Romans 11

D. God’s Promises Will Be Fulfilled, 11:1–36

Paul has made it clear that God is working out a great purpose and insisted on divine predestination and election; the will of God is done. He has also insisted that human responsibility is real and important, and he has made it plain that this must be borne in mind when considering the fact that Israel has not entered the blessing as Gentile believers have. What then does it matter to belong to the chosen people? At first sight it may seem that it does not very much, for Gentiles may be saved as well as Jews. But it is far from Paul’s thought that being a Jew matters little. He goes on to show that, while in the providence of God Israel’s sin and unbelief have been used to open up the way for the Gentiles, now the conversion of Gentiles will lead to the conversion of the Jews. The Jews still have a place in God’s plan. Even the hardness of the Jews furthered that plan, but hardness is not God’s last word for his chosen people. Paul looks forward to that great day when “all Israel will be saved” (v. 26).¹

1. The Remnant of Israel, 11:1–10

¹I ask then, Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. ²God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: ³“Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”^a? ⁴And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”^b ⁵So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.^c

⁷What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, ⁸as it is written:

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,

eyes so that they could not see

and ears so that they could not hear,

to this very day.”^d

⁹And David says:

“May their table become a snare and a trap,

a stumbling block and a retribution for them.

¹⁰May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see,

and their backs be bent forever.”^e

1. Then² carries on the argument, but there is uncertainty about the connection. Some think that Paul is looking back to the reprobation of the Jews in chapter 9 (Shedd), others that it follows on 9:6 (CGT), still others that it follows on 10:14–21 (Barrett) or on 10:21 (Hendriksen). Probably Paul is not attaching it closely to any particular point in his argument, but what he is about to say is the consequence of what he has already said. In the light of his argument he asks, Did God reject his people?³ a suggestion that he immediately repudiates with the vigorous By no means!⁴ The suggestion is unthinkable. To some it may seem the logical result of what Paul has been saying, but to the apostle it is an utter impossibility. God is thoroughly reliable, and it is impossible to think of him first choosing and then rejecting a people.

Paul goes on to say that he himself is an Israelite, the precise point of which has been understood in various ways. Luther suggested that Paul had opposed God with all his might so that if anyone would be cast off it would be he; his existence as a Christian shows that God had not rejected his people. Others think that the fact that Paul is both a Jew and a Christian proves that Christian Jews may exist (he did not teach his own rejection!). Or he may mean that since he is an Israelite he finds the suggestion just as blasphemous as other Jews did. Or that he, a Jew, is God’s apostle to the Gentiles and thus through him Israel’s missionary vocation is on the way to fulfilment. None of these is impossible, and Paul may not be intending to exclude any of them.

He underlines his Jewishness with three statements: he is an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin (cf. Phil. 3:5). The Jews venerated Abraham as the great forbear of their race; Paul will have this in mind, but also the fact that the patriarch had special significance for him as the great exemplar of faith. Benjamin was the only son of Jacob born in the land of Israel. It was the tribe in whose territory was the holy city Jerusalem; it was the one tribe that remained faithful to Judah. And it may not be out of mind that the first king of Israel came from this tribe and that his name was that of the apostle (Michel stresses the importance of the connection with Benjamin).⁵

2. Again a quotation from Scripture (1 Sam. 12:22; Ps. 94:14; cf. Judg. 6:13), and one that uses the exact words of Paul’s question with the addition of whom he foreknew. This puts further emphasis on the impossibility of God’s rejection of his people. The precise meaning of people and foreknew has caused discussion. One view is that foreknowledge means something like predestination and that this applies to the remnant rather than to the nation as a whole (cf. Hodge). But Paul is referring to “the people he foreknew”, not “those of his people whom he foreknew”, and to most the use of his people, the same expression as in verse 1 (where it is plainly the nation), is significant. It is the nation that is being discussed.

But did God foreordain the whole nation to be saved? That is not implied. Paul appears to have in mind that God chose Israel to be his people, the people in whom his purpose would be worked out in a special way. They would be the recipients of the revelation and of many blessings (cf. 9:4–5). God would never go back on that. But none of this has ever meant that the entire nation would be saved. We see something of the way Paul’s mind is working in that he immediately goes on to refer to the believing remnant in the time of Elijah; it is clearly this that he has in mind when he speaks of the people as foreknown. Godet speaks of “the indestructible existence of a believing remnant at all periods of their history” (on. v. 5), and this fits Paul’s argument.⁶

“Or” (which NIV omits) introduces the alternative if what he has been saying is not accepted. In that case his readers must be ignorant of what happened in the case of Elijah. Again Paul appeals to the Scripture,⁷ this time referring to a trying experience that befell Elijah. In his loneliness and isolation that prophet on one occasion prayed “against” Israel.⁸

3. Paul quotes Elijah’s prayer (1 Kings 19:10, 14) in words differing a little from LXX. Prophets and altars come first in their respective clauses for emphasis. It was holy people and holy objects that the Israelites abused. The aorist tenses point to decisive action and the verbs show that strong action was taken. They killed the prophets and destroyed⁹ the altars. There was, of course, to be only one altar in Israel (Deut. 12:13–14), but it seems that from time to time other altars were regarded as acceptable (Exod. 20:24; Judg. 6:24–26), and particularly would this be the case in the northern kingdom when it would often be difficult for people to go to Jerusalem to worship (cf. 1 Kings 18:30). Elijah is speaking about people who have rejected wholeheartedly the worship of the God of Israel and whose actions leave no doubt about their repudiation of all that was connected with that God.

I am the only one left does not mean “I am the only prophet left”, for the 7,000 were not 7,000 prophets but 7,000 people who honored God. But Elijah had found himself so isolated that he thought there was no other worshipper of Yahweh left in the kingdom (did Paul feel some kinship with Elijah in the way his nation declined to walk in God’s way and thus left him isolated?), and the final desolation is brought out with they are trying to kill me. “It is the classic example of the folly of a pessimism which rests on judgments based upon appearances” (Cragg).

4. But Elijah’s estimate of the situation was not the final one.¹⁰ Paul asks, what was God’s answer to him? Lagrange points out that the answer is to an implied petition, something in the depths of the prophet’s soul, rather than to any express request. This use of answer for a divine response is unusual,¹¹ but it does make clear that what follows is a word of God, not the best human thought on the matter. Paul proceeds to quote 1 Kings 19:18 in a form agreeing exactly with neither the Hebrew nor LXX. God says, I have reserved¹² for myself seven thousand. Paul seems to have inserted for myself, for the expression is in neither the Hebrew nor the Greek. It serves to emphasize the divine action; it was God and no one else who saw to it that the 7,000 remained. Luther remarks, “He does not say: When they were all cast away, seven thousand men were left over, or: When Nebuchadnezzar or the devil took them away, he left me seven thousand men, but: I myself kept them back, I who took them, i.e., the others, away.” Paul is making it plain that it was God’s action that made the 7,000 stand out. They were in a special relationship to him; they were his people. The number may be symbolical, as often in the Bible with seven and the multiples of seven.¹³ In that case it indicates the completeness, the perfect number of those God chose to be his own.¹⁴ Even in a time of national declension God had chosen out his remnant, which showed among other things that he had not cast off the whole people.

The 7,000 are characterized as people who¹⁵ have not bowed the knee to Baal. Bowing the knee is, of course, a symbol of submission, a recognition of a spiritual lord. Baal is used here only in the New Testament, but it is frequent in the Old Testament for the Canaanite deities whose worship was such a temptation for the Israelites. The noun is masculine, but here Paul has a feminine article. When Scripture containing this word was read, apparently the reader substituted the noun for “shame”, “shameful thing”, and this is feminine. It indicates contempt for this deity.¹⁶ That the 7,000 had given no allegiance to shameful heathen deities was an indication of their commitment to the true God.

