14. Israel’s future: God’s long-term design
Paul began these three chapters with the tragic paradox of Israel’s condition, uniquely privileged by God and yet deep rooted in unbelief (9:1ff.). This was not to be explained either by unfaithfulness or injustice on the part of God (9:6ff.), but rather both by his own ‘purpose in election’ (9:11) and also by Israel’s stumbling over Christ (9:32), and her obstinate rejection of God’s persistent advances (10:21).
Paul now addresses himself to the implications of Israel’s disobedience. He asks two questions, to both of which he immediately responds with the same indignant reply.
Question 1: I ask then: did God reject his people? By no means! (1a).
We might have expected that, since they have rejected God, God has rejected them. But this is not so. They are not the abandoned nation they may seem. Their rejection is only partial for, as Paul shows in verses 1–10, a believing remnant remains.
Question 2: Again I ask: did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! (11a).
Far from Israel’s fall being the end, it is going to be only temporary. Already, in fact, her transgression has resulted in unexpected blessings, and God’s historical providence is going to lead to many more, as Paul will explain in verses 12–32.
So then ‘the rejection of the Jews was neither total nor final’. That is the theme of this chapter. There is still an Israelite remnant in the present, and there is going to be an Israelite recovery in the future, which will itself lead to blessing for the whole world.
1. The present situation (11:1–10)
In verse 1 the apostle asks his straight question: did God reject his people? In verse 2 he replies emphatically, God did not reject his people. Perhaps he is consciously echoing the confident assertion of the psalmist: ‘the Lord will not reject his people; he will never forsake his inheritance.’ He does not rely on dogmatic statement alone, however; he brings forward four pieces of evidence to back it up.
The first is personal: I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin (1b). He may be writing as a patriotic Jew: how could he entertain the preposterous idea that God had rejected his own people? But a more natural interpretation is that he himself as a Jew was proof that God had not rejected his people, not even him, the blasphemer and persecutor ‘who with all his strength had contended against God’.
The second piece of evidence is theological. The apostle has anticipated it in the words in which he has posed the question whether God has rejected his people, that is, his special chosen people, the people of his covenant, which he has declared unbreakable. Now in answering his question he underlines this by describing them as his people, whom he foreknew (2a). In the exposition of Romans 8:29 it was suggested that to ‘foreknow’ means to ‘forelove’ and to ‘choose’. Although here it is the nation, not an elect remnant, whom God is said to have foreknown, still foreknowledge and rejection are mutually incompatible.
Third, Paul brings forward some biblical evidence, namely the situation in the time of Elijah. After the prophet’s victory over the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, he fled from Queen Jezebel into the desert, and later took refuge in a cave on Mount Horeb. There he appealed to God against Israel (2b), saying: Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me (3). God’s reply to Elijah was that he had got his arithmetic wrong. He was by no means the sole surviving loyalist. On the contrary, God said: I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal (4). So Israel’s national apostasy was not complete. Although the doctrine of the remnant was not developed until Isaiah’s time, the faithful remnant itself already existed during the prophetic ministry of Elijah at least a century earlier.
Paul’s fourth evidence that God had not totally rejected his people was contemporary. Just as in Elijah’s day there was a remnant of seven thousand, so too, at the present time, namely in Paul’s day, there is a remnant (5). It was probably sizeable. James was soon to tell Paul in Jerusalem that there were ‘many thousands’ of believing Jews. Moreover, the chief characteristic of this remnant was that it had been chosen by grace (5b). Literally, it had come into existence ‘according to the election of grace’, just as God’s purpose is ‘according to election’ (kat’ eklogēn here as in 9:11). ‘Grace’ emphasizes that God has called the remnant into being, just as he had ‘reserved’ for himself the loyal minority in Elijah’s day (4). For grace is God’s gracious kindness to the undeserving, so that if his election is by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace (6). It is refreshing, in our era of relativistic fog, to see Paul’s resolve to maintain the purity of verbal meanings. His objective is to insist that grace excludes works, that is, God’s initiative excludes ours. ‘If you confuse such opposites as faith and works, then words will simply lose their meaning.’
