romans 11:23-24)

The Gentiles were grafted into the tree of Israel—allowed to share in the promises God gave to Abraham. And if God could do that, of course, God would be able to restore the Jews who had been cut off by their unbelief. God's people had cast Him off, but He was still waiting for them, willing to receive them back if they would only have faith.

Because, once again, faith is the key here. The Jews had the more obvious claim in God's promise; the Gentiles had far less. But neither could stand without faith—and both could stand if they had faith. Therefore, neither could look down on or despise the other, because they had the same claim on God and it was the only claim they could have—the claim of faith.

Already, this picture was being realized. Paul himself an example of one of the unbelieving Jews who was now a believer; one of those had once been cast off and yet now was grafted in again. And from the days of Paul until today, this picture has been repeated—there have been Jews throughout the last two thousand years who have come to recognize Jesus as their Messiah and have trusted in Him for salvation. Assumably, this process will continue until the end of all things. But Paul seems to have believed in something more than this.

And here we come to the most difficult verses of this passage. “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” (Romans 11:25-27)

The big idea we can take from this is that God has a plan—the blindness of the Jews, the spreading of the gospel to the Gentiles, and whatever else unfolds in the future—this is all part of God's plan. I don't think that means that God wanted the Jews to disbelieve the gospel. As we talked about in a previous lesson, the Bible makes it clear that God desires to save everyone. We've seen that already in this passage. God didn't will the disbelief of the Jews any more than He willed the disbelief of Pharaoh. But God is using the disbelief of the Jews to accomplish His purposes just as He used the disbelief of Pharaoh. God is using the unbelief and subsequent blindness of Israel to spread the gospel to the Gentiles. But God has a plan for the Jews that goes beyond that.

Paul makes this statement: “All Israel shall be saved.” There are various ways to interpret this, but after studying the entire passage, I think what Paul is saying is that someday there is going to be a great revival among the Jews; there is going to be a time when the Jews as a nation receive their Messiah; not necessarily that every individual Jew at any given time will be a Christian, but that it will be the general character of the people. This was probably a prophetic revelation that God gave to Paul, though there is certainly material from the Old Testament that also points to this.

God had promised to bring salvation to the Jews. The Jews were wrong to assume that this meant God wouldn't also bring salvation to the Gentiles. But God had always had a plan for the Jews and that hadn't changed.

So we have this statement that Israel would be saved; verse 25 implies the blindness which was currently the character of much of Israel would be lifted. And how does salvation come? Faith. And what caused this blindness? Unbelief. Therefore, what Paul is saying is not that the Jews didn't need faith—simply that someday they would have faith. 

God desired to save the Jews and when the right time came, when they were willing to accept His offer in faith, they would be saved.

Paul seems to be speaking of personal salvation. But there are also verses in the Old Testament that seem to picture a national restoration of Israel commingled with a spiritual revival; so it could be that when we read of the future revival among the Jews it will also involve some important changes for Israel as a nation. The fact that Israel, after almost two millennia of absence, has once again become a nation is seen by some as a portent of this coming revival.

Whatever exactly the fulfillment of this prophecy looks like, it is clear that God still has some kind of plan for the Jews. But that doesn't mean that God will someday withdraw his favor from the Gentiles to give it back to the Jews. Both now and in whatever odd future may await, the Jews and Gentiles alike will find salvation through faith. But Paul makes a couple statements that imply that when the Jews are restored to God as a people that will result in some kind of glory for the rest of the world. “Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?” (Romans 11:12) “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” (Romans 11:15)

When it comes to predicting what the fulfillment of these verses is, your guess is as good as mine. But the bottom line I want to emphasize is that God has a plan, a plan which encompasses both the Jews and the Gentiles, and through all the tangled working from Abraham to today, God has been working in order to fulfill that plan. And whatever the future holds, we can be certain that God will still be working to fulfill His plan. Somebody, speaking of God's judgment, said: “the mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceeding small.” In other words, God's judgment is certain and terrible even if it seems to take a very long time to come. And I think that is often just as true of God's mercy—that it seems to take a very long time, but it is certain and it is glorious.

Because mercy, in the end, is the main point of this passage. Romans 11:30-32 summarize Paul's argument. “For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” We come back to the verse which I used to begin this study. All mankind was shut up in the prison of unbelief and God's plan was to show mercy to all. The Gentiles were once far from God and now—with the unbelief and rejection of the Jews as a catalyst—they had found mercy. The Jews were now far from God but some of them—and someday many of them—were finding mercy with the salvation of the Gentiles as the catalyst.

In Romans 9-11 we see, as through the slats in a wall, the workings of some great machine, the machine of God's plan, God's election. It is impossible for us to make out each individual cog in the machine as they whir silently into place. But we do know that the machine is working and we know for what purpose it works—and that purpose, ultimately, is mercy and salvation.