5. So too is reinforced by at the present time:¹⁷ as in the days of Elijah, so now. At both times the nation as a whole was not obedient to God, but in both also a minority did obey. And in both the minority was a standing witness to the truth that God has not cast away his people. Paul goes on to speak of a remnant,¹⁸ which in this context is a symbol of hope.¹⁹ It is not simply an assorted group of individuals who happen not to have been caught up in apostasy; it is a group chosen by God in which Paul finds assurance of God’s continuing mercies which will in due course lead to the salvation of “all Israel” (cf. Nygren, the remnant “is Israel in nuce”).

Paul proceeds to bring out an important feature of the remnant; it is chosen by grace.²⁰ Both chosen and grace speak of the priority of the divine and of the love of God which is exercised in both. God’s loving purposes are not defeated by people’s hard hearts.²¹ Lagrange points out that it was not the number so much as the permanence of God’s plan for Israel that mattered in the time of Elijah, and it is this that mattered for Paul too. He put his trust in God’s grace, not in numbers. The final word in the Greek text is that translated is,²² with its suggestion of continuity. The election of which Paul speaks will not speedily fade away. It is permanent.²³

6. The apostle proceeds to an antithesis between grace and works. The Greek construction he uses implies the meaning “If it is by grace (as is the case)….”²⁴ The construction is elliptical, and Paul does not say what is by grace. It will be something like membership in the people of God, which is conferred by God in his grace, not merited by good works of any kind. No longer by works does not mean that it was once by works but it has ceased to have that character. Rather, Paul is saying that once we have come to see that salvation is by grace there is no longer any place for works. If it were is better “for otherwise” (BDF 456[31]); Paul is introducing something completely different. If works have any place at all, he is saying, then there is no point in speaking about grace. If we do so speak we have changed the meaning of “grace”: grace would no longer be grace (JB, “grace would not be grace at all”). If works come into salvation at all, and the end result is called grace, then Paul has misunderstood what grace is; the meaning of the term would have been drastically altered. Barrett points out that God’s choices are eternal “and the election is therefore antecedent to all works. That is why it is by grace.” This rules out the idea that God foreknows what people will do and chooses the elect on the basis of this foreknowledge of their works. If works of any kind, retrospective or prospective, come into it, then we no longer have grace.²⁵ It is important to take grace seriously and not to let works creep in by some back door.²⁶

7. In his insistence on God’s grace Paul does not forget the reality of widespread unbelief among the Jews. He proceeds to bring out some of its consequences. What then? looks for the result of what he has been saying. With the word what we have an indefinite construction rather like that in the previous verse, for Paul does not explain to what it refers. We should understand something like “righteousness”. Israel kept looking for it without obtaining it. NIV’s sought so earnestly renders a strengthened form of the verb sought;²⁷ the search was no perfunctory effort, but serious and sustained. But for all that Israel did not obtain²⁸ what it sought. By contrast, the elect did.²⁹ The others³⁰ evidently means all the nonelect, and this includes Israelites as well as Gentiles (indeed, Dodd takes it to mean the others “of Israel” only; he specifically rejects the view that it means “the rest of men”). These nonelect people, Paul says, were hardened.³¹ The passive may well ascribe the hardening to God (the passive was often used as a reverent way of avoiding the name of God). But, while it is certainly true that God did the hardening in verse 8, it is the people who do the stumbling in verse 11 and it is possible that the passive here is a neutral expression which may be taken either way. In either case we must remember that those who failed God did not do so because they had been hardened, but they were hardened because they had failed him (so SH).³²

8. Paul supports his contention with an appeal to Scripture (he combines words from Deut. 29:4 and Isa. 29:10). God gave to certain people a spirit of stupor,³³ an attitude of deadness towards spiritual things. They make no response to the things of God (any more than a stupefied body does to physical stimuli). This is not seen as an excuse; as Earle points out, “A drunkard may claim that he is not responsible for what he does. But he is accountable for getting into that state. So with those whose hearts are dulled by disobedience.” Paul is not making excuses for those who reject God; he is bringing out the seriousness of their plight and the fact that God is at work in their punishment. He spells this out with references to eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear.³⁴ That part of them that ought to be most sensitive to the divine leading is not operative, not functioning as it was intended to function. To this very day³⁵ points to a continuing attitude. Paul is not talking about ancient history, but about an attitude, known in the past indeed, but persisting right up to the time of writing.

9–10. A further quotation backs up what Paul has been saying (Ps. 69:22–23, but with words from Ps. 35:8; 38:4). Psalm 69 is cited a number of times in the New Testament, mostly in prophecies of Christ’s passion. Initially the reference was to the troubles that the Psalmist was having when persecuted by his own people,³⁶ which makes it relevant to the situation of the apostle confronted with a similar situation. The table is the place of food, of sustenance, and it is most unexpected when this source of nourishment becomes a source of trouble.³⁷ Or the thought may be that of a person sitting at a low table on which are decorative cloths in which he gets entangled when he springs up suddenly in response to some emergency. Perhaps Paul is thinking that the Scriptures, which should have been a source of spiritual nourishment to the Jews, are in fact the very thing that brings about their downfall, for they use them wrongly. He speaks of a snare³⁸ and a trap.³⁹ NIV’s a stumbling block is a usual translation for the Greek word Paul uses,⁴⁰ but it properly means the bait stick of a trap, the stick which triggers off the trapping mechanism when a bird or animal makes contact. Obviously it means trouble, though not necessarily in the way of stumbling. To this is added a retribution,⁴¹ where the thought is that those who have sinned should receive a suitable recompense for the wrong they have done. The piling up of expressions indicates an intensity of desire that the Psalmist’s enemies should not go scatheless. And it shows Paul’s deep conviction that unbelieving Jews will not escape.

The Psalmist’s petition continues with May their eyes be darkened.⁴² In the final petition the Psalmist changes from the third person (“May…”) to the second person as he makes a direct address to God (NEB, “Bow down their backs…”; NIV does not follow the Greek construction at this point). The petition has reference to the backs⁴³ of his enemies, but it is not quite certain what the force of it is. It may be a request that “their backs bend forever under their burden!” (Goodspeed; so Wilckens), or that they be bent under a burden of grief and terror. Denney thinks it means “keep them continually in spiritual bondage, stooping under a load too heavy to be borne.” Whatever the precise significance, it is clear that Paul sees catastrophe as inevitable for unbelieving Jews as they continue to reject the gospel.⁴⁴

2. The Restoration of Israel, 11:11–24

¹¹Again I ask, Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. ¹²But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!

¹³I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry ¹⁴in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. ¹⁵For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? ¹⁶If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

¹⁷If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, ¹⁸do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. ¹⁹You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” ²⁰Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. ²¹For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

²²Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. ²³And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. ²⁴After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

Paul has been arguing that a remnant of Israel will be saved, but only a remnant. What about the sinning majority? Are they lost forever? That is not what Paul is saying. He proceeds now to make three points: (1) Israel has indeed “stumbled” but their stumble is not final, (2) God uses this “stumble” to bring salvation to the Gentiles, and (3) in the end the Jews will be brought in. He sees the purpose of God as worked out through what has happened to the Jews, and precisely because it is the purpose of God that is worked out he is fundamentally optimistic. The God who has done so much for his people will see them through to the end.

