VERSES 1-4 "I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2- God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, 3- ‘LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life’? 4- But what does the divine response say to him? I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’"
 
 

A. "I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."

1. Paul was living proof that God had not cast off all Israel. He was a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin and still a child of God.

2. God had not cast off all His former people, just those who would not accept the Messiah.

3. Paul is not being egotistical in his affirmation, but is using himself as an argument against what many of his adversaries had said. They, no doubt, insisted that God had been unfair in rejecting "all" His people. But God had not rejected "all" His people, Paul was living proof. One exception always serves to disprove absolute assumptions.

4. Paul next gives his Jewish "pedigree" by identifying his tribe.

B. "God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah..."

1. Not all Israel had turned their back on God. Many had accepted the Messiah.

2. Paul uses the example of Elijah after the confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel. Elijah had begun to feel that there were no other faithful Israelites in the Northern tribes. God used the number "seven thousand" who had not sold out to Baal. See 1 Kings 19:10-18.

a. The number seven is used in biblical and apocalyptic language to represent completeness. Thus combined with thousand (which represented a large number) it mean that there were many in Israel who had not turned to Baal.

3. In the same way, there were many Jews, though certainly a minority, who had embraced the gospel of Christ and were now faithful.

A. "Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace."

1. A remnant had obeyed the gospel. Their election (choosing) had been by grace. It was not their own self-righteousness, as compared to the bulk of Israel, who were trying to be justified by the Law.

2. This did not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that they had not obeyed any commandment. This would be a strange in light of the fact that in chapter 10:16 Paul talks about "obeying the gospel."

B. "And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work."

1. This was completely different to the perverted attitude of a large segment of the Jewish nation. They were attempting to justify themselves by self-righteous command observance of the Law. While God never intended the Law of Moses to do that, they had twisted the Law to their own destruction.

2. This attitude was also caused them to reject the Messiah because he did not meet their expectations of what God’s Messiah would b like. They were not prepared to accept the grace of God which was offered through a cross!

3. But the person who comes to Christ must accept the grace that has been offered on the cross and not think that they can earn it by good deed doing. Obedience to the gospel is simply a response to the grace that was provided by God on the cross.

4. The phrase, "But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work" is found in the KJV and NKJV but is not found in the newer versions. It does not appear in the older manuscripts and is likely not part of the original text.

A. "What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded."

1. Paul uses a question to open the door for his explanation. Why have the elect (the minority) obtained a right standing with God, and everything that entails, while the majority, who have been seeking a right standing with God, did not?

2. Most of the other translations use the word hardened instead of blinded. The Scriptures do use the figure of being blinded in a similar way. See also 2 Corinthians 4:4. 

3. How does God harden the hearts of individuals? There are two possibilities.

a. The Calvinist view - God directly hardens their hearts because of His sovereign power, without regard to the free-will of mankind.

i. The alternative view - Takes into consideration the free-will of mankind. It allow that God hardens the hearts of individuals in the same way as He touches sincere people, with His truth. The perfect example of this is found in the book of Exodus in the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Ten time the text says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but also it says that Pharaoh’s heart ten time. In fact God did harden Pharaoh’s heart, but through the teaching of the Word and Pharaoh’s response to it

ii. Paul proceeds in the next verse to explain how the hearts of Israel have been hardened by God. to show how the hardening has taken place. Jesus also refers to the same passages.

B. Just as it is written: ‘God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, To this very day.’"

1. Paul likely refers to two passages, Deuteronomy 29:4 and Isaiah 29:9. But a close look at both passages, especially Isaiah 29:9, will show how they were hardened by God. 

2. Jesus addressed this very problem in Matthew 13:14-15. Jesus shows that it was the action of the unbelieving Jews that caused their hearts to be hardened!

C. "And David says: ‘Let their table become a snare and a trap, A stumbling block and a recompense to them 10- Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, and bow down their back always.’"

1. This is a quote from Psalm 69:22-23.

2. Note R. L. Whiteside’s comments on this passage: "‘Their table’ was put for their religious food. Instead of being led to Christ by the law they were entrapped by their blind adherence to the law; they were caught as in a snare. And their blind adherence to the law would be their recompense, and that would amount to condemnation."

3. As long as they continued in their hardened condition their punishment would remain.
 
 

VERSES 11-12 "I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12- Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!"
 
 

A. "I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not!" 

1. Was it God’s original intention that His physical people, the Jews, fall? Certainly not! God is not willing that anyone perish, certainly including His former people who rejected the Messiah. See also 2 Peter 3:9.

2. Three points should be gleaned from this little passage.

a. What had they stumbled at? Romans 9:33 is quite plain that it was over the messiahship of Jesus. This is still the primary stumbling block today.

b. This certainly shows that a child of God can so sin as to fall from grace. See also Galatians 5:4.

c. This also destroys the notion that predestined them to fall and not be part of the body of Christ. God did not will it but they "stumbled" of their own volition.

