Romans 11:25-27

Vv. 25, 26 a. “ For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in own your conceits:that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved. ”

The form of expression: “I would not that ye should be ignorant,” always announces a communication the importance of which the apostle is concerned to impress. The style of address: brethren, leaves no room to doubt that the apostle is here speaking to the church as a whole. Now it is indubitable that in Romans 11:28; Romans 11:30 those readers whom he addresses with the word ye are of Gentile origin. This proof of a Gentile majority in the church of Rome seems to us incontrovertible.

Paul uses the word mystery to designate the fact he is about to announce. He does not mean by this, as might be thought from the meaning this term has taken in ecclesiastical language, that this fact presents something incomprehensible to reason. In the N. T. the word denotes a truth or fact which can only be known by man through a communication from above, but which, after this revelation has taken place, falls into the domain of the understanding. The two notions mystery and revelation are correlative; comp. Ephesians 3:3-6. The apostle therefore holds directly from above the knowledge of the event he proceeds to announce; comp. 1 Corinthians 15:51 and 1 Thessalonians 4:15.

Before stating the fact he explains the object of this communication: “that ye be not wise in your own eyes.” The reference here is not, as in Romans 11:19, to proud thoughts arising from the preference which God seems now to have given to the Gentiles. It is the wisdom of self whose inspirations Paul here sets aside. The converted Gentiles composing the church of Rome might form strange systems regarding Israel's rejection and future history. Paul is concerned to fix their ideas on this important point, and leave no place in their minds for vain and presumptuous speculations. He borrows his expressions from Proverbs 3:7. Instead of παῤ ἑαυτοῖς, beside yourselves, two Alexs. read ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, within yourselves. The copyists may possibly have changed the original ἐν (in) into παρά, under the influence of the text of the LXX. The meaning is substantially the same.

The contents of the mystery are declared in the end of this verse and the first words of the following: “ hardness is happened.” Paul had already pointed out this, Romans 11:7; but he adds: in part, ἀπὸ μέρους. This word is explained, as it seems to me, by the expression of Romans 11:7: “the rest were hardened,” and by the term some, Romans 11:17. Hence it follows that we must here give the word in part a numerical sense. Judgment has not fallen on the totality of Israel, but on a part only; such is also the meaning to which we are led by the antithesis of the all Israel of Romans 11:26; comp. 2 Corinthians 2:5. It is a mistake in Calvin to apply this word: to the degree, of the hardening which according to him still left room for partial blessings; and in Hofmann, in a more forced way still, to apply it to the restricted time during which it is to last.

But even this judgment, which has overtaken one entire portion of the nation, will have an end: to make it cease, God waits till the totality of the Gentile nations shall have made their entry into the kingdom of God. This is the people which should have introduced all the other peoples into it; and for their punishment the opposite is what will take place, as Jesus had declared: “The first shall be last.” It is almost incredible how our Reformers could have have held out obstinately, as they have done, against a thought so clearly expressed. But they showed themselves in general rather indifferent about points of eschatology, and they dreaded in particular everything that appeared to favor the expectation of the thousand years' reign which had been so much abused in their time. Calvin has attempted to give to the conj. ἄχρις οὖ, until that, the impossible meaning of in order that; which in sense amounted simply to the idea of Romans 11:11-12. Others gave to this conjunction the meaning of as long as, to get this idea: that while the Gentiles are entering successively into the church, a part of the Jews undoubtedly remain hardened, but yet a certain number of individuals are converted, from which it will follow that in the end the totality of God's people, Jews and Gentiles (all Israel, Romans 11:26), will be made up. This explanation was only an expedient to get rid of the idea of the final conversion of the Jewish people. It is of course untenable 1st. From the grammatical point of view the conj. ἄχρις οὖ could only signify as long as, if the verb were a present indicative. With the verb in the aor. subjunctive the only possible meaning is: until. 2d. Viewed in connection with the context, the word Israel has only one possible meaning, its strict meaning: for throughout the whole chapter the subject in question is the future of the Israelitish nation. 3d. How could the apostle announce in a manner so particular, and as a fact of revelation, the perfectly simple idea that at the same time as the preaching of the gospel shall sound in the ears of the Gentiles, some individual Jews will also be converted? Comp. Hodge.

The expression: the fulness of the Gentiles, denotes the totality of the Gentile nations passing successively into the church through the preaching of the gospel. This same whole epoch of the conversion of the Gentile world is that which Jesus designates, Luke 21:24, by the remarkable expression: καιροὶ ἐθνῶν, the times of the Gentiles, which he tacitly contrasts with the theocratic epoch: the times of the Jews (Luke 19:42; Luke 19:44). Jesus adds, absolutely in the same sense as Paul, “that Jerusalem shall be trodden down until those times of the Gentiles be fulfilled;” which evidently signifies that after those times had elapsed, Jerusalem shall be delivered and restored. In this discourse of Jesus, as reported by Matthew (Matthew 24:14) and Mark (Mark 13:10), it is said: “The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached unto the Gentiles throughout all the earth; and then shall the end come.” This end includes the final salvation of the Jewish people.