11. Paul carries his argument a stage further with a question. NIV has Again I ask, but this is not quite what Paul is saying. His word is “Therefore”.⁴⁵ He has just been quoting Scripture to show the horrible fate of the mass of the Israelites. Since they have “a spirit of stupor” and other unpleasant characteristics (vv. 8–10), it seems that they face a very grim prospect. Therefore Paul asks his question: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? That they stumbled is clear, and Paul has already said that they did (9:32–33; his verb is different, but the meaning is essentially the same).⁴⁶ This is a surprisingly mild way of expressing what has happened to Israel in view of what Paul has said in the immediately preceding verses. But he is doubtless using it to bring out his point that there was nothing final in what had happened to Israel thus far. The result of it all was the salvation of the Gentiles, not the loss of the Jews. There is a contrast between stumbling and falling. “One may recover from a stumble” (Black); the man who stumbles may regain his feet. K. L. Schmidt sees perhaps “a certain crescendo from stumbling to falling, for the one who stumbles may get up again, pull himself together and stand on his feet, or he may fall and lie on the ground. Falling as a possible result of stumbling is perhaps a figure for the eternal ruin which threatens to overtake the Jews through their stumbling.”⁴⁷ There is a question about whether we should take the fall here as the purpose or the result of the stumble.⁴⁸ Certainly the divine purpose was worked out in what Israel did, and that divine purpose was the salvation of the Gentiles, not the “complete downfall” (NEB) of the Jews. But the grammatical construction does not favor the view that that is what Paul is saying here. It is true, and he says it elsewhere, but here it seems that result is what he has in mind. The apostle repudiates the idea of Israel’s being lost permanently in two ways. He frames his question in such a way that it looks for the answer “No”,⁴⁹ and he follows it with the emphatic Not at all! For Paul the idea is preposterous.

The strong adversative⁵⁰ introduces the contrary and true idea. It was not Israel’s downfall but the salvation of the Gentiles that their transgression⁵¹ brought about. The construction is elliptical, but NIV seems correct in supplying the verb has come. The alternative is to see the meaning as “but in order that by their transgression salvation might come to the Gentiles”, but we have already seen that purpose is not the probable meaning here. The idea of purpose comes in at the end of the verse with to make Israel jealous.⁵² This verb is a strong one (cf. Deut. 32:21). Paul is saying that the salvation of the Gentiles was intended in the divine providence to arouse in Israel a passionate desire for the same good gift. When they saw the wonder of the messianic salvation, the Jews would want it for themselves. It is a matter for profound regret that just as Israel refused to accept this salvation when it was offered to them, so the Gentiles have all too often refused to make Israel envious. Instead of showing to God’s ancient people the attractiveness of the Christian way Christians have characteristically treated the Jews with hatred, prejudice, persecution, malice, and all uncharitableness. Christians should not take this passage calmly.⁵³

12. Paul gives the argument another twist, or rather drops it for the time (he takes it up again in v. 14) and substitutes another. He begins with But if, and his elliptical construction signifies “if, as is the case….”⁵⁴ He speaks of their transgression again (the same word as in v. 11), and says it means riches for the world. Parallel to this is the statement that their loss⁵⁵ means riches for the Gentiles. Their rejection of the Messiah is both a sin and a defeat for them. But it results in riches for others. The word riches is repeated, the first time being linked with the world and the second time with the Gentiles. There is probably no great difference between these two; the first use regards the recipients comprehensively as the world’s population, while the second characterizes them religiously, as Gentiles. Riches is used in an unusual way here. Normally the word denotes a wealth of possessions, which may be physical or metaphorical, and which are the property of him to whom they belong. But here the meaning is rather an abundance of blessings available for other people.⁵⁶ Israel’s loss was the Gentiles’ gain. Paul now suggests that if instead of a defeat Israel had a victory, if instead of a loss a gain, then that would mean much more. The meaning of fullness is not clear.⁵⁷ Either the fulfilling of God’s will or the bringing in of the full number of the Jews gives good sense and marks a contrast with the situation in which Paul found himself. The salvation will mean no diminution of the blessing that had come to the Gentiles, but rather an enrichment. “To Paul it would be paradise if the Jews could come in” (Barclay).⁵⁸

13. There is a diversity of opinion on the connection of this verse with the preceding. Some consider verses 13–14 “somewhat parenthetical” (Knox, SH; cf. Denney) while others see a close connection with verse 12 (Leenhardt; no new paragraph, Lenski). The connection is probably more important than the break; Paul is still speaking about making Israel jealous (vv. 11, 14), and it is just the way he is tackling it that is different. He addresses his readers as Gentiles, which to most seems to indicate that the majority of the Roman church was Gentile. Others take this in the sense “those of you who are Gentiles” (though if that was what he meant there seems no reason why he should not have said it). To you comes first with emphasis. It is important that Paul address the Gentile section of the church. They may well have been reasoning that all this about the Jews had little to do with them. They may have wondered why the apostle to the Gentiles should be spending so much time worrying about the Jews. Lagrange thinks that the Gentile majority at Rome may well have been surprised that Paul should attach such importance to the conversion of the Jews. Whichever be the rights of it, Paul now gives attention to the question of why he should be so concerned about the Jews. Basically he says that this is the case because he wants to see them provoked into following the example of the Gentiles. This would mean blessing for them and blessing, too, for the Gentiles.

Inasmuch as⁵⁹ I am the apostle to the Gentiles⁶⁰ expresses Paul’s deep conviction that God had given him a special responsibility to bring the gospel to Gentile people. It has a full meaning here. It is Paul and no other (his I is emphatic) who has this special task, and his readers should be in no doubt but that he is deeply concerned for the Gentiles. The word Gentiles is given some prominence and stands in immediate juxtaposition to I. Paul’s particular calling in life was to bring the gospel to Gentiles rather than Jews (cf. Acts 22:21; Gal. 1:16; 2:7, 9; 1 Tim. 2:7). This he saw not as an arduous and repellent task which he must bring himself to face as well as possible. It was something he gloried in.

I make much of my ministry is more exactly “I glorify my ministry”. This has been understood in any one of several ways. It may mean “I will take pride in my work” (GNB) or “I endeavour to render my office glorious by bringing as many Gentiles as possible into the Redeemer’s kingdom” (Hodge). Or it may mean that to provoke the Jews to envy by the conversion of the Gentiles and thus to bring them in, too, is a bigger work than simply the conversion of the Gentiles. Paul speaks of his ministry,⁶¹ his service of others. He could insist on the dignity of his office, but he saw it also as lowly service.

14. In the hope that is a somewhat free translation of an expression that does not occur very often.⁶² NASB has “if somehow”, which is a little closer to the Greek. NIV brings out the fact that the words are an expression of Paul’s hope that his activities among the Gentiles will in the end stir⁶³ the Israelites into following the example of the Gentile believers in accepting the gospel.

My own people is more literally “my own flesh”, a very unusual way of referring to Israel (though cf. 1 Cor. 10:18) but one that brings out Paul’s sense of identification with his own nation. With all his deep conviction that the Jews of his day had for the most part gone hopelessly astray, Paul never forgets that he, too, is an Israelite.