What then? That is, how does Paul apply this remnant theology to the facts of his own day and experience? It obliges him to stop generalizing about ‘Israel’ and to make a division. For what the people of Israel sought so earnestly [presumably the righteousness of 9:31] they did not obtain, at least not as a whole; but the elect among them did, namely those who were chosen by grace (5) and so justified by faith. The others, the unbelieving Israelite majority, were hardened (7). There can be little doubt that Paul meant they were hardened by God (since the next verse says that God gave them a spirit of stupor). Even so, as with the hardening of Pharaoh and those he represented (9:18; cf. 11:25), a legal process is in mind (a retribution, in fact, verse 9) by which God gives people up to their own stubbornness. What this ‘hardening’ means in practice Paul goes on to indicate from two Old Testament quotations, both of which refer to eyes which cannot see.
The first quotation (8) is a conflation of Deuteronomy 29:2ff. and Isaiah 29:10. In the former text Moses tells the Israelites that, although they have witnessed his wonders, yet he has not given them ‘a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear’ (Deut. 29:4). From the Isaiah text Paul quotes only the first sentence, to the effect that God has given them a spirit of stupor, a complete loss of spiritual sensitivity which (as the context makes clear) was self-induced before it became a divine judgment. Moreover, this condition, Paul adds, continues to afflict Israel to this very day:
God gave them a spirit of stupor,
eyes that could not see
and ears that could not hear,
to this very day.
The second quotation (9) comes from Psalm 69, which portrays a righteous person’s experience of persecution. Jesus applied it to himself (‘They hated me without reason’), and early Christians therefore quickly identified it as messianic. This victim of unprovoked hostility prays both that God will vindicate him and that God’s just judgment will fall on his enemies. Because of the messianic nature of the psalm Paul is able to reverse its application. Instead of Israel being the persecuted, she has become (in her rejection of Christ) the persecutor. This is what the psalmist prays:
May their table become a snare and a trap,
a stumbling-block and a retribution for them.
May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see,
and their backs be bent for ever.
(9–10)
The imagery is not easy to interpret. But their table seems to be a symbol of the security, well-being and community which are enjoyed at home, and which somehow can be turned into the opposite, becoming a snare and a trap, a stumbling-block and a retribution for them. The reference to their backs being bent for ever is also obscure, although the bent back is normally a picture of carrying a heavy load, whether in this case of grief, fear or oppression.
2. The future prospect (11:11–32)
Paul’s answer to his first question whether God has rejected his people is that, although not rejected, they have been hardened. Or, more accurately, while a believing remnant remains, the others (who are the majority) are hardened. That is the present situation. Is it permanent, even hopeless? What about the future? Paul is now ready to ask his second question. Again I ask: did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! (11a). And as the apostle expresses his strong negative, it becomes clear that Israel’s fall, which in the first paragraph he has proved to be not total, is not final either. On the contrary, far from their being on a downward spiral, the spiral is upwards. They have not stumbled so as to fall beyond recovery, but rather to rise, and in that rise both to experience, and to cause Gentiles to experience, greater blessings than would have been the case if they had not fallen in the first place. Such is God’s merciful providence.
a. A chain of blessing (11:11–16)
It is essential to grasp Paul’s sequence of thought in this paragraph, since it recurs with modifications throughout the chapter. It is like a chain with three links.
First, already through Israel’s fall salvation has come to the Gentiles.
Second, this Gentile salvation will make Israel envious and so lead to her restoration or full inclusion (or ‘fullness’).
Third, Israel’s fullness will bring yet much greater riches to the world.
In this way the blessing ricochets from Israel to the Gentiles, from the Gentiles back to Israel, and from Israel to the Gentiles again. Of these stages the first has already taken place; it forms the ground on which the second and third may confidently be expected to follow. Moreover, in this paragraph Paul traces the same development twice, first in general terms (11–12) and then with particular reference to his personal ministry as apostle to the Gentiles (13–16).
In his general statement Paul describes the first stage thus: because of their [Israel’s] transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles (11b). Thus the apostle ‘is giving a theological interpretation to historical events’. On no fewer than four separate and significant occasions Luke records in Acts how the Jews’ rejection of the gospel led to its offer to and acceptance by Gentiles. During the first missionary journey, in Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas said to the Jews: ‘We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.’
During the second and third missionary journeys, in Corinth and Ephesus respectively, Paul again (‘as usual’) began his ministry in the synagogue. But when the Jews opposed him and rejected the gospel, he took a decisive step, left them, and opened up a Gentile mission in a nearby secular building. The fourth example would take place later, when he arrived in Rome.
