Romans 11

Chapter 11. God’s Purpose Regarding Israel and the WorldI speak the truth in Christ— am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. (Romans 9:1-5)In the last section we traced the providence of God with respect to God’s saved and sanctified people. In the present section the apostle unfolds the principles of God’s providence as respects the larger field of the world, and more particularly the Jewish nation, God’s covenant people. The apostle had already established in earlier chapters, the great principle that the gospel applies to all men alike as sinners, irrespective of race and class. So far as salvation is concerned, “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him” (Romans 10:12). But, lest it might be supposed from this that all God’s promises to Israel are thereby turned aside and transferred to the Gentiles, he now takes up the question of God’s purpose for Israel and His special providence with respect to His chosen people. Was God’s ancient covenant set aside by some afterthought and rendered of none effect by Israel’s disobedience, or has there been an immutable purpose running through all the centuries like a golden thread, and reaching out to its final fulfillment in the coming ages? The discussion of this great question occupies the next three chapters, and forms the profoundest and clearest treatise in the Scriptures on Israel’s place in connection with the Gentiles, the gospel, the Christian dispensation and the coming of the Lord. Paul’s Love to Israel

1. The apostle’s own interest in the subject is obvious. It was very near and dear to his heart—so dear that he could truly say, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1), and that he could almost wish himself accursed from Christ, if by this awful sacrifice his countrymen could be saved (Romans 9:3). Every heart that is in true sympathy with Christ feels in this way respecting Israel. We cannot truly understand our Master’s Spirit if we do not sympathize with His “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3), and long and labor to save them and bring them into His covenant and will. All who are interested in the fulfillment of prophecy and the coming of the Lord will ever cherish an intelligent and earnest interest in the seed of Abraham, and will be found laboring and praying for “the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalms 122:6). God’s Covenant
2. Paul reviews Israel’s calling and God’s covenant with them. The apostle recognizes and magnifies the importance of Israel’s place in God’s purpose and covenants. “… the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen” (Romans 9:4-5). Separated from the nations, that they might be kept a pure and peculiar people, God made them the repositories of His oracles, the witnesses of His truth and the representatives of His name on earth, admitted them to the most sacred covenant with Himself, made them the teachers of the world and, above all else, kept them as an ancestral line through whom His own Son at length came, in the flesh. He has given to them promises extending through a thousand generations, which have only begun to be fulfilled. It is doubtless true that there is a spiritual Israel, and that they are not all Israel which are of Israel, and that, in a sense, the promises to Israel are fulfilled to the New Testament Church; yet the promise is still true to the literal Israel, and while Japheth is entitled to share the tent with Shem (Genesis 9:27), he has no right to steal the tent and turn Shem out, robbed of his promises and his inheritance. The apostle most distinctly recognizes the permanency of God’s covenant with Israel as God’s chosen people through God’s ancient election and His unchanging plan, and so he adds, And so ail Israel will be saved; as it is written, “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.” As 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, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. (Romans 11:26-29) Their Failure
3. Paul establishes Israel’s failure to fulfill God’s purpose concerning them and their temporary rejection on account thereof. They disbelieved and disobeyed God, and in consequence they were broken off from their own olive tree, and God had to say to them, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people” (Romans 10:21). Through every age of Israel’s national history they failed, notwithstanding all God’s goodness and grace. The patriarchal age ended in the sin of Israel’s sons and their going down to Egypt. The deliverance from Egypt was followed by the wanderings in the wilderness, and the conquest of Canaan terminated in 400 years of declension. The kingdom of David and Solomon ended in Solomon’s mournful backsliding and the division into two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The 10 tribes went out into captivity and apparent extinction. The kingdom of Judah was carried away to Babylon, and even when God restored His captive people and sent His own Son to them as their Prophet, Priest and King, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11). He was rejected and crucified, His apostles and disciples were persecuted, and God had to give up Israel for ages of darkness and sorrow unspeakable and unparalleled. Not only has God permitted the Gentiles to trample them down, but He Himself has visited them with the most dreadful of His judgments—the spirit of slumber and judicial blindness, and the veil still hides the Savior from their eyes, so that the dreadful words of their own prophetic Scriptures have been fulfilled to them: As 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.” And David says: “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 forever.” (Romans 11:8-10) God told them that all this would happen to them if they disobeyed Him and broke His covenant. In the 26th chapter of Leviticus He announced to them that if they were unfaithful He would bring upon them seven times (or ages) of affliction and judgment (Leviticus 26:18), and for 2,500 years these seven ages have been slowly and terribly fulfilled, until at length the years have almost run out, the “times of the Gentiles are nearly fulfilled, and Israel’s times are coming into view once more.” The Gentiles
