Romans 11:15

For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? [Again we have a passage wherein "the apostle," as Meyer expresses it, "argues from the happy effect of the worse cause, to the happier effect of the better cause." If a curse, so to speak, brought a blessing, what would not a blessing bring? If the casting away of Israel in Paul's day resulted in the beginning of the times of the Gentiles, and the turning of them from idols and imaginary deities to seek after the true God as part of a theocratic family wherein converted Jew and Gentile are reconciled to each other and to God (see Ephesians 2:11-22 for a full description of this double reconciliation), what would the receiving again of the vast body of unconverted Jews at the end of the times of the Gentiles (Romans 11:25-26) be but a veritable life from the dead, an unprecedented, semi-miraculous revival? Theophylact, Augustine, Melanchthon, Calvin, Beza, Bucer, Turretin, Philippi, Bengel, Auberlen, Clark, Macknight, Plumer, Brown, Lard, Gifford, Moule, Riddle, etc., view this as a great spiritual resurrection, a revival of grace accompanying the conversion of the whole world. Others, as Origen, Chrysostom, the earlier commentators generally, Ruckert, Meyer, De Wette, etc., look upon it as a literal, bodily resurrection, while Olshausen, Lange and Alford consider it as a combination of spiritual and bodily resurrections. The first of these positions is most tenable. "This," says Barnes, "is an instance of the peculiar, glowing and vigorous manner of the apostle Paul. His mind catches at the thought of what may be produced by the recovery of the Jews, and no ordinary language would convey his idea. He had already exhausted the usual forms of speech by saying that even their rejection had reconciled the world, and that it was the riches of the Gentiles. To say that their recovery--a striking and momentous event; an event so much better fitted to produce important results--would be attended by the conversion of the world, would be insipid and tame. He uses, therefore, a most bold and striking figure. The resurrection of the dead was an image of the most vast and wonderful event that could take place." Some of those who view this as a literal resurrection, do so from a lack of clear conception as to the order of the dispensations. They look upon the conversion of the Jews as taking place at the very end of the world, and hence synchronous with the final resurrection. They do not know that the Jewish dispensation, or age, gave place to the present one, which is called "the times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24), and that this dispensation will give place to a third, known as the millennium or age of a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-6). The Jewish dispensation ended with the death of Christ, and the Gentile dispensation will end when the gospel is preached unto all nations (Matthew 24:14). Its end, as Paul shows us at verses 25 and 26, will also be synchronous with the conversion of the Jews. Failure to grasp these important facts has led to much general confusion, and to gross mistakes in the interpretation and application of prophecies, for many Biblical references to the end of the Gentile dispensation, or age, have been erroneously referred to the end of the world, or end of the ages. The last age, or millennium, will be the triumph of the kingdom of God, the thousand-year reign of the saints on earth, and it will begin with the conversion of the world under the leadership of the Jews, and this is the event which Paul fittingly describes as "life from the dead." The millennium will be as a resurrection to the Jews (Eze 37), for they will return to their own land (Ezekiel 37:11-14; Ezekiel 37:21; Ezekiel 37:25) and revive their national life as a united people (Ezekiel 37:22). It will be as a resurrection of primitive, apostolic Christianity to the Gentiles, for the deadness of the "last days" of their dispensation (2 Timothy 3:1-9; 2 Timothy 4:3-4), with its Catholic Sardis and its Protestant Laodicea (Revelation 3:1-6; Revelation 3:14-22), will give place to the new life of the new age, wherein the "first love" of the Ephesian, or first, church will be revived (Revelation 2:4-5), and the martyr spirit of Smyrna, its successor, will again come forth (Revelation 2:10), and the devil will be chained and the saints will reign (Revelation 20:1-6). This spiritual resurrection of the last age is called the "first resurrection," for it is like, and it is followed by, the real or literal resurrection which winds it up, and begins the heavenly age, or eternity with God. Ezekiel tells what the last age will do to the Jews, Paul what it will be to the Gentiles, and John what it will mean to them both. As to Paul's description Pool thus writes: "The conversion of the Jewish people and nation will strengthen the things that are languishing and like to die in the Christian church. It will confirm the faith of the Gentiles, and reconcile their differences in religion, and occasion a more thorough reformation amongst them: there will be a much more happy and flourishing