His deep longing is that he might save some of them. Save is the general term for the deliverance Christ brings (where forgiveness, redemption, and the like draw attention to specific aspects). It is generally used in the passive (this is the only use of the active in eight occurrences of the verb in Romans). When it occurs in the active God is usually the subject (e.g., 1 Cor. 1:21; 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 3:5), and, of course, this is implied when the passive is used.⁶⁴ Paul makes no exaggerated claims for himself. His aim is to save some of them. He looks for “all Israel” to be saved ultimately (v. 26), but he is not claiming, as some exegetes have suggested, that he will initiate the process that brings about the End. Some take it as axiomatic that Paul expected the End during his own lifetime and that his own labors would usher in the last happenings. But there is evidence that Paul expected that he would die in due course (1 Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:14), and the present passage shows that he thought of his own work as making no more than a modest contribution. As Harrison puts it, “The word ‘some’ is important. It is a clear indication that he does not expect his efforts to bring about the eschatological turning of the nation to the crucified, risen Son of God, when ‘all Israel will be saved’ (cf. v. 26). This belongs to the indefinite future.”⁶⁵

15. For links the argument to the preceding, but it is not clear just how. Some see a close connection with the immediately preceding, others think it links up with the end of verse 12. Paul is simply moving forward logically but without tying this next point closely to the preceding. His if means “if, as is the case” (see the note on v. 12). He speaks of Israel’s rejection⁶⁶ as the reconciliation of the world,⁶⁷ another thoroughgoing statement. The general thrust of this is clear enough, though there are problems in detail. Reconciliation is one of the striking expressions Paul uses to interpret Christ’s saving work (5:10–11; 2 Cor. 5:18–20; Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:20–22); indeed, he can speak of his whole ministry as one of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18–19). But it is not clear whether he means here the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in one people of God (as in Eph. 2:11–18) or the reconciliation of the Gentiles to God through the fall of the Jews or the reconciliation of the whole world through Christ’s atoning work (in which case rejection will refer to the cross). All are possible, and perhaps the most general expression does not rule out any of them. Since there is no verb in either clause of this sentence, Paul leaves us to work out whether we should supply “is” (NIV) or “has meant” (NEB) or something else.

Whatever we decide on in the first clause should probably be taken over to the second. There Paul refers to their acceptance,⁶⁸ which clearly means acceptance by God. This he sees as life from the dead. As things stood, Israel was dead spiritually. Paul’s eager compassion looks for a giving of life. There are two ways of understanding this expression, depending on whether one takes it literally or figuratively. If it is understood literally, then it will be the resurrection of the dead, the general resurrection that ushers in the messianic age (so SH and others). This would give a good sense, but the words Paul uses here are not used elsewhere for the general resurrection.⁶⁹ It seems much more likely that he has in mind the powerful spiritual impetus that will be given by a change in Israel; this will be “the greatest blessing imaginable” (TH). This may, of course, take place at the end time, but the point is that Paul does not say so and he does not use words that commonly point to the end time. It is much more likely that he is referring to a great spiritual movement without locating it specifically in time.⁷⁰

16. Paul proceeds to brings out the certainty that Israel will in due course enter salvation by using a couple of illustrations from the Old Testament. NIV is a trifle more definite than the apostle with its rendering If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits, for Paul says no more than “And if the firstfruits (are) holy”; NIV has reasoned from the “lump” (whole batch) at the end of the clause that Paul must be referring to dough, and this may well be right. There are several references to firstfruits in the Old Testament (as Exod. 23:19; 34:22; Lev. 2:12, 14; 23:10, 17, 20; Num. 15:20–21; 18:12; 28:26; Deut. 26:2, 10). Most commentators agree that Paul’s reference is to the firstfruits in Numbers 15, for this passage refers to “the first of your ground meal” from which a cake is to be presented as an offering to the Lord.⁷¹ The firstfruits are holy and so, reasons Paul, is the cake made from the firstfruits.

He goes on to the similar thought that if the root is holy, so are the branches. Ancient religions had the concept of a holy tree. The tree might put forth new branches, but these too were holy; they came from the same root. There is little doubt that Paul is here appealing to the fact that the patriarchs (perhaps he means only Abraham) were holy people and this has consequences for their descendants. It means that God will not discard them wholly, and thus in due course the fact that the root of Israel is holy will have its effect in the latest branches. Is he teaching the same thing with his reference to the firstfruits and the lump? Some think not, and they see the firstfruits as Jewish Christians who sanctify the nation so that from it there will come more believers (see Harrisville). This must remain as a possible understanding of the text, but it seems more likely that Paul is making parallel statements. In both he is viewing the patriarchs as “holy” and is considering the effect of this on their descendants.

17. Paul proceeds to a warning to Gentile Christians not to presume on their position. He plunges into an illustration from processes of grafting which seems rather improbable horticulturally. The normal process was to take a shoot from a olive that bears good fruit though it does not grow vigorously and graft it onto a wild olive stock, whose fruit is poor but which grows strongly. The result is a tree with vigorous growth which bears good olives. Paul, however, talks of the reverse process, of grafting a wild olive onto the stock of a good olive and later even of grafting back some of the good olive branches that have been cut out. All this has led to some caustic comments on Paul’s knowledge of what went on in olive orchards.⁷² To this two things may be said. One is that Paul is well aware that what he is talking about is “contrary to nature” (v. 24); he is not referring to something that went on every day in the olive orchards he passed. The other is that there is evidence that the grafting of a wild olive into a good olive tree is not as daft as many commentators have assumed. When an old olive tree had lost its vigor, it seems that one remedy in antiquity was to cut away the failing branches and graft in some wild olive shoots.⁷³ The result was aid to be the invigoration of the failing tree. W. Ramsay says that early in this century the same process continued to be used in Palestine.⁷⁴

Whether the process was widely practised and widely known or not, some Jewish writings use pretty much the same illustration as Paul. Thus Philo speaks of sinful Israelites and contrasts them with good proselytes, saying: “that God welcomes virtue which springs from ignoble birth, that He takes no account of the roots but accepts the full-grown stem, because it has been changed from a weed into fruitfulness” (De praemiis et poenis 152). In the Talmud we read of Ruth the Moabitess and Naamah the Ammonitess (the mother of Rehoboam, 1 Kings 14:31) as “two goodly shoots” engrafted into Israel (Yeb. 63a; the Midrash on Numbers viii.9 cites “thy children like olive plants” and proceeds to praise “the sons of the proselytes”, which may mean the same thing). It thus appears that Paul’s illustration would not have seemed as bizarre to first-century readers as it does to some modern commentators. And we should bear in mind that it is an illustration. Paul does not say, “This is what happens constantly in olive yards”; he simply uses the illustration in the same way as Philo and the Talmud do.

If carries on the sequence of “if” clauses (see the note on v. 12), implying that the condition has been fulfilled.⁷⁵ With another considerable understatement Paul speaks of some of the branches as broken off (he has just said that only a “remnant” is faithful, v. 5). His some reminds the reader that not all were faithless, and his passive will be another instance of referring to what God does without explicitly using his name. The olive tree is a symbol of Israel in a number of Old Testament passages. Thus we read, “The LORD called you a thriving olive tree with fruit beautiful in form” (Jer. 11:16; the prophet has to go on, “But with the roar of a mighty storm he will set it on fire, and its branches will be broken”; see also Hos. 14:6). Paul envisages some olive branches removed from the good olive tree.

And you⁷⁶ puts the Gentile believer in emphatic contrast; he has not been cut out but grafted in. He is called a wild olive,⁷⁷ which by nature bears small fruit and not much of that. This wild olive is grafted in among the others. Actually Paul says “among them” (NIV has added the others) and strictly this should refer to the branches just mentioned, those broken off.⁷⁸ But Paul does not always pay attention to grammatical niceties, and clearly his meaning is that the wild olive is grafted in among the branches that remain. It becomes a “sharer”⁷⁹ a partner with the branches that remain.

