INTRODUCTION TO ROMANS 11 The apostle having spoken of the calling of the Gentiles, and given a hint of the perverseness of the Jews in slighting the Gospel, proceeds in this chapter to treat of their rejection; in which he shows, that it was not universal, though of the greater part in his time; a... [ Continue Reading ]
I SAY THEN, HATH GOD CAST AWAY HIS PEOPLE?.... The Alexandrian, copy adds here, "whom he foreknew", as in Romans 11:2: upon the citation of the above passages out of Moses and Isaiah, relating to the calling of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews, the apostle saw an objection would arise, wh... [ Continue Reading ]
GOD HATH NOT CAST AWAY HIS PEOPLE WHICH HE FOREKNEW,.... The apostle goes on with his answer to the objection, by distinguishing and explaining who he meant by the people God had not cast away, namely, which were "foreknown" by him; for all mankind are in a sense his people, being made, maintained,... [ Continue Reading ]
LORD, THEY HAVE KILLED THY PROPHETS,.... By the order of Jezebel, wife of Ahab king of Israel, 1 Kings 18:4. This sin of slaying the prophets of the Lord is charged upon the Jews by Christ, Matthew 23:31, and by the apostle, 1 Thessalonians 2:15. In the text in 1 Kings 19:14, it is added, "with th... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT WHAT SAITH THE ANSWER OF GOD UNTO HIM?.... The divine response, or oracle, the בת קול, "Bath Kol", or voice from heaven; the still small voice of the Lord, which Elijah heard, 1 Kings 19:12: I HAVE RESERVED TO MYSELF; for his worship and service, to be partakers of his grace, inheritors of his... [ Continue Reading ]
EVEN SO THEN AT THIS PRESENT TIME ALSO,.... In which the apostle lived, the time of preaching the Gospel, the accepted time, the day of salvation, which then was, and also now is; at that time when the Gospel was sent unto the Gentiles, and God took out of them a people for his name; when multitudes... [ Continue Reading ]
AND IF BY GRACE, THEN IS IT NO MORE OF WORKS,.... Upon election, being called "the election of grace", the apostle forms an argument, showing the contrariety and inconsistency of grace, and works, in that affair; proving, that it must be by the one or the other: and if by the one, then not by the ot... [ Continue Reading ]
WHAT THEN?.... What can be said to the point the apostle is upon? it is as clear as the sun, out of all question, that God has not cast away all the people of the Jews, nor any whom he foreknew, any age or period of time; neither in the time Elijah, nor in the apostle's, he always having a reserve o... [ Continue Reading ]
ACCORDING AS IT IS WRITTEN,.... In Isaiah 29:10 which passages the apostle seems to refer to, though it is not exactly word for word as here, yet the sense is the same: GOD HATH GIVEN THEM THE SPIRIT OF SLUMBER; or of stupidity and insensibility, so that they were as persons in a deep sleep; their... [ Continue Reading ]
AND DAVID SAITH,.... That is, Christ by the mouth of David, or David in the person of Christ; for the psalm out of which the following words are taken is a prophecy of the Messiah, as appears from some passages cited out of it in the New Testament, and applied to Christ; compare Romans 11:4 with Joh... [ Continue Reading ]
LET THEIR EYES BE DARKENED, THAT THEY MAY NOT SEE,.... Which is to be understood not literally of their being struck with blindness, as the men of Sodom were by the angels, and as Elymas the sorcerer was by the Apostle Paul; but mystically, of the eyes of their understandings being darkened, as they... [ Continue Reading ]
I SAY THEN, HAVE THEY STUMBLED THAT THEY SHOULD FALL?.... This is an objection, which the apostle takes from the mouth of an adversary; and the purport of it is, you say that the people of the Jews being blind, have stumbled at Christ and his Gospel, as was prophesied of them, and to which they were... [ Continue Reading ]
NOW IF THE FALL OF THEM BE THE RICHES OF THE WORLD,.... By "the world", as is clear from the next clause, is meant the Gentiles; who were frequently called so by the Jews, who reckoned themselves to be "the church", and all the nations round about them, "the world"; which observation may serve to il... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR I SPEAK TO YOU GENTILES,.... The church at Rome, as the primitive churches for the most part did, consisted of Jews and Gentiles; hence the apostle sometimes addresses the one, as in Romans 2:17, and sometimes the other, as here; and this he does to observe unto them the grace and goodness of Go... [ Continue Reading ]
IF BY ANY MEANS I MAY PROVOKE TO EMULATION,.... What he had in view, even in discharging his office among the Gentiles with so much labour, assiduity, and indefatigableness, was, that if possible he might stir up the Jews to emulate and imitate the Gentiles, in seeking after Christ; for these he mea... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR IF THE CASTING AWAY OF THEM,.... This argument, as before, in Romans 11:12, is from the lesser to the greater, showing that as the Gentiles received present advantage through the rejection of the Jews, they would receive far greater at their future recovery, and which proves that their rejection... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR IF THE FIRSTFRUIT BE HOLY,.... Some by "the firstfruit" and "root" understand Christ, who is sometimes called, "the firstfruits of them that slept", 1 Corinthians 15:20, and "the root of Jesse and David", Isaiah 11:10, and indeed of all the righteous; and certain it is, that since he is holy, ha... [ Continue Reading ]
AND IF SOME OF THE BRANCHES BE BROKEN,.... This is to be understood, not of the exclusion of the Jews from their national church; for the persons designed by the "branches", were the principal members of it, as the civil and ecclesiastical rulers, the priests, Scribes, and Pharisees, and the far gre... [ Continue Reading ]