B. "But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles"

1. Even though they had stumbled and God had not willed it, God had worked a common good out of it! Because of their fall, the Jews unwittingly opened the gospel door wide for the Gentiles. See Acts 13:46-48. God can providentially use events that sometime are bad in themselves and work them to a common good. See Romans 8:28. Could God have used a different set of circumstances to work His desire to include salvation for Gentiles in His scheme of redemption? Certainly so! But God took the free-will rejection of Christ and worked it to the calling of the Gentiles.

2. Moses Lard translates the Greek for jealousy as emulation. This does seem a better translation. People often emulate the good done by other but jealousy seems to be an inappropriate emotion here. There are two possibilities here.

a. This was going to urge them on to obedience of the Gospel. Reese puts it this way. "When the Jews see what blessings the recipients of the Gospel are enjoying, they will become envious and want what they have been rejecting, and to a restoration to Divine favor where they are again a part of the ‘chosen people.’"

b. The other possibility is that Paul is not referring to a good emotion at all, but the intense hatred of the Jews toward the Gospel. This would seem to be only heightened by the large scale acceptance of the Christianity by the Gentiles. As long as Christianity was seen as simply a "sect of the Jews" it would not treated with the vehemence that took place as the Gentile began to accept in large numbers. 

c. It must be admitted that it is not clear from the text which of these possible interpretation is the correct one.

C. "Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!"

1. If their fall from their loft position as God’s people brought a great blessing on the Gentile world, how much wonderful would it be if the fleshly Jews who had rejected Christ came to accept him in large numbers!

2. This passage also holds the key to other perceived difficulties later in the text that some have. The fall and failure was simply the rejection of the Jews of Jesus as Messiah. Then it is easy to recognize what the fullness is, the acceptance of the Gospel of Christ and recognition that Jesus is the Messiah.

A. "For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry"

1. Paul is going to explain to the Gentiles, whom he taught and to whom he was called, that he was still vitally interested in the spiritual welfare of his fleshly brethren.

2. He is going to tell them one of the reasons why he was working so hard in his ministry to them.

B. "if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them."

1. Once again, the interpretation of this phrase is different, depending of what definition one ascribes to the word jealousy. 

a. If we ascribe it as "emulation" he is saying that is working hard among the Gentiles to get the Jews to copy the Gentiles and be saved.

b. The other interpretation seems the best. Paul’s work would provoke jealousy among his fleshly brethren. Many would be extremely angry, but it would cause some to pause to examine the message that Paul was preaching and obey the Gospel.

2. Paul did not delude himself with the notion that he would be able to trigger some "national conversion" of the Jews. It would be of only some of them. See also 1 Corinthians 9:22.

C. "For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?"

1. Paul picks up on the assertion made earlier, i.e. that the Jews rejecting the Gospel as a whole was the means for the Gospel being taken so boldly to the Gentiles. 

2. If that meant reconciliation for multitudes, then the acceptance by some Jews would be like resurrection from the dead for them. 

3. They had become so hardened it would seem to be nearly miraculous for any number of Jews to accept the Gospel. Also it would be a "resurrection" because they were dead in the their sins.

A. "For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches."

1. If God accepted the first Jewish converts and cleansed them by the blood of Jesus, He would do the same for any other who is part of the "lump" or "branches."

B. "And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,"

1. This describes what took place with the coming of the church and the rejection of the bulk of the Jews and the widespread acceptance of the Gentiles of the Gospel.

2. The ones broken off was national Israel and the grafted on wild olive branches were the Gentiles.

3. The Gentiles were then able to enjoy all the blessings of being part of God’s tree, i.e. in the church.

C. "do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you"

1. The Gentiles should not follow the same path as the self-righteous Jews and boast in their rrelationship with God as if it is something for which they are responsible for. See also Matthew 3:9. This helped contribute to them being cut off the tree!

2. There is nothing to boast of, saved in the cross and the power of God. See Galatians 6:14.

A. "You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.’"

1. They might become guilty of a form of what destroyed the unbelieving Jews.

2. Just as the unbelieving Jews became self-righteous because of their natural (physical) relationship with God, these Gentiles were in danger of becoming self-righteous by means of their unnatural grafting into the body of Christ.

3. They could come to look down upon those whom were broken off as branches and think it happened through some personal merit of their own.

B. " Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear."

1. They were called upon to remember the circumstances of their grafting and the Jews fall.

2. It was over the Jews unbelief (and the root of this unbelief was trusting it their own merit for salvation, see Romans 10:1-2) that they were cut off from God and because of their faith that they were grafted onto God’s "tree."

3. They should have godly fear because of the circumstances of their being part of the body. 

C. "For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either."

1. If the unbelieving Jews could be cut off for unbelief they could also be cut off as well.

2. Paul was encouraging them to be vigilant concerning their salvation. They must never become smug and self-righteous, thinking that they deserve what God has given them. See 1 Corinthians 10:12.

3. As Coffman rightly notes, one of the great lessons here is the intrinsic fairness of God. God will not spare the Gentiles for doing the same thing as the cut off Jews.

