Lesson 25 – Romans Chapter 11:21-36
In the first half of chapter 11 we learned that God is not done with the Nation Israel. Even though Israel was zealous for the Lord, she had turned her back on the Messiah. And with her rejection of Christ, God had blinded Israel’s spiritual heart… except for a remnant. This is still taking place today.
We also saw that we Gentiles, “the wild olive tree,” have been grafted into “the root and fatness of the olive tree.” Just as when a branch is grafted into a tree, it becomes a permanent part of the tree. The Olive Tree we are grafted into is alive and eternal, having no end. We need to remember, our being grafted into God’s family is a gift from God by His mercy and grace.
Rom. 11:21
“For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.”
This is a warning from Paul, that if the Gentiles reject God’s provision of salvation through Jesus Christ, God may not spare you either. The Gentiles are just as accountable to God as the Jews are. This is a lesson to be learned from the Jews, we are to realize that, although we have been grafted in by God’s grace, we can be cut off if we refuse to respond to His grace, meaning His offer of salvation.
Rom. 11:22
“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.
“Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in His kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off.” (NLT)
What are we to consider here? The goodness and severity of God.
First let’s look at the goodness of God. The basic root meaning for goodness is “kindness.” The NLT will often translate the word “grace” by using the word, “lovingkindness.” The grace that saves us is God’s kindness toward us, His lovingkindness.
Eph. 2:7
“That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
God’s kindness toward us in Christ Jesus is His salvation.
Titus 3:4-6
“But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,”
For those who put their faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, God is showing His grace and kindness toward us… and then He pours out His Holy Spirit on us abundantly. What a precious gift He has given to us.
How is it that goodness comes from God? It is because He is good. The fact that God is good means that He has no evil in Him, His intentions and motivations are always good, He always does what is right… knowing this should give us great comfort.
Psalm 100:5
“For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.”
Ultimately, God’s goodness is seen in His plan to redeem us from sin. The gospel is “good news.” In His goodness, God sent His Son to become the perfect and blameless sacrifice so we could be forgiven of our sins. This speaks to the context of Rom 11:22, but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness… this is not a reference to someone’s individual salvation, but to God’s plan in more general terms, for Jews and Gentiles alike.
Now the severity of God. It can mean “stern, severe, intense, strict, or harsh.”
What if churches would put out on their front signs: “Consider the sternness of God”? That might not bring in very many visitors.
The root meaning of severity is: cutting right off, or cutting quickly, this corresponds to the end of our verse where it says, cut off. The ultimate severity of God is His judgment.
Those who fell… means to fall down to a place where the person is completely ruined. Here, Paul is speaking about an extremely serious condition, in which people fell from a spiritual opportunity (meaning salvation) into God’s judgment.
• How is it that these people fell?
Luke 12:10
“And anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven.”
There’s only one sin that can’t be forgiven, and that is the sin of rejecting God by refusing His offer of forgiveness and a new life in Jesus Christ. This alone is the unforgivable sin, because it means we are saying “no” to God, that the Holy Spirit’s witness about Jesus is a lie.
But toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
In other words, if we take advantage of God’s free gift of salvation, we will experience His goodness for all eternity.
The word otherwise means a person rejects God’s plan… the end result for that is eternal damnation. (you also will be cut off)
Rom. 11:23
“And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.”
“And if the people of Israel turn from their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, for God has the power to graft them back into the tree.” (NLT)
Rom. 11:24
“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?”
God took the “wild ones,” the Gentiles, and blessed them with His salvation, receiving them into His family (grafted into the “natural olive tree.”) If God would do that for the “dogs,” the “uncircumcised ones,” or the “wild ones” as I like to say, how much more will God react to His “chosen people”? I think we see a clear picture of God’s reaction in Luke 15.
Luke 15:18-24
‘I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; ‘for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.”
Just as when we take one step toward God, He comes running to us, God will be sprinting to the Jews the moment they come to God with a repentant heart. That day is coming!
Rom. 11:25
“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.”
“I want you to understand this mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you will not feel proud about yourselves. Some of the people of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles comes to Christ.” (NLT)
• Do you understand the mystery that Paul is talking about? Explain it in your own words.
Mystery: is a hidden thing, a secret, religious secrets, confided only to the initiated and not to ordinary mortals. God graciously responds to our human inadequacies or our shortfalls by revealing His purpose to His people. When God’s purpose is revealed in this way, the Bible frequently refers to it as a “mystery.”