BOAST NOT AGAINST THE BRANCHES,.... Those that were broken off: the apostle would not have them vaunt it over them, despise them, and trample upon them; but pity them, and pray for and be abundantly thankful and humbled before God, under a sense of Ida sovereign and distinguishing grace, who had set... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU WILT SAY THEN,.... This is an objection which the apostle foresaw the Gentiles would make against what he had said, and in favour of their boasting; THE BRANCHES WERE BROKEN OFF, THAT I MIGHT BE GRAFTED IN. The sense of which is, that the Jews were rejected and left out of the Gospel church, o... [ Continue Reading ]
WELL,.... To this the apostle answers, by approving and granting in, part what was said, that the unbelieving Jews were broken off and rejected, and that the Gentiles that believed in Christ were grafted in among the Jews that professed his name; but then he tacitly denies that it was for their sake... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR IF GOD SPARED NOT THE NATURAL BRANCHES,.... That is, executed his righteous judgments, inflicted due punishment upon the Jews, unchurched them, and stripped them of those privileges they enjoyed in a church state; who were the natural descendants of Abraham; were naturally, and as born into the... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD THEREFORE THE GOODNESS, AND SEVERITY OF GOD,.... The consideration of both the grace and kindness of God to some, and his severity or strict justice towards others, is recommended by the apostle as very proper to abate pride, vain glory, and haughtiness of spirit; and to engage to humility, f... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THEY ALSO, IF THEY ABIDE NOT STILL IN UNBELIEF,.... The apostle suggests that the Jews also might be recovered and brought into a Gospel church state, provided they did not continue in infidelity; but inasmuch as they seem to lie under invincible ignorance, obstinacy, and unbelief, and were such... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR IF THOU WERT CUT OUT OF THE OLIVE TREE,.... As the apostle argues the possibility of bringing the Jews into a Gospel church state, from the power of God; so here the probability of it, or the easiness and likelihood of its being performed, from the ingrafting of the Gentiles; who were originally... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR I WOULD NOT, BRETHREN,.... The apostle in order to raise the attention of the Gentiles to what he was about to deliver to them, not only styles them "brethren", expressing his affection for them, and their relation to him and other believing Jews, and to one another, being all one in Christ Jesu... [ Continue Reading ]
AND SO ALL ISRAEL SHALL BE SAVED,.... Meaning not the mystical spiritual Israel of God, consisting both of Jews and Gentiles, who shall appear to be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, when all God's elect among the latter are gathered in, which is the sense many give into; but the peop... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THIS IS MY COVENANT UNTO THEM,.... This is what God has promised to them in covenant, and he will be as good as his word; his covenant will never be broken, it will always remain sure and inviolable; so that there is not only a possibility, and a probability, but even a certainty, of the call an... [ Continue Reading ]
AS CONCERNING THE GOSPEL,.... Whereas it might be objected to the call and conversion of the Jews, their implacable enmity to the Gospel, the apostle replies, by granting, that with respect to that, THEY [WERE] ENEMIES to God and Christ, to the Gospel, and the ministers of it, and particularly to t... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THE GIFTS AND CALLING OF GOD,.... By "gifts" are meant, not the gifts of nature and providence, as life, health, strength, riches, and honour, which God sometimes gives, and repents of, and takes away; as he repented that he had made man upon earth, and Saul king of Israel; which must be underst... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR AS YE IN TIMES PAST HAVE NOT BELIEVED GOD,.... The times referred to, are the times of ignorance, idolatry, and superstition; when God suffered the Gentiles, for many hundreds of years, to walk in their own ways; while the Jews were his favourite people, were chosen by him above all people, sepa... [ Continue Reading ]
EVEN SO HAVE THESE ALSO NOW NOT BELIEVED,.... Now is the time of the Jews' unbelief, blindness has happened to them, the vail is over their hearts; as the Gentiles formerly did not believe God, so the Jews do not now; though they believe there is a God, and that there is but one God, yet they do not... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR GOD HATH CONCLUDED THEM ALL IN UNBELIEF,.... Both Jews and Gentiles, particularly God's elect among them: some think the metaphor is taken from the binding up of sheaves in bands; and that Jews and Gentiles are the sheaves, and unbelief the band, in which they are bound together; but the apostle... [ Continue Reading ]
O THE DEPTH OF THE RICHES, BOTH OF THE WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE OF GOD,.... These words are the epilogue, or conclusion of the doctrinal part of this epistle, and relate to what is said throughout the whole of it hitherto; particularly to the doctrines of salvation by Christ, justification by his righte... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR WHO HATH KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD,.... The intentions of his mind, the thoughts of his heart, and the counsels of his will: these could never have been known, if he had not revealed them; nor can the doctrines relating to them, though externally revealed, be known by the natural man, or by the... [ Continue Reading ]
OR WHO HATH FIRST GIVEN TO HIM,.... See Job 41:11; no man can give God anything, which he has not first given him, or which he has not a prior right to, or a claim upon him for; Adam, in innocence, was not able to give God anything, nor are the angels in heaven, much less sinful men on earth; their... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR OF HIM, AND THROUGH HIM, AND TO HIM ARE ALL THINGS,.... Not only all things in nature and providence, he being the Maker and efficient cause of things, and the preserver and supporter of them their beings, and to whose glory they are all designed and directed; but all things in grace owe their o... [ Continue Reading ]