A. "Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off."

1. Mankind has always had a tendancy to go to extremes concerning salvation. In years past many would go to extremes concerning emphasizing the severity of God, making God appear to be harsh and unloving. Calvinist preachers, such as Jonathan Edwards, did this in their preaching.

2. Today it is the other extreme! There is a constant emphasis on the mercy and love of God and almost no teaching concerning His severity.

3. His goodness was just another way of saying His grace. It has already been demonstrated that it was through no personal righteousness on their part that caused the Gentiles to be grafted on, it was God’s mercy because of their acceptance of the gospel.

4. His severity simply means His quality of Justice.. As was already mentioned, God is not a respector of persons but has the same demands on all of mankind.

5. If they continued living by faith (the whole theme of Romans. See Romans 1:16-17) they would remain on the tree, if they became unfaithful they could be cut off just like those unbelieving Jews.

B. "And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again."

1. Paul now adds a new demension to the discussion. Can the unbelieving Jews who were cut off from God come back to their former place of favor with God?

2. Paul declares that they can return to their former favor in the same way that the Gentiles were grafted into the tree, through obedient faith.

C. "For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?"

1. If God was able to take a people who were not His people to start with and provide a means for their to become His people, what should be so hard for Him to be able to make a way for those who had been His people to start with to become part of His people again.

VERSES 25-27 "For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26- And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; 27- For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.’"

A. "For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in."

1. The first thing we should understand about this passage is that Paul wrote it to warn them about becoming conceited in the position as part of the tree of God, i.e. that they were grafted into it and the majority of the Jews were cut off for unbelief.

2. The blindness that had happened to Israel, or at least the majority of them, has taken place because of their rejection of the gospel.

3. The mystery, i.e. what was now revealed which had been previously hidden, was that the rejection of the gospel helped the massive conversions that were currently taking place among the Gentiles.

4. The continued "Gentilization" of the church would continue until the church was almost completely made up on Gentiles. This is a historical fact.

5. The "blindness" (hardness of heart) would continue up until this time. Does it mean that there would be some miraculous conversion of the bulk of the Jewish nation at a point in history after this "fullness of the Gentile."? 

a. Brother Roy Deaver has an excellent discussion of the word "until" in Scripture to show that it does not have to mean a time period for something to quit happening. See 1 Samuel 15:35; 2 Samuel 6:23; John 5:17.

b. The fact is that the blindness would continue for as long as the fullness of the Gentiles take place. What the unbelieving Jews would do after the complete Gentilezation of the church would be a matter of whether or not they turned to the gospel.

B. "And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; 27- For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.’"

1. The Greek word for so here is an adverb, meaning the manner in which they be saved. This does not put a time frame on this salvation at all but merely shows how Israel will be saved, if the bulk of them are.

2. How will they be saved? By the Gospel! Paul quotes Isaiah 59:20 to show the manner of the salvation. He discusses the covenant that will take away sins. This is a clear reference to the gospel of Christ. This, then, shows how the salvation will come, not by a direct operation of God but obedience to the gospel.

A. "Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers."

1. It has already been stated that the rejection of the gospel had served to hasten the spread of it to the Gentiles much more quickly than what could have been expected. These unbelieving Jews were enemies of the truth, there is no doubt.

2. But God had not quit loving them. But there is a clear difference between love and approval. God loved the whole world (John 3:16) but that does not mean that he approved of their actions.

B. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30- For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience,

1. God is not going to quit loving them! He had loved them over the centuries, even though he had to cut off many of them. See Matthew 23:37.

2. It was through the Jews disobedience that the Gentiles had a further, more extensive opportunity to obey the Gospel.

C. "even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy."

1. The disobedient Jews, if they really learn from the calling of the Gentiles, can be drawn back into the fold of God. They too, can be saved, through the Gospel.

D. "For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all."

1. I cannot state it better than brother Taylor. "Verse 32 is a stately summation of everything he has written from Romans 1 to this literary point."

2. God has used the disobedience of the bulk of the Jews to pave the way for the gospel to go forth to all mankind more forcefully!

VERSES 33-36 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! 34- For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor? 35- "Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?" 36- For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
 
 

A. "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!"

1. How beyond human explanation is the wonderful wisdom and knowledge of God! We cannot understand how He can take the free-will of mankind and shape events to the conclusion He desires!

2. This is a quote from Isaiah 40:13.

B. "For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?"

1. This seems to be an echo from the Hebrew in Job 41:11.

2. It is also the same theme as found in 1 Corinthians 2:11ff.

3. No man can see the deep things of God! He is above our comprehension!

C. "Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?"

1. No man can put God in his debt! No matter what we do in God’s service we are always in His debt!

D. "For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen."

1. All mankind is dependent upon Jehovah God for it’s continued survival on this globe! Indeed, "to whom be glory forever!"

Copyright 1999 by Grady Scott may be reproducted for non-commercial purposes at no cost to others.