The text at the end of the verse is uncertain,⁸⁰ but Paul seems to be saying that the Gentile graft has become a sharer in “the root of the fatness of the olive”. “Fatness” seems a curious word to apply to a root, but other examples are cited for its use of plants, so evidently it did not appear as strange to the ancients as it does to us. The genitive “of the fatness” may be a genitive of quality, “the fat (or rich) root” (cf. GNB, “the strong spiritual life of the Jews”); or it may be in apposition “the root, that is, the fatness”. The reference to the root points to “the patriarchal base established by God’s covenant” (Harrison).⁸¹

18. Evidently some of the Gentile converts were impressed by their new standing. Paul tells them to stop boasting (present imperative with the negative) against the branches. The verb means “boast against, exult over” (BAGD cite its use by a gladiator boasting over his defeated foe). It is not clear whether by “the branches” Paul means the branches that were broken off or those that remained in the tree or both. Perhaps we should not try to separate these too narrowly, for pride tends to be indiscriminate. Chrysostom points out that Paul does not say “Boast not”, but “Boast not against”: it is not so much an attitude of “I am wonderful” of which Paul is complaining as “I am more wonderful than you.” Such a practice may have been helped by the widespread Roman contempt for the Jews. We have no evidence that Roman Christians engaged in anti-Semitism, but there would have been a temptation for imperfectly instructed Gentile Christians to see themselves as superior to Jews—had not Jewish branches been removed so that they could be grafted in? But pride is never in place for the Christian. Particularly is this the case when, as Barrett points out, “the privilege he has acquired is—that of being an Israelite.” Paul reminds his hypothetical Gentile believer who so boasts that it is not he who bears the root, but the root that bears him.⁸² The graft, and more especially the graft from a wild olive tree into a good olive, has no cause for feelings of superiority.⁸³

19. In typical argumentative style Paul puts a retort into the mouth of an imaginary opponent: Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in. There is no article with branches; it means some branches rather than all the branches and it puts some emphasis on the fact that those broken off have the character of being branches, no less. I is emphatic and, taken with so that (which expresses the divine purpose), expresses “the egoism and vainglory of boasting” (Murray). The objector is arrogant as he sees that he, no less, is intended by God to replace Israel.⁸⁴

20. Granted concedes the point, though with some irony. Manson suggests that it be translated “Well, well!” rather than “That is true.” It suggests that that is not the whole story. Because of unbelief renders an unusual dative,⁸⁵ but this translation is surely correct. The lack of faith means that they could not possibly stay within the tree. And you sets the Gentile in strong contrast to the branches that were broken off.⁸⁶ The Gentile believer has no natural superiority over the Jew. He stands in place of the Jew, indeed, but this is only because of the mercy of God and of God’s saving action in Christ.⁸⁷ The Jew’s rejection arose from the fact that he did not appropriate this salvation by faith. The Gentile is accepted only because he did so appropriate it. In himself he is nothing; he cannot stand at all. He should not be complacent as he contemplates his salvation and the loss of the Jews. “We should never think of the rejection of the Jews without being struck with dread and terror” (Calvin on v. 21).

This leads on to another warning about pride. Do not be arrogant goes to the heart of being a Christian. Barrett puts it this way: “The moment he begins to grow boastful he ceases to have faith (humble dependence upon God), and therefore himself becomes a candidate for ‘cutting off’.” To trust in God and to be proud of one’s spiritual achievement are mutually exclusive. Instead of being arrogant Paul counsels the reader to be afraid. This translation might give a wrong impression, and some modern translations use the concept of awe, as RSV, “stand in awe”, or Moffatt, “You should feel awed instead of being uplifted”. Thomas helpfully points out that “There are two kinds of fear, that of the slave and that of the son. The one implies fright, the other awe and reverence.” It is the latter that Paul is counselling here. Without a proper reverence no one can stand before God.

21. The fate of the Jews is now drawn into a warning for the Gentiles. For gives a reason for the foregoing statement; there is good reason for the awe Paul enjoins. For if see the note on verse 12.⁸⁸ God, Paul says, did not spare the natural branches,⁸⁹ those that we might expect to find on the tree. They were cut out of the tree. Now if God did that to the branches we expect to find on the tree, let those we do not expect to find there be duly warned. The fate of the natural branches could so easily become that of the grafted-in branches.

There is good reason for NIV’s going straight on with he will not spare you either, but there is a textual problem of some magnitude.⁹⁰ However we solve it, Paul is giving a strong and unmistakable warning to his readers not to presume on God’s mercy.

22. Consider is not used in the sense “think about” but rather “Notice” (GNB, “Here we see”). Therefore⁹¹ draws a conclusion from the whole previous argument. Arising from it all Paul calls on his Gentile to look at the kindness and the sternness of God (a combination found in the Old Testament; e.g., Ps. 125:4–5). For kindness⁹² see the note on 2:4; the word combines the thoughts of goodness and kindness. It is a goodness which is not so much austere as kind, a kindness that is not indifferent to moral values. Sternness⁹³ points to God’s inflexible moral purpose. While he is certainly kind to us sinners, kind beyond all our deserving, Paul sees his opposition to evil as unyielding. The combination draws attention to a fascinating contrast of attitudes, held simultaneously.

Paul proceeds to differentiate the application of the two qualities. Sternness is exercised to⁹⁴ those who fell. In verse 11 Paul denied that Israel’s stumbling was in order that they might fall, and he has the same verb here. But there he was denying that ultimate disaster was the fate of God’s Israel; here he is affirming that it is the fate of those branches that were cut off on account of unbelief (v. 20). Those who shut themselves up to unbelief can look forward to nothing but severity. Over against this⁹⁵ there is kindness to you, the Gentile believer.

To this Paul appends a warning, provided that you continue⁹⁶ in his kindness. The Greek here has “the kindness”, but NIV has correctly interpreted this with his; Paul is not saying that the believer is to persist in doing deeds of kindness (though that, too, is part of being Christian), but that he is to continue in “the” kindness just mentioned, the kindness of God. We should not understand this to mean that the believer can stop himself from falling away from grace by his own unaided effort. Paul is not saying, “if you continue to merit his kindness” (TH). He is warning “against a false and unevangelical sense of security” (Cranfield).⁹⁷ There is a humble security that leans constantly on the kindness of God, and there is a proud self-dependence that scorns any need of help. It is the latter against which Paul is warning.

Otherwise,⁹⁸ you also will be cut off. Paul’s you is emphatic. His hypothetical Gentile has no mortgage on the blessing. Jewish branches were cut off on account of unbelief; why should he think he is immune? There is no place for smug complacency.

23. Now comes a note of hope for Israel. And might perhaps be better “but”,⁹⁹ while they of course refers back to the Israelites. Paul opens up the possibility that they will not persist¹⁰⁰ in unbelief. Some Jews had already believed, and Paul could not think that there would be no more. So he thinks of unbelievers becoming believers, and in that case God is able to graft them in again. It is pointed out that this is a most unlikely piece of horticulture, and so, of course, it is. If the orchardist wanted certain branches in his tree he would never have cut them off in the first place. But Paul is not talking about orchardists; he is talking about God, and the orchard is no more than an illustration. He is talking about a miracle of grace and assuring his readers that God is able to perform that miracle. In the sphere of salvation he is able to do something that the orchardist would never do in his orchard.

24. “For if you” continues Paul’s emphatic mode of speaking as he addresses his Gentile.¹⁰¹ That Gentile was cut out of¹⁰² an olive tree that is wild by nature. It was contrary to nature¹⁰³ that it was grafted into a cultivated olive tree.¹⁰⁴ God is not bound by the limits of what people see as natural. Paul has spoken of God as grafting the wild olive onto the good olive; now he proceeds with “How much more… ?”¹⁰⁵ as he goes on to the grafting of the natural branches back into the olive tree from which they had been broken off. This could be a question (as NIV and others), but it may be seen as a statement (RSV) or an exclamation (NEB). Any of these is possible.¹⁰⁶

3. The Conversion of Israel, 11:25–32

²⁵I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. ²⁶And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The deliverer will come from Zion;

he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.