estate of the church, even such as shall be in the end of the world, at the resurrection of the dead." All this, as Paul boldly asserts, will result from the blessed power of Jewish leadership, as in the beginning. "The light," says Godet. "which converted Jews bring to the church, and the power of life which they have sometimes awakened in it, are the pledge of that spiritual renovation which will be produced in Gentile Christendom by their entrance en masse. Do we not feel that in our present condition there is something, and that much, wanting to us that the promises of the gospel may be realized in all their fullness; that there is, as it were, a mysterious hindrance to the efficacy of preaching, a debility inherent in our spiritual life, a lack of joy and force which contrasts strangely with the joyful outbursts of prophets and psalmists; that, in fine, the feast in the father's house is not complete... why? because it can not be so, so long as the family is not entirely reconstituted by the return of the elder son. Then shall come the Pentecost of the last times, the latter rain." Against the above view that Paul speaks of a spiritual resurrection it is weakly urged that it assumes a future falling away of the Gentiles, and a lapse on their part into spiritual death, and that the apostle gives no intimation of such a declension by them. But it is right to assume such a declension, for Paul most clearly intimates it; for (1) all the remainder of this section is a discussion of how the Jews brought their dispensation to an end, and a warning to the Gentiles not to follow their example and have their dispensation end in a like manner. (2) In verse 25 he speaks of the fullness or completeness of the Gentiles. But, according to the divine method, this dispensation of the Gentiles could not reach completeness and be done away with until it became corrupt and worthless. God does not cast off till iniquity is full and failure complete (Genesis 6:13; Genesis 15:16; Matthew 23:29-33). Moreover, some five years before this, in the second Epistle that ever came from his pen, Paul had foretold this declension in the church, and had described it as even then "working," though restrained (2 Thessalonians 2:3-12). The assumption on which this view of a spiritual resurrection rests is both contextual and natural. Finally, as to this being a literal body resurrection, we must of course admit that an all-powerful God can begin the millennium that way if he chooses, but to suppose that the literally resurrected dead shall mingle and dwell with the rest of humanity for a thousand years, or throughout an entire dispensation, savors of fanaticism. Even Jesus kept aloof during his forty days of waiting before his ascension. A healthy mind can not long retain such an idea, nor can we think that Paul would introduce so marvelous and abnormal a social condition without in some measure elaborating it. As against a literal, physical resurrection Hodge argues strongly. We give a sentence or two: "Not only in Scriptures, but also in profane literature, the transition from a state of depression and misery, to one of prosperity, is expressed by the natural figure of passing from death to life. The Old Testament prophets represented the glorious condition of the Theocracy, consequent on the coming of Christ, in contrast with its previous condition, as a rising from the dead.... Nowhere else in Scripture is the literal resurrection expressed by the words 'life from the dead.' Had Paul intended a reference to the resurrection, no reason can be assigned why he did not employ the established and familiar words 'resurrection from the dead.' If he meant the resurrection, why did he not say so? Why use a general phrase, which is elsewhere used to express another idea? Besides this, it is not according to the analogy of scripture, that the resurrection of the dead, and the change of those who shall then be alive (1 Corinthians 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18), are to be immediate, consequent on the conversion of the Jews. The resurrection is not to occur until 'the end.' A new state of things, a new mode of existence, is to be then introduced. Flesh and blood--i. e., our bodies as now organized--can not inherit the kingdom of God." For a full discussion of the spiritual nature of the resurrection, from the pen of A. Campbell, see his articles on the second coming of the Lord, in the Millennial Harbinger. We shall never know how dead our liquor-licensing, sectarian, wealth-worshipping, stock-gambling, religio-fad-loving, political, war-waging Christendom has been until the spirit of the early church rises from the dead to form the new age; then it will be at once apparent to all what Paul meant by this bold figure, "life from the dead." But the glorious prospect here presented rests on the supposition that the Jews en masse shall be converted. As that is a supposition which many expositors even in our day regard with doubt, the apostle first shows its Scriptural and natural reasonableness, and then plainly and unequivocally predicts it. He presents its reasonableness thus]