In each of these epoch-making decisions the same double event had taken place. The Jews had rejected the gospel and the Gentiles had accepted it. The second naturally followed the first, as Jesus himself had predicted. But now Paul turns history into theology, by implying that the first event took place with a view to the second. God thus overruled the sin of Israel for the salvation of the Gentiles.
The stage in which the Gentiles were saved had already taken place. But Paul goes on to the next stage, namely that salvation has come to the Gentiles in order [eis] to make Israel envious (11b–c; cf. 10:19). In Acts, Luke mentions Jewish envy of the apostles several times. He seems to mean that the Jews were jealous of their success, of their influence on the people, and of the large crowds they attracted. But Paul sees a more productive kind of envy than this. He knows that when Israel sees the blessings of salvation being enjoyed by believing Gentiles (their reconciliation to God and to each other, their forgiveness, their love, joy and peace through the Spirit), they will want these blessings for themselves and, it is implied, will repent and believe in Jesus in order to secure them. Provoked to envy, they will be led to conversion.
But this restoration of Israel will lead to a third stage, as the salvation now enjoyed by Israel will spill over in further blessing to the world. In expressing it, moreover, Paul is not content with a simple arithmetical progression from transgression to salvation to envy (or from the salvation of the Gentiles to the salvation of the Jews, verses 11, 14); instead he sets down a geometric progression, one which goes even further: if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring! (12). This is a compact sentence which telescopes two progressions. The first concerns Israel, and the second the Gentile world. As for Israel, the argument is that if her ‘fall’ (transgression) and ‘defeat’ or ‘overthrow’ (loss) brought blessing to the Gentiles, how much more blessing will her full inclusion (or ‘fullness’, plērōma) bring, which seems to mean not only her conversion and restoration but also her increase in numbers until the remnant (leimma) has grown into a substantial majority. As for the Gentiles, the blessing they have received through Israel’s fall is called salvation or riches; but the blessing which they will receive through Israel’s ‘fullness’ is called much greater riches. What this will be we are not told; Paul leaves us, at least at the moment, to guess.
After this general statement of ‘the chain of blessing’, Paul now particularizes by relating it to his own ministry. He develops the same logic a second time. I am talking to you Gentiles, he writes, referring to the Gentile Christians in the church in Rome, who seem to have made up the majority. I am the apostle to the Gentiles, he continues, as he has already affirmed (1:1, 5) and will affirm again before he finishes his letter (15:16). And inasmuch as this is so, he goes on, I take pride in [doxazō, ‘glorify’] my ministry (13). He does this ‘by giving himself to it wholly and unreservedly’.
Paul now explains why he ‘takes pride’ in his ministry, devoting himself to it with such energy and perseverance. It is because of what he hopes to achieve by it: in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and so, by persuading them to believe in Christ, save some of them (14). This is a remarkable statement of his ministerial goals, on several counts. First, to characterize his ministry to his own people in terms of arousing their ‘envy’, and to encourage them to come to Christ as a result of such ‘envy’, sounds like stimulating unworthy motives in both him and them. But this is not so. Not all envy is tainted with selfishness, because it is not always either a grudging discontent or a sinful covetousness. At base, envy is ‘the desire to have for oneself something possessed by another’, and whether envy is good or evil depends on the nature of the something desired and on whether one has any right to its possession. If that something is in itself evil, or if it belongs to somebody else and we have no right to it, then the envy is sinful. But if the something desired is in itself good, a blessing from God, which he means all his people to enjoy, then to ‘covet’ it and to ‘envy’ those who have it is not at all unworthy. This kind of desire is right in itself, and to arouse it can be a realistic motive in ministry.
A second reason Paul’s statement is surprising is that his hope to save some sounds too low an expectation. We need to remember, however, that his vision focuses on the coming ‘full inclusion’ of Israel; his hope that he will himself ‘save some’ relates only to his own modest personal contribution to this end.