Mark 4:11
“And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables,”
Col. 1:26
“The mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.”
Whenever someone comes up to you and says, “Do you want to know a secret,” don’t you immediately give that person your full attention? I think we can consider ourselves highly privileged to know and understand this mystery of God. The neat part about this secret is, God wants you to share it with everyone, you don’t have to keep it a secret.
Lest you should be wise in your own opinion… so that you will not feel proud about yourselves.
Again, this is a reference to boasting and prideful thinking. The only boasting we should be doing is in Christ Jesus.
That blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
What is going to happen to Israel in the future is foreseeable. The blindness that has occurred is partial, it’s temporary. It seems to be permanent when you look back through history and see how long it’s been for Israel so far. The NKJV uses the word blindness and the NASB uses hardened. Part of the mystery we’ve been talking about includes this blindness and the hardening of Israel, but through all of this, God has not rejected Israel.
Not every Jew has been or will be hardened. All throughout history God’s hand has been on His creation, and He has preserved for Himself a believing remnant.
Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in…
This tells us when the hardening will finally come to an end. Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in talks about a time of completion.
Luke 21:24
“And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
The fullness of the Gentiles is when the full number of Gentiles have been born-again. In other words, there is a person out there (a Gentile) who will be the very last person to be saved. When this person gives their life to Christ, this will be the completion of the Gentiles, and when this happens the Rapture of the Church will take place. So, if you ever needed a good incentive to tell someone about Jesus, this is it. The person you witness to could be the last person God is waiting for.
Israel’s unbelief will last only until the complete number of Gentiles chosen by God have come to salvation.
Rom. 11:26
“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;” (Isa. 59:20-21)
All Israel… this doesn’t mean that every single Jew that ever lived will come to Christ and be saved. What it does mean is, that Israel as a nation will be saved. There are two schools of thought here with the phrase “All Israel.”
One opinion is that “All” doesn’t mean every Jew will be saved, just as not every Jew was hardened or blinded. The other opinion is that “All” means “All,” that all the Jewish people will be saved.
To support the first opinion: Even as the apostasy of Israel did not extend to every last Jew, so the salvation of Israel will not extend to every last Jew; Paul is speaking of the “mass” of Jews when he says all Israel. “All Israel” is a recurring expression in Jewish literature, where it need not mean ‘every Jew without a single exception’, but ‘Israel as a whole.’ ” (FF Bruce) And, when all Israel is saved, they will be saved through embracing Jesus Christ as Messiah – as unlikely as this seems. They are not saved with some peculiar “Jewish” salvation.
To support the second opinion: (W. Wiersbe) “The reference here is Isaiah 59:20-21; and you ought to read Isaiah 60 to complete the picture. God has promised to save His people, and He will keep His promise. There are those who interpret this as meaning salvation to individuals through the Gospel, but it is my conviction that the prophet has national conversion in mind. “All Israel shall be saved” does not mean every Jew who has ever lived will be converted, but that the Jews living when the Redeemer returns will see Him, receive Him, and be saved. Zech. 12-13 give the details. It seems to me that there are too many details in these Old Testament prophecies of national restoration for Israel for us to spiritualize them and apply them to the church today.”
John MacArthur; “All Israel” must be taken to mean just that… the entire nation that survives God’s judgment during the Great Tribulation. The common amillennial view that all Israel refers only to a remnant redeemed during the church age does injustice to the text. Paul’s declaration about all Israel is set in clear contrast to what he has already said about the Jewish believing remnant which the Lord has always preserved for Himself. The fact, for instance, that only some of the branches (unbelieving Jews) were broken off (v. 17), plainly indicates that a remnant of believing Jews… not those broken off… will continually exist while the fulness of the Gentiles is being completed. These are Jews being redeemed who are not part of the spiritual hardening that has come upon Israel because of her rejection of her Messiah. Before all Israel is saved, its unbelieving, ungodly members will be separated out by God’s inerrant hand of judgment, Ezekiel makes that truth clear”:
Ezek. 20:33-38
“As I live,” says the Lord God, “surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded My case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead My case with you,” says the Lord God.
“I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”
Zech. 13:8-9
And it shall come to pass in all the land,” Says the Lord, “That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, But one-third shall be left in it: I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people’; And each one will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”
“Those who hear the preaching of the 144,000 of other converts, of the two witnesses, and of the angel, and thus safely pass under God’s rod of judgment will then comprise all Israel, which, in fulfillment of God’s sovereign and irrevocable promise, will be completely a nation of believers who are ready for the kingdom of the Messiah Jesus.”