²⁷And this is^a my covenant with them

when I take away their sins.”^b

²⁸As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, ²⁹for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. ³⁰Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, ³¹so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now^c receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. ³²For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Until now Paul has spoken of a “remnant” of Israel that is saved while the bulk of the nation has been “hardened”. As he brings his discussion of justification to a close, he looks forward to the time when “all Israel” will be saved. Some commentators see in this a vision of the time at the end of the age when the whole nation of Israel will turn to Christ and enter the salvation for which he died. They point out that throughout this section of the epistle Paul is concerned with the nation, and specifically they see no good reason for seeing a difference of meaning in “Israel” in verses 25 and 26. So they see Paul as looking forward to a glorious time when the Jews, as a nation, will turn to Christ. There may be some individuals who will not respond to the gospel, but the nation as a whole will become Christian. Others insist that Paul has been giving special attention to the “remnant” throughout the discussion until now, and they ask on what grounds we should hold that Paul thought that the last generation on earth before Christ comes again would be treated differently from all the others. They also hold firmly that “all Israel” is a curious way of referring to most of the last generation, after many, many generations have died outside Christ. Should not “all Israel” have something to say about these generations? They see in “Israel” accordingly a reference to the true people of God and thus to elect Jews in all generations including the last. While both positions are held very firmly, it cannot be said that either group has been able to bring forward an argument so decisive that it makes the position of the other untenable. It is clear that we must examine what Paul says with great care.

25. “For” is omitted by NIV, but it is important; it links this verse very closely with verse 24 and indeed with the whole of the argument leading up to this point. What has preceded is no idle conjecture, “for” Paul has a revelation which assures him of its truth. I do not want you to be ignorant is an opening Paul uses a number of times (see the note on 1:13). This opening always leads into something Paul regards as important, and he always follows it with brothers, which joins him with his readers in the bonds of Christ and removes any impression that he is taking up a position of superiority. He has been using the singular pronoun in addressing a hypothetical reader, but he switches now to the plural, and he retains the plural throughout the subsequent discussion.

He speaks of a mystery,¹⁰⁷ a term the Christians used in the sense of something that people could not possibly know of themselves, but which has now been revealed to them. It was not incomprehensible, not “mysterious” in our sense of the term; it was something beyond us to discover, though we can understand it all right when God has made it known to us. It is an important term: in this discussion of the place of Israel Paul is not referring to the obvious, but to something that required a revelation before Christians could understand it. Paul uses it to refer to a number of facets of the Christian message (e.g., 1 Cor. 2:7; 15:51; Eph. 3:4), but especially to the gospel (e.g., Eph. 6:19). Here his thought is that the place of Israel could not be worked out by the unaided human mind; if we are to understand it, it has to be made known by God. This revelation is so that¹⁰⁸ you may not be conceited, “wise in yourselves”.¹⁰⁹ In other words, you may not think that your own intellect or merit has brought this knowledge.¹¹⁰ Evidently some Gentile believers were tempted to think that there was no future for Israel. She had rejected the gospel and it had now passed to the Gentiles; Israel was finished, rejected, cast off. God had chosen them instead. It is this kind of pride that Paul is opposing.

That about which Paul does not want his readers ignorant is that Israel has experienced¹¹¹ a hardening in part.¹¹² Goodspeed translates “only partial insensibility”, but most agree that it is not partial hardening but part of Israel that is meant (cf. RSV, “a hardening has come upon part of Israel”; Chrysostom says, “not the whole people”). This is a temporary hardening, taking place while God’s purpose is worked out among the Gentiles or, as Paul puts it, until¹¹³ the full number of the Gentiles¹¹⁴ has come in. The word NIV renders full number is that rendered “fullness” in verse 12. NIV may well be right in seeing a reference to number. In that case a certain number of Gentiles are to be saved, and God is waiting until that number has been reached before taking action for Israel. Another possibility is that here, as perhaps also in verse 12, something like “fullness” is meant. It is also possible to understand the expression as the fullness of the blessing of the Gentiles¹¹⁵ or the full contribution of the Gentiles, or the Gentiles as a whole. Whichever way we take it, the fullness is regarded as active and as entering the kingdom of life (as in Matt. 7:21; 18:8; Mark 9:43–47), and absolutely in much the same sense (Matt. 7:13; 23:13; Luke 13:24), as SH point out. We should probably see a reference to the fulfilment of God’s purpose in bringing Gentiles into his kingdom, however we understand the individual words.

26. And so, Paul says, all Israel will be saved. This expression has caused unending disputation among expositors. Paul’s so¹¹⁶ is usually taken to refer to what precedes, in which case it surely means “in this way”, that is, through the divinely appointed process whereby the hardening of part of Israel brought salvation to the Gentiles, a temporary hardening effective only until “the fullness of the Gentiles” has come in. But so can also refer to what follows (e.g., 10:6; 1 Cor. 3:15, etc.). If that is the case here, we should put a full stop at the end of verse 25 and see a new thought in verse 26, namely that all Israel will be saved when the Redeemer comes to Zion. This second suggestion is not impossible, but on the whole the former way seems more likely to be correct. The end result of this process will be the salvation of all Israel, an expression that exegetes have found notoriously difficult. There is considerable agreement that all Israel does not mean “each and every Israelite without exception”; the term refers to the nation as a whole. It is used in this way in the Old Testament (1 Sam. 12:1; 2 Chron. 12:1; Dan. 9:11).¹¹⁷ Particularly instructive is a passage in the Mishnah which assures the reader that “All Israelites have a share in the world to come” (Sanh. 10:1) and then goes on to give a considerable list of Israelites who “have no share in the world to come”, sometimes mentioning classes such as those who deny the resurrection of the dead and sometimes individuals such as Jeroboam and Balaam. Clearly all Israel indicates the people as a whole, but it leaves open the possibility that there may be exceptions. So much is clear.

But some exegetes understand Israel here of the nation while others see it as referring to spiritual Israel, the people of God whether Jewish or Gentile (so Calvin). Lenski has a strong argument for the elect Jews. But what seems decisive is the fact that “Israel” in verse 25 plainly means the nation (it is physical Israel, not spiritual Israel, that is hardened in part), and it is not easy to understand why in the next line it should have a different meaning (Hodge has a strong argument for this position). A further strong argument is that Paul has just said that this is a “mystery”. Now it is no “mystery” that all the elect, Jews as well as Gentiles, will be saved. Nor is the conversion of a few Jews in each generation such as has happened until now the kind of thing that needs to be the subject of a special revelation. That looks for a very different kind of happening. It may also be argued that Paul is looking for the restoration of the Jews in the sense in which they had been rejected, that is, the nation generally. Paul then is affirming that the nation of Israel as a whole will ultimately have its place in God’s salvation.¹¹⁸ This may well be located in the end time and be part of the eschatological program that Paul anticipates then.¹¹⁹ But if “all Israel” means more than one generation, it will take place earlier.

Paul proceeds to quote Isaiah 59:20–21 along with a line from Isaiah 27:9.¹²⁰ The deliverer is surely a reference to Christ, but whether Paul sees a reference to the incarnation with its messianic salvation coming out of Zion (Lenski), or the parousia with the Savior coming to Zion in glory (Parry, Cranfield) is not clear. Denney finds it impossible to say whether the apostle is referring “to the first or to the second advent: the distinction is not present to Paul’s mind as he writes”. Zion may be the earthly city or it may stand for the heavenly city, in which case the deliverer is thought of as coming from the very presence of God (cf. Isa. 2:3). His function is given in terms of turning godlessness¹²¹ away from Jacob. He is to remove their sin, more particularly as it is seen as sin against God. The nation is more commonly called Israel than Jacob, but there seems no real significance in the choice of name.