Third, and most remarkably, Paul regards arousing his own (Jewish) people to envy as an aspect of his ministry to Gentiles. How could this be? It is an example of the continuing interaction between Jews and Gentiles which he perceives, and which is woven into his mission strategy. Perhaps he feels embarrassed, as he writes to the largely Gentile Roman church, that he the apostle to the Gentiles should have so much to say about the Jews. So he demonstrates that the two cannot be separated. Already it has been as a result of the Jewish rejection of the gospel that his distinctive ministry to the Gentiles has begun; now he shows that his ministry of arousing the Jews to envy will have a directly beneficial effect on the Gentile world.
This Paul now explains in more detail. What are the much greater riches which the full inclusion of Israel will bring to the Gentiles (12)? He responds: For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (15). We note how, in this restatement of what he has already written, his vocabulary has moved on. Israel’s ‘fall’, ‘transgression’ and ‘defeat’ have now become her ‘rejection’ by God, even though God has not rejected his people altogether or for ever (1–2). The ‘salvation’ and ‘riches’ which the Gentiles have already received are now said to be ‘the reconciliation of the world’, surely because Christ ‘has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility’ both between them and God and between them and the Jews. The ‘full inclusion’ of restored Israel is now called their ‘acceptance’, reversing their temporary and partial ‘rejection’. And the ‘much greater riches’ which Israel’s full inclusion will bring to the Gentiles are defined as ‘life from the dead’. This last expression has brought much puzzlement to commentators. There are three main interpretations.
The first is literal, namely that Paul is referring to the general resurrection on the last day, ‘the final consummation, the resurrection of the dead, and that eternal life that follows’. Thus the conversion of Israel ‘will be the signal for the resurrection, the last stage of the eschatological process initiated by the death and resurrection of Jesus’. Certainly in Jewish apocalyptic literature the restoration of Israel was usually associated with the resurrection of the dead, and certainly Paul has used ‘life’ in referring to the body (8:11). Nevertheless, ‘life from the dead’ would be a most unusual expression for resurrection, especially when anastasis was a perfectly good word which was ready to hand. Also, did Paul really believe that his own ministry to Jews and Gentiles would trigger the second coming of Christ and the resurrection? The evidence for this is lacking.
A second interpretation is spiritual, namely that Paul is referring to our being ‘raised’ with Christ, which is one of his favourite themes. And earlier he has described us as ‘those who have been brought from death to life’ (6:13). But this is the status and experience of all Christian people. It belongs to the ‘salvation’ and ‘riches’ which Gentile Christians have already received. Much greater riches demands to be understood as something new, even spectacular. To refer it to the new life in Christ which we already enjoy would be an anticlimax.
Third, there is the figurative interpretation. Paul foresees that ‘unimaginable blessing’ is going to enrich the Gentiles, a worldwide blessing which will so far surpass anything before experienced that it can only be likened to new life out of death. Perhaps Paul is taking a backward glance to Ezekiel’s vision, in which the restoration of Israel is depicted as the coming together of dead, dry bones which are then given both flesh and life. Does Paul now apply this vision to the Gentile world? Does he prophesy ‘a vast and intense revival of true religion from a state which, by comparison, was religious death’, ‘an unprecedented quickening for the world in the expansion and success of the gospel’? If God could use the tragedy of Israel’s rejection to bring salvation to the Gentiles, with what further blessing could he not enrich the world through Israel’s acceptance and fullness?
The apostle now uses two little metaphors which function like proverbs, one taken from the ceremonial life of Israel, and the other from the agricultural. Both are clearly intended in some way to justify Paul’s confidence in the spread or escalation of blessings which he has been describing, and, like verse 15, both parts of verse 16 are ‘if’ clauses. If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy (16a). Perhaps this should be interpreted as follows. As when a representative piece is consecrated to God, the whole belongs to him, so when the first converts believe, the conversion of the rest can be expected to follow. Next, if the root is holy, so are the branches (16b), perhaps meaning that as the Jewish patriarchs belong to God by covenant, so do their descendants who are included in the covenant. It seems to be this ‘root’ and ‘branches’ picture which leads Paul now to develop his allegory of the olive tree.
b. The allegory of the olive tree (11:17–24)
The olive, cultivated in groves or orchards throughout Palestine, was an accepted emblem of Israel, as was also the vine. Paul now develops the metaphor in such a way as to accommodate and illustrate his teaching about Jews and Gentiles. The cultivated olive is the people of God, whose root is the patriarchs and whose stem represents the continuity of the centuries. Now some of the branches have been broken off, standing for the unbelieving Jews who have been temporarily discarded, and you [Gentile believers], though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others [the Jewish remnant], so that you now share with them in the nourishing sap from the olive root (17).