Olshausen and Philippi suppose that the complement of the word πλήρωμα, fulness, is: “of the kingdom of God,” and that the genitive ἐθνῶν, of the Gentiles, is only a complement of apposition: “Until the full number of Gentiles necessary to fill up the void in the kingdom of God, made by the loss of Israel, be complete.” This is to torture at will the words of the apostle; their meaning is clear: Till the accomplishment of the conversion of the Gentiles, there will be among the Jews only individual conversions; but this goal reached, their conversion en masse will take place.

Ver. 26a Καὶ οὕτως cannot be translated “and then;” the natural meaning is: and thus; and it is quite suitable. Thus, that is to say, by means of the entrance of the Gentiles into the church, comp. Romans 11:31. When Israel shall see the promises of the O. T., which ascribe to the Messiah the conversion of the Gentiles to the God of Abraham, fulfilled throughout the whole world by Jesus Christ, and the Gentiles through His mediation loaded with the blessings which they themselves covet, they will be forced to own that Jesus is the Messiah; for if the latter were to be a different personage, what would this other have to do, Jesus having already done all that is expected of the Messiah? Πᾶς ᾿Ισραήλ, all Israel, evidently signifies Israel taken in its entirety. It seems, it is true, that the Greek expression in this sense is not correct, and that it should be ᾿Ισραὴλ ὁλος. But the term πᾶς, all (every), denotes here, as it often does, every element of which the totality of the object is composed (comp. 2 Chronicles 12:1: πᾶς ᾿Ισραὴλ μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ, all Israel was with him); Acts 2:36; Ephesians 2:21. We have already said that there can be no question here of applying the term Israel to the spiritual Israel in the sense of Galatians 6:16. It is no less impossible to limit its application, with Bengel and Olshausen, to the elect portion of Israel, which would lead to a tautology with the verb shall be saved, and would suppose, besides, the resurrection of all the Israelites who had died before. And what would there be worthy of the term mystery (Romans 11:25) in the idea of the salvation of all the elect Israelites!

Paul, in expressing himself as he does, does not mean to suppress individual liberty in the Israclites who shall live at that epoch. He speaks of a collective movement which shall take hold of the nation in general, and bring them as such to the feet of their Messiah. Individual resistance remains possible. Compare the admirable delineation of this period in the prophet Zechariah (Romans 12:10-14).

Two prophetic sayings are alleged as containing the revelation of this mystery.

Vv. 26b, 27. “ As it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: and this is the covenant I will make with them when I shall take away their sins. ”

Two passages are combined in this quotation, as we have already found so often; these are Isaiah 59:20; Isaiah 27:9. As far as the word when, all belong to the first passage; with this conjunction the second begins. Both in Isaiah refer to the last times, and have consequently a Messianic bearing. Paul follows the LXX. in quoting, with this difference, that instead of ἐκ Σιών, from Sion, they read ἕνεκεν Σιών, “in favor of Sion.” The form of the LXX. would have as well suited the object of the apostle as that which he employs himself. Why, then, this change? Perhaps the prep. ἕνεκεν, in favor of, was contracted in some MSS. of the LXX. so as to be easily confounded with ἐκ, from. Or perhaps the apostle was thinking of some other passage, such as Psalms 110:2, where the Messiah is represented as setting out from Sion to establish His kingdom. But what is singular is, that neither the one nor the other form corresponds exactly to the Hebrew text, which says: “There shall come to Sion (the Zion), and to them who turn from their sins in Jacob.” It is probable that instead of leschave (“them that turn”) the LXX. read leschov (to turn away); and they have rendered this infinitive of aim by the future: he will turn away. Hence the form of our quotation. However that may be, the meaning is that He who shall deliver Sion from its long oppression, will do so by taking away iniquity from the entire people. Such is, in fact, the bearing of the term ᾿Ιακώβ, Jacob, which denotes the whole nation collectively. It is therefore on this second proposition of Romans 11:26 that the weight of the quotation properly rests. As to the first proposition, it may be regarded as a simple introduction; or we may find in it the idea, that after setting out from Sion, the preaching of the gospel, having made the round of the world, will return to Israel to purify it, after all the other nations; or, finally, it may be held, with Hofmann, that the words from Sion denote the place whence the Lord will make His glory shine forth, when He shall fulfil this last promise on the earth.