27. Paul’s quotation moves on to the thought of the covenant, the covenant that originates with God.¹²² The particular aspect of the covenant to which attention is drawn is that which has to do with the forgiveness of sins (cf. Jer. 31:34). This does not mean that the covenant is concerned only with forgiveness; in fact a good deal more is involved. But Paul’s subject throughout these chapters is justification by faith and how what happened and will happen to Israel fits into that great doctrine. So he concentrates on the sins aspect. When is indefinite;¹²³ the prophet leaves the time unspecified. Take away is a verb with a wide range of meaning,¹²⁴ but basically it signifies “take from, take away”; in the context it clearly means the complete removal of sins. When the covenant is put into force, God will take such action as will remove sins from the scene. An important feature of God’s salvation is that sin will no longer be there to disrupt relationships. The saved will live in unbroken fellowship with God.

28. There is no connective to link this with the preceding; Paul moves abruptly to a new aspect of his subject. He sees the Jews in two relationships to God—one linked to the gospel, the other to the fathers. As far as¹²⁵ the gospel (see the note on 1:1) is concerned, the Jews are enemies. There has been some discussion as to whether we should understand this term passively (i.e., the Jews are the objects of God’s hostility), or actively (the Jews are hostile to God). What turns the scale is probably the fact that enemies stands over against loved, and loved must mean “loved by God”. In such a context Paul must be saying that in connection with the gospel the Jews are the objects of divine hostility. They have refused to believe in Christ, they have turned their backs on the divinely appointed way of forgiveness, so what else could the situation be? This does not mean that the gospel makes them God’s enemies, a suggestion that is immediately negatived by the fact that Jews like Paul himself had responded to the gospel and entered into salvation. It is “with reference to” (not “because of”) the gospel that they are enemies. As a whole they did not receive it, and this opened the way for it to be preached to the Gentiles so that a large Gentile church emerged. It is in order to bring about this spread of the gospel that they are enemies. They are enemies on your account; in the providence of God their rejection of the gospel was not aimless. It was the means of bringing salvation to others. God’s purpose was carried on through it. This carries with it the possibility that when the gospel has had its effect among the Gentiles they will come back, and that is precisely the point that Paul is making.

So he goes on to refer to a different set of relationships, as far as election is concerned. For as far as see the note on the opening to this verse (the construction is identical) and for election see that on 9:11. Paul is emphasizing the divine plan; though Israel had been faithless and thus the object of God’s hostility, God had nevertheless worked through this faithlessness to bring about his will. And he had not forgotten that Israel was his people; their refusal to accept the gospel did not alter the fact that he had chosen them to be in a special relationship to him, the people through whom he would make his revelation and to whom he would send his Son. Election is an important concept even when the nation had not lived up to all that is involved in its calling. And election means that they are loved on account of the patriarchs. It does not mean that they are all elected to eternal salvation; Paul is talking about the place of the nation in God’s plan, not the fate of individuals. The reference is to the nation (as in v. 2), not to the remnant (as in v. 7). The nation is loved (cf. 9:25), and Paul links this with the patriarchs (he says “the fathers”). We should not understand this in the sense of the rabbinic doctrine of the merits of the fathers that won all sorts of benefits for their descendants. Rather, Paul is appealing to the covenant God had made with Abraham and the promises he had made again and again to Abraham’s descendants. God will carry his purposes out (as Paul will insist in v. 29).

Käsemann makes an important point when he says of verses 28–32 “The justification of the ungodly, which is announced in various places in our chapters, emerges now as the dominant theme of the whole portion” (p. 314). We must bear in mind that chapters 9–11 are part of Paul’s treatment of justification, not a historical essay or an exercise in Jewish patriotism. Paul is showing that the doctrine he has been expounding in the earlier part of the epistle is not vitiated by what had happened to Israel. God had made promises to Israel, and these promises would be kept. Israel’s refusal to accept the gospel did not mean either that the gospel was a failure or that God would not perform all he had promised to his ancient people. But we make sense neither of the Old Testament Scripture nor of the history of Israel nor of the place of the Christian church unless we see that justification by faith is central. Here the point is that God justifies Israelites who believe just as he justifies Gentiles who believe, and the whole history of Israel is to be seen in the light of that fact.

29. For introduces a reason for what Paul has just said; there is a logical basis for his position. In the Greek the first word of this verse is irrevocable;¹²⁶ God does not change his mind after he has made gifts or issued calls. He does not take them back. What God has done and said stands. Paul speaks specifically of God’s gifts,¹²⁷ a very general term. Godet sees the word as denoting “the moral and intellectual aptitudes with which God endows a man with a view to the task committed to him.” He thinks that Greeks, Romans, and others had their own gifts while Israel had “singular qualities for their mission as the salvation-people.” There may be something to “singular qualities”, but Paul is not referring to natural endowments of any kind. He is speaking rather of the gifts he has listed in 9:4–5. Israel was a special people and had special gifts accordingly, gifts like covenants, adoption, and the like which are not to be thought of as individual or racial endowments. With this Paul links God’s call. Some consider this as more or less equivalent to gifts, but the two words are distinct. As Cranfield points out, aspects of call like commission, function, and task are not gifts. God gives gifts, then, and calls people and nations. And he does not go back on either. God can be relied on.¹²⁸

30. Verses 30–31 form one carefully constructed sentence marked by a series of correspondences which may be set out as follows:¹²⁹

verse 30

verse 31

you

they

at one time

now (the first now)

were disobedient

become disobedient

now

now (the second now)

received mercy

receive mercy

their disobedience

mercy to you

Clearly Paul saw justification as working out for both groups and in such a manner that each in some way assisted the other. There is a consistent divine purpose. Just as leads on to a “so too” in the second part of the sentence. Paul’s you sets his Gentile readers over against the Jews. At one time¹³⁰ is indefinite, “formerly”. It refers to the past generally, the time when the Gentiles were disobedient.¹³¹ The whole pre-Christian experience of Paul’s readers is summed up as disobedience (cf. ch. 1). “But now” (NIV omits “but”) puts the present situation in contrast. Interestingly and significantly the apostle does not say “you have become obedient”, but “you have obtained mercy”. It is no human achievement of which he speaks, but a divine gift. As a result of their disobedience renders a dative which is variously interpreted.¹³² But NIV seems to have the sense of it, even if as a result of may be going further than the Greek. Paul is saying that it was the disobedience of the Jews that God used to bring the gospel to the Gentiles (cf. Acts 18:6). In these two verses he is emphasizing the divine mercy and saying that both Jew and Gentile were disobedient before God’s mercy saved them.¹³³

31. There is similarity and difference in the experiences of the Gentiles and Jews. There is similarity in that both are characterized by disobedience. There is difference in that it was through the Jews’ disobedience that the Gentiles came to experience God’s mercy but it will be through the mercy God has shown to the Gentiles that he will bring mercy to the Jews. There are two ways of taking the main part of this verse, depending on where we place God’s mercy to you. GNB puts it in the first clause, “because of the mercy that you have received, the Jews now disobey God, in order that they also may now receive God’s mercy.” But RSV has it in the second clause, “they have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may receive mercy.” The point is that the words in questions precede the conjunction in order that and this would fit easily into the first clause; indeed, some scholars think this rules out the possibility of including them in the final clause.¹³⁴ But this opinion is not well grounded, and to take the words as in RSV and NIV yields a better sense. Paul is putting some emphasis on the expression God’s mercy to you and thus puts it in an especially prominent place. It would be the very mercy God showed the Gentiles that would in due course ensure mercy for the Jews. There is a textual problem regarding the second now, which is not found in some MSS¹³⁵ (it is not read by RSV and O’Neill). But its attestation in the MSS and transcriptional probability show that we should accept it, even though it presents us with what Barth calls an “an almost intolerable eschatological tension” (p. 417 n.). Is Paul speaking of the End? Or something that is to happen in this present age? Now locates it in this age, though, of course, Paul may well mean towards the end of that age.

