Romans 11:11-36
Rom 11:11-16
Paul asks if God’s action in giving Israel eyes that cannot see, and ears that cannot hear, and causing them to stumble was intended to cause them to fall ‘beyond recovery’. When Israel rejected the gospel, she ‘stumbled over the stumbling stone’ placed in Zion (9:32–33). Paul’s question is whether this stumbling will result in a fall from which there is no recovery, a rejection by God and therefore spiritual ruin. To this question Paul replies: Not at all! (an expression he uses for emphatic denial and found here for the tenth time in Romans; see the commentary on 11:1).
παράπτωμα. It is a question whether we should see this as a continuation of the metaphor of stumbling (as Moffatt, “by their lapse …”). But Paul’s habitual use of this word is for a sin, and it is better to see his normal use here. The word is cognate with πίπτω, not πταίω.
Romans 11:16-24
Numbers 15:17–21 describes an offering made from the first grain harvested and ground. The cake presented to the Lord consecrated the rest of the batch. Paul wrote that if the dough offered as firstfruits was holy, then the entire batch was holy. In this metaphor the “dough” represents the Jewish believers who had accepted Christ (the remnant of v. 5), and the “whole batch” would be those who would come to believe. The metaphor changes to a tree with its branches. If the root is holy, so are the branches. In this case the “root” represents the patriarchs (esp. Abraham); and the “branches,” the nation that follows. The point is that if the patriarchs were holy (and they were), so also were the Jewish people (in the sense that the positive effects of the patriarchs reached to them (cf. 1 Cor 7:14). God’s rejection of the Jewish nation was neither complete (Rom 11:1–10) nor final (11:11–24).
This is the first of five references to the root/branches metaphor in this chapter (11:16, 17, 18, 19, 21; cf. 11:24; 15:12). At a metaphorical level Paul is saying that if the root of a tree is sound, its branches will be sound also. In one of the subsequent uses of the metaphor (11:17) Paul makes it clear that he is thinking of the root and branches of an olive tree, a symbol used to denote Israel (cf. Jer 11:16–17).
It is crucial that those who profess faith in Christ feel the full weight of their responsibility to remain faithful to Christ and not turn away, lest they face the judgment of God. In other words, when Paul emphasizes God’s sovereignty, it is the positive side that he highlights—God’s saving grace for the elect. When he emphasizes human responsibility, it is the negative side that he highlights—the dire consequences of not believing or not living out one’s professed faith. Generally speaking, salvation is the result of God’s sovereign grace, but God’s judgment is the consequence of unbelief and sin.
Romans 11:25-32
This is an unusual use of the word ‘mystery’, for normally Paul employs it to refer to the mystery of the gospel ‘hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known’ (16:25–26; cf. 1 Cor. 2:1, 7; 4:1; Eph 1:9; 3:3, 4, 9; 6:19; Col 1:26, 27; 2:2; 4:3; 1 Tim. 3:9, 16). However, he sometimes uses it to denote something mysterious or hard to understand too (1 Cor. 13:2; 14:2; 15:51; Eph 5:32; 2 Thess. 2:7). It is in this latter sense that he uses it here in 11:25, where he speaks of the ‘mystery’ of the hardening that has come upon Israel.
Paul found indication of this final salvation of Israel in the words of the prophets. Isaiah promised that a Redeemer would come to those in Zion who repented of their sins (Isa 59:20), and Paul applied the prophecy to the coming of the Messiah. When he came, he would banish ungodliness from Jacob. This was the covenant he made with the descendants of Israel when he took away their sin (Isa 59:21). Jeremiah described a new covenant in which the law of God would be written on the heart, controlling life from within. It stands in contrast to the old covenant, which was inscribed on stone and legislated from without (Jer 31:33–34). Paul was saying that beyond the current period of Israel’s unbelief there would come a time when believing Jews would turn to Christ in faith. They would join the faithful remnant and believing Gentiles to complete the family of God, which stretches throughout all of redemptive history. From the standpoint of the twentieth century, that time is yet future.
Roman 11:28-32
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; God does not change his mind after he has made gifts or issued calls.