Some commentators make heavy weather of Paul’s allegory. They point out that, according to the normal procedure, ‘grafts must necessarily be of branches from a cultivated olive inserted into a wild stock, the reverse process being one which would be valueless and is never performed’. C. H. Dodd goes further and makes merry at Paul’s expense. ‘Paul had the limitations of the town-bred man . . . and he had not the curiosity to inquire what went on in the olive-yards which fringed every road he walked.’ Poor ignorant city boy! So some scholars draw attention to Paul’s reference in verse 24 to what is ‘contrary to nature’ and suggest that Paul knew what he was saying and was deliberately wishing to teach theological rather than horticultural lessons.
In 1905, however, Sir William Ramsay wrote an interesting article, which is still quoted, in which he drew on both ancient and modern authorities. The process Paul described, he wrote, was still in use in Palestine ‘in exceptional circumstances’, for
it is customary to reinvigorate an olive tree which is ceasing to bear fruit by grafting it with a shoot of the wild-olive, so that the sap of the tree ennobles this wild shoot and the tree now again begins to bear fruit.
Paul’s reference, therefore, is not to ‘the ordinary process of grafting the young olive-tree’ but to ‘the method of invigorating a decadent olive-tree’. In this case what is ‘contrary to nature’ is not the ‘grafting’ but the ‘belonging’, namely that the shoot has been cut from the wild olive to which it naturally belonged and has been grafted into the cultivated olive to which it does not naturally belong.
Paul develops his allegory in such a way as to play on the themes of ‘broken off’ and ‘grafted in’, and to teach two complementary lessons. The first is a warning to the Gentile believers not to presume (17–22), and the second a promise to the Israelite unbelievers that they could be restored (23–24).
The warning to the believing Gentiles is clear. The olive has experienced both a pruning and a grafting. Some branches have been cut out of the cultivated tree. That is, some Jews have been rejected. And in their place a wild shoot has been grafted in. That is, some Gentiles have believed and been welcomed into God’s covenant people. Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. This is the warning, which Paul supports with a number of arguments. First, he says, you must remember your dependence on the root, for branches have no life in themselves. Consider this: you do not support the root, but the root supports you (18). Second, you must reflect that your stability is due to your faith alone. You may protest that Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in (19). This is formally true. Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith (20). So your position is distinctly vulnerable.
Third, do not be arrogant, but tremble (20). For you must not forget what happened to unbelieving Israel, which belonged naturally to the olive tree. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either (21), for you do not naturally belong. Fourth, you must constantly meditate on the character of God. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness in judgment upon those who fell, the apostate Jews, but kindness to you, believing Gentiles, who have been absorbed by his sheer grace alone, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off (22). Not that those who truly belong to him will ever be rejected, but that continuation or perseverance is the hallmark of God’s authentic children.
This urging of Gentile believers not to boast, together with the arguments with which it was reinforced, was undoubtedly much needed in Rome. For, although the Jews were tolerated and protected by law from Gentile harm, they suffered a great deal of popular Gentile ill will and sometimes from outbreaks of violence. Resisting assimilation to Gentile culture, and refusing to abandon or modify their own practices, ‘their exclusiveness bred the unpopularity out of which anti-Semitism was born. The Jew was a figure of amusement, contempt or hatred to the Gentiles among whom he lived.’ Paul was determined that Gentile believers in Rome would have no share in such anti-Semitic prejudice.
After this warning to Gentile believers against pride and presumption, Paul is ready with his promise to Jewish unbelievers. His argument is that if those grafted in could be cut off, then those cut off could be grafted in again. The key word is persist (epimenō), the same verb as is rendered ‘continue’ in the previous verse: And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again (23). Moreover, the assurance of this is drawn from the contrast between the natural and the unnatural branches: After all, if you [Gentile believers] 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 [Jewish believers], the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree! (24). In other words, ‘the restoration of Israel is an easier process than the call of the Gentiles’.