4. The calling of the Gentiles to take Israel’s place is revealed: As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” and, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ “(Romans 9:25-26) Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, “I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.” And Isaiah boldly says, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.” (Romans 10:19-20) Again 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. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring! (Romans 11:11-12) If 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, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. (Romans 11:17-18) I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited [wise in your own conceits]: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:25) We Gentiles have been in danger of becoming “wise in our own conceits,” and imagining that the gospel was given especially for us. We must not forget that our place is purely a parenthesis, and that we have come in through Israel’s failure, and have simply been grafted in as branches into a tree that was there before ever we were born. We were outcasts and strangers, and have simply been invited in to share the shelter of Israel’s tent, but we must take heed lest we despise the original owners of the tent, and seclude them from their own prerogatives. Israel had her time of probation and we have ours. It is almost run out. Let us make the best of it, profit by their example, and take heed lest we repeat their sin and share their judgments. Israel’s fall is the riches of the world! Israel’s casting away, the reconciliation of the world. But let us “not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either” (Romans 11:20-21). Israel’s Remnant
5. Meanwhile, even during Israel’s suspension as a nation, there is a remnant of Israel, all through the ages, who are saved. “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved’” (Romans 9:27). God 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: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” (Romans 11:2-4) There has probably never been a period in the history of Israel when there have not been some to represent the true spiritual seed of Abraham. The number of those who have turned to Christ from among the Hebrews at the present day is large and constantly increasing. Such names as Delitzch, Edersheim, Saphir and Rabbinowitch, represent the fruit that God is gathering from the fig tree of Israel, even in the present generation. The extraordinary movement that has circulated the New Testament in Hebrew in less than five years among a half million Jews, or rather to the extent of half a million copies, is the most remarkable sign of our times, and shows that the heart of Israel is beginning to turn to their true Messiah. It has been stated that there are more than 50,000 converted Jews in the world today. At least we know that as there were 7,000 in Israel, even in the time of Ahab and Jezebel, God has His remnant yet, even amid all the pride and unbelief of this unbelieving nation. Let us thank God for the increasing number of Hebrew Christians, and labor and pray for the ingathering of the first fruits of these people, as well as from the Gentiles. Israel’s Restoration
6. Israel as a nation will yet be restored to their land and their national independence, and will be brought to accept Christ as their Messiah, and to turn from unbelief to God, and when they do thus return to God and accept the Savior their restoration will bring wonderful blessing to the whole world. Again 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. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring! (Romans 11:11-12) For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15) And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. (Romans 11:23) And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “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.” As 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, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 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. (Romans 11:26-31) There is a great and glorious field of prophecy and promise in these passages. They make it very certain that God’s covenant shall be literally fulfilled to His ancient people, and that this will include not only national restoration, but salvation through their conversion to Christ. This is to come about through the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob” (Romans 11:26). It is probable that Israel will return to their own land in unbelief. There is every indication at the present time of the accomplishment of this fact within a very short time. A very decided movement toward Palestine has begun among the Hebrew people. Within the past few years the movement known as Zionism has been thoroughly organized in all the Hebrew communities in various parts of the world, and its chief object is to take measures for the colonization of Palestine by the Jews. After the nation shall have been reestablished in Palestine, the Lord Jesus, at His coming for His saints, shall show Himself to Israel as He did to Paul on the way to Damascus, and they shall be converted by the vision of their Lord. “They will look on the one they have pierced” (John 19:37). Then shall follow a time of great tribulation, but at the end Christ shall return for His saints in glory and establish His millennial reign on earth, and then Israel shall become the queen of nations and her people the great evangelizers of the world. The World’s Blessing
7. Their restoration shall be to the rest of the Gentile world as life from the dead. In the 15th chapter of Acts the apostle has given us the perspective very clearly. First the Lord visits the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. This is the work that is now going on through the great missionary movement among the Gentile nations, and its object is to gather a company of firstfruits from the people of every tribe and tongue unto the Bride of the Lamb, to meet Him at His coming. “After this,” the Lord says, “I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent” (Acts 15:16). This is the restoration of Israel and the coming of the Lord. Then comes the third stage, “That the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things” (Acts 15:17). This is to bring about the salvation of the race, and all the Gentiles. Such, then, is Israel’s place in the purpose of God, and such is our high calling in the closing days of the times of the Gentiles. May God help us to become true “men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chronicles 12:32), and to work in cooperation with our great Leader in speedily gathering the firstfruits of the Gentiles, and the preparation of Israel for the coming of the Lord!