32. Another for links this verse to the preceding; what follows is not a general statement about the way God treats mankind, but the conclusion to what Paul has been saying in verses 30–31. God, says Paul, has bound all men over to disobedience. But we may well question NIV’s translation of the verb rendered bound over.¹³⁶ BAGD translate “has imprisoned them all in disobedience” and then explains this: “i.e. put them under compulsion to be disobedient or given them over to disobedience”. The second suggestion is better than the first: Paul is not saying that God predetermined that all should sin, but rather that he has so ordered things that all people, Jew and Gentile alike, being disobedient, show themselves to be sinners (cf. 1:24, 26, 28) and have no other escape than through his mercy. Cf. JB, “God has imprisoned all men in their disobedience”. There has been a good deal of argument about the meaning of all men,¹³⁷ which some have understood to mean “all of the elect”,¹³⁸ while others see a reference to universal salvation.¹³⁹ But such positions are reached by detaching the words from their context. Paul is dealing with Jews and Gentiles in their disobedience, and it is “the” all in question, both these groups, who are shut up in this way (cf. BDF 275[7]). He is not dealing with the salvation of the individual, but with what happens alike to Jews and Gentiles. And God’s final purpose¹⁴⁰ is that he may have mercy on them all. That purpose is not condemnation or the like. It is always mercy.¹⁴¹

4. The Mercy of God, 11:33–36

³³Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and^a

knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments,

and his paths beyond tracing out!

³⁴“Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?”^b

³⁵“Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay him?”^c

³⁶For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Paul rounds off this discussion of a very difficult subject with an expression of adoring wonder and praise. Black notes that Michel speaks of it as a hymn but he prefers to see it as a doxology, and rightly. It is elicited immediately by what was said in verse 32, but it is a fitting conclusion to the whole of the preceding argument. It is interesting that it is prompted by what we do not know about God (even what he has revealed we do not fully comprehend) rather than by what we do know (cf. Murray). Paul is not breaking into praise because he has been able to give a final and complete solution to some very difficult problems. He has certainly given some of the answers, but to some very important questions the answer is still not revealed. But it is Paul’s conviction that there is a solution and that that solution is in God’s hands. Therefore he breaks out into this doxology.

33. Oh,¹⁴² the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God may be understood in more ways than one. The depth points to the inexhaustibility of the following quality (BAGD; Paul uses it of “the deep things of God”, 1 Cor. 2:10).¹⁴³ But it is not clear whether we should understand the depth as referring to three qualities—riches, wisdom, and knowledge (as NEB, Barrett, and others) or to two—the depth of the riches of both wisdom and knowledge (as Moffatt, Lenski, and others). The Greek is capable of either interpretation. It may be urged that “riches” is different in quality from “wisdom” and “knowledge”; this favors the second interpretation. But it is countered that we should understand “riches” to refer to God’s riches in mercy and grace, which fittingly stand with wisdom and knowledge. In the end either interpretation is allowable. It is possible to distinguish between wisdom and knowledge as, for example, Bengel does: “Wisdom directs all things to the best end; knowledge knows that end and issue.”¹⁴⁴ However we understand the two terms, Paul is saying that God has both in fullest excellence. He goes on to speak of God’s judgments as unsearchable, and his paths as beyond tracing out.¹⁴⁵ Judgments (“decisions”, GNB) is normally a legal term and is often used of adverse judgments passed on offenders (which would be appropriate in a context dealing with the disobedient). However, it is not confined to the adverse, and in this context where it is in parallel with paths or “ways”, we should not insist on the meaning “negative judgments”. Paul is simply pronouncing on the impossibility of our ever understanding fully what God is doing.

34. Now comes a characteristic quotation from Scripture which seems to have elements from several passages (see Isa. 40:13; Job 15:8; Jer. 23:18; cf. 1 Cor. 2:16). The question “is equivalent to a strong negative” (Brown, p. 425), and it reinforces what Paul has just been saying about the impossibility of created beings fathoming the mind of the Creator. In his reference to the mind of the Lord neither noun has the article, and this gives a crisp quality to the question. The impossibility thus disclosed is brought out further with who has been his counselor?¹⁴⁶ The term implies great wisdom, perhaps even superior wisdom, on the part of the adviser (who takes advice from one who is clearly inferior?). From another angle Paul is showing the impossibility of our understanding fully all that God is doing.

35. The third rhetorical question changes ground by referring to resources other than intellectual: Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?¹⁴⁷ This is the point made by David in his prayer, “Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand” (1 Chron. 29:14). We have nothing else to give. We cannot place God under obligation; he owes us nothing (cf. Manson, “He can finance his own undertakings”).¹⁴⁸ The idea of making an advance to God is completed with that God should repay him, where the verb has the notion of making a just repayment. No person can ever be in a position where God is required to make a fair requital. That would require an element of equality that is infinitely beyond the capacity of the greatest of the race.

36. Paul closes this paragraph on a note of praise and adoration. His for links it up with the preceding and gives a reason for the foregoing. He has a triple prepositional expression that has caused much discussion: from him and through him and to him. In the early church this was often taken as a reference to the Trinity, and this has sometimes been accepted in more modern times (as Olshausen). But it is very difficult to see this in the words used (Hendriksen finds the notion “about as unreasonable as any can be”). From him could reasonably be said of the Father and through him of the Son (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6), but there is no scriptural justification for seeing to him as a reference to the Spirit. In any case Paul seems simply to be speaking of the Godhead without trying to differentiate the Persons. The meaning is nicely expressed in Moffatt’s translation “All comes from him, all lives by him, all ends in him.” Paul is speaking of God as the Originator, the Sustainer, and the Goal of all creation.¹⁴⁹ All things¹⁵⁰ means the totality. It may refer to the universe, the whole of creation, or Paul may be thinking of all things concerning salvation. Either way, the totality belongs to God. He ascribes to God not simply “glory”, but “the glory”. Supreme glory belongs to God. Paul does not have a verb, but NIV’s be is probably correct. It would be possible to understand “is”, but this is not as suitable in a doxology. Forever¹⁵¹ employs a plural form, “into the ages”, which is especially common in doxologies. It emphasizes the idea of eternity. Amen is normally the response of a congregation to prayer or praise uttered by a leader and which the congregation thus makes its own. Strictly perhaps it should not be used in a place where a writer is making a point with no congregation to affirm it. But it is so much a part of doxology (it seems that whenever a speaker uttered a doxology in the early church he could rely on those who heard it to affirm it with their “Amen”) that it follows almost automatically.

Cranfield finds a doxology “the natural and fitting conclusion” to the argument. “Paul has certainly not provided neat answers to the baffling questions which arise in connexion with the subject matter of these three chapters. He has certainly not swept away all the difficulties. But, if we have followed him through these chapters with serious and open-minded attentiveness, we may well feel that he has given us enough to enable us to repeat the ‘Amen’ of his doxology in joyful confidence that the deep mystery which surrounds us is neither a nightmare mystery of meaninglessness nor a dark mystery of arbitrary omnipotence but the mystery which will never turn out to be anything other than the mystery of the altogether good and merciful and faithful God.”

↑ Back to top