Much of the ‘chain of blessing’, then, is included in the allegory of the olive tree, especially the rejection of the Jews (cultivated branches broken off), the inclusion of the Gentiles (the wild shoot grafted in) and the expected restoration of the Jews (natural branches grafted back in again). What the allegory does not cover is the further truth that through Israel’s restoration the Gentiles will be yet more richly blessed. The warning and the promise are vitally important, however. First the warning: since the natural branches were broken off, the wild ones could be too (21). The Gentiles could be rejected like the Jews. There is no room for complacency. Second, the promise: since the wild branches were grafted in, the natural ones could be too (24). The Jews could be accepted like the Gentiles. There is no room for despair.
c. The divine mystery (11:25–32)
Having completed his allegory of the olive tree, Paul again addresses his readers directly, his brothers and sisters, probably including both Gentile and Jewish church members, since he is now going to refer to the future of both. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited (25a). He has already warned them against boasting (18) and arrogance (20), and now against conceit. ‘Not ignorant so that not conceited’ is the essence of what he writes, for he knows that ignorance is the cause of conceit. It is when we have false or fantasy images of ourselves that we grow proud. Conversely, knowledge leads to humility, for humility is honesty, not hypocrisy. The complete antidote to pride is truth. If only the Jewish and Gentile members of the church in Rome can grasp their position in relation to one another in the purpose of God, they will have nothing to boast about.
What Paul specially wants them to know is this mystery. By a ‘mystery’ he means not a secret which is known only by the initiated, but a secret which has now been openly revealed and has therefore become public truth. Essentially this is Christ himself, ‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’. But in particular it is the good news that in Christ Gentiles are now equal beneficiaries with the Jews of the promises of God and equal members of his family (16:25f.). In this passage in Romans, however, the mystery seems to be what he is about to tell them. It consists of three consecutive truths. The first is that Israel has experienced a hardening in part (25b). This fact is not new, since Paul has already stated it in verse 7. As we have already seen, it is God who ‘hardens’ (9:18), although this is a legal process by which he hands people over to their own stubbornness. The ‘hardening’ takes the form of spiritual insensitivity. In the case of Israel it is the same as the ‘veil’ which Paul elsewhere says lies over their hearts and minds.
But now the apostle stresses that it is only partial (in part), since not all Israelites have experienced it (i.e. not the believing remnant), and only temporary (until . . . ), since it will last only until the second stage of God’s unfolding plan. This Paul now states: until the full number of the Gentiles has come in (25c). While Israel remains hardened, and continues to reject Christ, the gospel will be preached throughout the world, and more and more Gentiles will hear and respond to it. And this process will continue until the full number or full complement (plērōma, the same word having been used of Israel in verse 12) of the Gentiles has been made up.
This will bring about the third stage: and in this way all Israel will be saved (26a). The three main words in this statement, namely ‘all’, ‘Israel’ and ‘saved’, need some investigation.
First, what is the identity of Israel which is to be saved? Calvin believed it was a reference to the church. ‘I extend the word Israel’, he wrote, ‘to include all the people of God’, so that, when the Gentiles have come in and the Jews have returned, ‘the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be drawn from both, will thus be completed’. It is of course true that Paul referred to the church as ‘the Israel of God’ in Galatians 6:16, but throughout Romans ‘Israel’ means ethnic or national Israel, in contrast to the Gentile nations. This is plainly so in verse 25 of this context; so the word could hardly take on a different meaning in the very next verse (26). The natural interpretation of the ‘mystery’ is that Israel as a people is hardened until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and then at that point (it is implied) Israel’s hardening will be over and ‘all Israel will be saved’. I do not think John Murray was putting it too strongly when he wrote: ‘It is exegetically impossible to give to “Israel” in this verse any other denotation than that which belongs to the term throughout this chapter.’
Second, there is the word all. Whom does Paul intend to include in ‘all Israel’? At present Israel is hardened except for a believing remnant, and will remain so until the Gentiles have come in. Then ‘all Israel’ must mean the great mass of the Jewish people, comprising both the previously hardened majority and the believing minority. It need not mean literally every single Israelite. This is in keeping with how the phrase was used at the time. ‘“All Israel” is a recurring expression in Jewish literature,’ writes F. F. Bruce, ‘where it need not mean “every Jew without a single exception”, but “Israel as a whole”.’
The third word is saved. What kind of salvation is in view? The scriptural foundation, which Paul now supplies, will help us to answer this question. It is a mixture of three texts about the salvation of God’s people.
The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.