I can see that at this point, after God has literally cleaned house during the Great Tribulation, that we could classify Israel as only a “remnant.” These Jews will have gone through God’s refining fire, and I think they will be ready to claim Jesus as their One and only true Messiah.
Rom. 11:27
“For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”
Simply said, God keeps His promises, when God makes a covenant it is never broken. Paul is speaking of the new and everlasting covenant.
Matt. 26:28
“For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
Acts 10:43
“To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”
Remission of sins is God taking away our sins, this is a reality for whoever believes… Jews and Gentiles alike.
Rom. 11:28
“Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.”
“Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and this benefits you Gentiles. Yet they are still the people He loves because He chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (NLT)
The Jews are considered enemies of the gospel because they rejected the gospel. But concerning the election… the NASB words it, “but from the standpoint of God’s choice,” election and God’s choice mean the same thing. God bound Himself by His own promises to bring the Jews to salvation, He did this through the patriarchs, they are forever His beloved and holy people.
Rom. 11:29
“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
Irrevocable means “not able to be changed or reversed.” God does not change His mind. He made promises to the patriarchs and He will fulfill them. Isn’t it nice that we have a God that does not wavier.
John MacArthur; “Just as God’s sovereign grace and election cannot be earned, neither can they be rejected or thwarted. They are irrevocable and unalterable. Nothing therefore, can prevent Israel’s being saved and restored, not even her own rebellion and unbelief, because, as Paul has just declared, her ungodliness will be sovereignly removed and her sins graciously taken away. What is true of elected believers is true of elected Israel: “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” (I Thess. 5:24)”
Rom. 11:30-31
“For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy.”
“Once, you Gentiles were rebels against God, but when the people of Israel rebelled against Him, God was merciful to you instead. Now they are the rebels, and God’s mercy has come to you so that they, too, will share in God’s mercy.” (NLT)
It’s important to remember that God chose the Jews so that the Gentiles might be saved.
Gen. 12:3
“I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
The heartbreak that took place was that Israel became exclusive within themselves and they failed to share the truth with the Gentiles. They felt that the Gentiles needed to become Jews in order to be saved.
Rom. 11:32
“For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.”
God declared both Jews and Gentiles to be in the same condition… lost and condemned.
This means that God could have mercy on everyone because of the perfect sacrifice of His Son Jesus.
Rom. 11:33
“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!”
This is Paul praising God as we all should.
John Bertram Phillips, a British bible translator said; “If God was small enough to figure out, He wouldn’t be big enough to worship.”
Jon Courson; “You see, there are things we’ll never figure out… election vs free-will, sovereignty vs responsibility. And although we could spend hours reading and studying, pondering and arguing, some things we’ll never reconcile because our brains are too small. Forget trying to figure it all out. Just marvel at the goodness God has shown you!”
Job. 5:9
“Who does great things, and unsearchable, marvelous things without number.”
God has things that are so far above human discovery, to try and enter that realm can cause your brain to hurt. The best part of all of this is, God loves you… if He is for you who could ever be against you.
Rom. 11:34
“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?”
Isn’t it funny how we can pray to God and tell Him what needs to be done. Granted, we can have the very best of intentions, but seriously, who are we to tell God what He needs to do? Our prayer needs to be, “thy will be done” in my life, in my family, and in our church. Here’s a hard reality for us… even when it comes to our pains, our sufferings and hurts, we should pray, “Thy will be done, and not ours.”
Rom. 11:35
“Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?”
God is greater than our best giving, we can’t out give God when it comes to time, money, love or anything else. Have you ever given anything to God that He didn’t already possess?
Rom. 11:36
“For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
“For everything comes from Him and exists by His power and is intended for His glory. All glory to Him forever! Amen.” (NLT)
Psalm 145:3
“Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! No one can measure His greatness.” (NLT)
And so, we close out this section of Romans, knowing that God has proven Himself to the Jews. He chose them sovereignly, and He deals with them fairly and evenhandedly.
Therefore, God will not give up on them eternally. Israel has a future and a hope in the Lord. Israel will be redeemed, the scripture tells us this. All the promises that Israel holds on to for her future will come to pass. And we know that all things are going to come together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. God promised they would, and it’s in God we trust!