(26b–27)
These verses together make three affirmations. First, the deliverer will come from Zion. This was, in Isaiah’s original, a reference to Christ’s first coming. Second, what he would do when he came was described in moral terms: he would ‘turn godlessness away from Jacob’. This seems to be a reference to Isaiah 27:9, where Jacob’s guilt would be atoned for and removed. Third, the deliverer would establish God’s covenant, which promised the forgiveness of sins. Putting these truths together, the deliverer would come to bring his people to repentance and so to forgiveness, according to God’s covenant promise. It is clear from this that the ‘salvation’ of Israel for which Paul has prayed (10:1), to which he will lead his own people by arousing their envy (11:14), which has also come to the Gentiles (11:11; cf. 1:16) and which one day ‘all Israel’ will experience (11:26) is salvation from sin through faith in Christ. It is not a national salvation, for nothing is said about either a political entity or a return to the land. Nor is there any hint of a special way of salvation for the Jews which dispenses with faith in Christ.
It is understandable that since the Holocaust Jews have demanded an end to Christian missionary activity among them, and that many Christians have felt embarrassed about continuing it. It is even suggested that Jewish evangelism is an unacceptable form of anti-Semitism. So some Christians have attempted to develop a theological basis for leaving Jews alone in their Judaism. Reminding us that God’s covenant with Abraham was an ‘everlasting covenant’, they maintain that it is still in force, and that therefore God saves Jewish people through their own covenant, without any necessity for them to believe in Jesus. This proposal is usually called a ‘two-covenant theology’. Bishop Krister Stendahl was one of the first scholars to argue for it, namely that there are two different salvation ‘tracks’ – the Christian track for the believing remnant and believing Gentiles, and the track for historical Israel which relies on God’s covenant with them. Professor Dunn is surely right to reject this as ‘a false and quite unnecessary antithesis’.
Romans 11 stands in clear opposition to this trend because of its insistence on the fact that there is only one olive tree, to which Jewish and Gentile believers both belong. Jewish people ‘will be grafted in’ again ‘if they do not persist in unbelief’ (23). So faith in Jesus is essential for them. Whether or not Dr Tom Wright is correct in rejecting the notion of ‘a large-scale, last-minute salvation of ethnic Jews’, his emphasis on present evangelism (‘now’, three times in verses 30 and 31) is healthy: ‘Paul is envisaging a steady flow of Jews into the church, by grace through faith.’ The two-covenant theology also has the disastrous effect of perpetuating the distinction between Jews and Gentiles which Jesus Christ has abolished. ‘It would be quite intolerable to imagine a church at any period which was simply a Gentile phenomenon’ or ‘consisted only of Jews’.
Looking back over verses 11–27, we note that Paul sets out four times, with modifications, the same Jews–Gentiles–Jews–Gentiles sequence. First, in his ‘chain of blessing’ (11–12) he moves from Israel’s transgression to salvation for the Gentiles, to Israel’s envy and fullness, to ‘much greater riches’. Second, in reference to his own ministry (13–16) he writes of Israel’s rejection, the reconciliation of the world, Israel’s acceptance and ‘life from the dead’. Third, in the allegory of the olive tree (17–24), the breaking off of the natural branches is followed by the grafting in of the wild shoot, with the prospect that the natural branches will be grafted back in again and that the wild branches must continue in God’s kindness. Fourth, in Paul’s statement of the divine mystery (25–26) he moves from Israel’s partial, temporary hardening to the fullness of the Gentiles to the salvation of all Israel, though the grand finale of blessing to the world is not mentioned.
The conclusion to Romans 11 (28–32), apart from the doxology (33–36), contains two distinct statements. Both are very finely chiselled and sculptured. Both focus on still unbelieving Israel (‘they’), although in relation to believing Gentiles (‘you’). Both not only describe present reality (which includes continuing Jewish unbelief), but also indicate the grounds for confidence that God has neither rejected his people (1–2) nor allowed them to fall beyond recovery (11). What are these grounds? They are God’s election (28–29) and God’s mercy (30–32).
First, God’s election is irrevocable. As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs (28), for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable (29).
Here are two contrasting ways of evaluating the Jewish people. The essence of the contrast is in the words ‘they are enemies’ and ‘they are loved’. Because ‘loved’ is passive, ‘enemies’ must be passive too. That is, it denotes God’s hostility to them, in the sense that they are under his judgment. Indeed, verse 28 insists that they are objects of God’s love and wrath simultaneously. The same verse includes two further explanatory contrasts which develop the distinction between ‘they’ (unbelieving Jews) and ‘you’ (believing Gentiles). In relation to the gospel they are enemies because of you; in relation to election they are loved because of the patriarchs. This needs further explanation. On the one hand, the Jews are not only rejecting the gospel, but actively opposing it and doing their best to prevent you Gentiles from hearing it. So then, in relation to the gospel, and for your sake (because God wants you to hear and believe), he is hostile to them. On the other hand, the Jews are the chosen, special people of God, the descendants of the noble patriarchs with whom the covenant was made, and to whom the promises were given. So then, in relation to election, and for the sake of the patriarchs (because God is faithful to his covenant and promises), he loves them and is determined to bring them to salvation. For the fact is that God never goes back on his gifts or call (29). Both are irrevocable. His gifts are the privileges he bestowed on Israel, which are listed in 9:4–5. As for his call, ‘God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfil?’ It is because of God’s steadfast faithfulness that we can have confidence in Israel’s restoration.
The second ground for confidence that God has a future for his people is his mercy. For God’s mercy is shown to the disobedient. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience (30), so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you (31).
These carefully constructed verses contain a parallel rather than a contrast. Human disobedience and divine mercy are depicted in the experience of both Gentiles and Jews; the obvious difference is that, whereas God has already been merciful to disobedient but repentant Gentiles, his mercy to disobedient Israel belongs largely to the future. But there is another difference, namely in the reasons given for God’s mercy, which are expressed in the Greek sentence by simple datives. Thus, you received mercy ‘as a result of their disobedience’ (30), whereas they will receive mercy ‘as a result of God’s mercy to you’ (31). More fully, it is because of disobedient Israel that disobedient Gentiles have received mercy, and it is because of this mercy to disobedient Gentiles that disobedient Jews will receive mercy too. We detect yet again the ‘chain of blessing’, as Israel’s disobedience has led to mercy for the Gentiles, which in turn will lead to mercy for Israel.
Verse 32 sums up the argument in such a way as to disclose God’s overruling purpose and plan. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Disobedience is likened to a dungeon in which God has imprisoned all human beings, so that ‘they have no possibility of escape except as God’s mercy releases them’. This has been the argument of this letter, as in its first three chapters Paul demonstrated that all human beings are sinful, guilty and without excuse, and then from 3:21 onwards unfolded the way of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. He writes something similar in Galatians:
Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin . . . we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came.
Thus human disobedience is the prison from which divine mercy liberates us.
But who constitutes the ‘everyone’ who is bound over to disobedience, and the ‘all’ on whom God will have mercy (32)? Some have built their universalistic dreams on this verse. And, isolated from its context in Romans, it could be understood to promise universal salvation in the end. But Romans will not allow this interpretation, since in it Paul declares that there is to be a ‘day of God’s wrath’ (2:5), on which some will receive ‘wrath and anger’, ‘trouble and distress’ (2:8f.). What, then, is the alternative? It is to note that in both halves of verse 32, regarding those whom God has imprisoned in disobedience and those on whom he will have mercy, Paul does not actually write of ‘everyone’ or of ‘all’, but of ‘the all’ (tous pantas). And this expression in its context refers to the two groups who are contrasted throughout the chapter, and especially in verses 28 and 31, namely the ‘they’ and the ‘you’, the Jews and the Gentiles.
Paul has been careful to argue that there is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles either in sin (3:9, 22) or in salvation (10:12). Now he writes that, as they have been together in the prison of their disobedience, so they will be together in the freedom of God’s mercy. Moreover, he has predicted the future ‘fullness’ both of Israel (12) and of the Gentiles (25). It is when these two ‘fullnesses’ have been fused that the new humanity will have been realized, consisting of huge numbers of the redeemed, the great multinational multitude which no-one can count, ‘the many’ who were formerly in Adam but are now in Christ, experiencing his overflowing grace and reigning with him in life (5:12ff.). The end of God’s ways will be ‘mercy, mercy uncompromised’, mercy on the fullness of both Jews and Gentiles, mercy on ‘them all’, that is, ‘on all without distinction, rather than on all without exception’.