Romans
11:17-36
Good morning! We are moving forward in our series on the
book of Romans. Today, we are at the end
of a section in the letter which addresses the people of Israel, the Jews. This section began three weeks ago and covers
chapters 9, 10 and 11.
In chapter 9, we saw how Israel had
stumbled over the stumbling stone. They
had not accepted Jesus as their Messiah.
Chapter 9 concludes with these words from Isaiah, “The one who believes
in Him will never be put to shame.”
(9:32) Believing in Him is what we are called to do.
In chapter 10, we were reminded again
there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.
“The Lord is Lord of all, and richly blesses all who call on Him.”
(10:12) And yet, the Jews in large measure stuck to seeking their own
righteousness by effort and works. That
chapter concludes saying God stretches out His arms to Israel desiring to draw
them to Himself.
Last week, in the first half of chapter
11, we were told again that God has not rejected Israel. There is even a blessing for the Gentiles,
the non-Jewish, believers. According to
Romans 11:11, Salvation has come to the Gentiles because of Israel’s
transgression.
What is the big deal about this division
between Jews and Gentiles? The Jews
trace their ancestry back to Abraham.
Then, of course, there was the time that the nation spent in Egypt
before receiving the Law through Moses.
God called Israel His chosen people.
The Law told them to keep separate from those who did not follow the
Law. Instead of the people of Israel
becoming a kingdom of priests who displayed God to the world around them, there
was enmity between Israel and those Gentile nations around her.
God’s plan was clear from the beginning. God gave this promise to Abraham, “All
peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:3) In writing to the Galatians, Paul explained
this further, “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,
and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed
through you.’ ” (Galatians 3:8)
There is a link between Jew and Gentile
in the gospel from the very beginning. Today,
we will finish looking at this connection and we’ll finish up Romans 11. But first, let’s pray.
Lord God, give us a right understanding
of these things. Thank you that you do
not reject or set aside those you have chosen.
Glorify Your Name through the Jewish people we pray. Draw all Israel to salvation in Jesus, we
pray. Amen.
We are going to pick up in Romans 11:17:
If
some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot,
have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from
the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other
branches. –Romans 11:17-18
Paul is calling the Gentile Christians,
the majority of the church there in Rome, wild olive shoots. When he speaks of the “branches broken off,”
he is referring to individual Jews. Only
some of the branches have been broken off, not all of them.
All Gentile believers (which is most
every believer here) benefit from Israel.
We are blessed because of Israel.
We get nourishment from the root.
Jesus told us in John 15:5-6, “I am the
vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear
much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away
and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” It is life in Jesus that we receive from the
root.
This idea, this word picture, that Paul
has given us about grafting wild olive shoots into the cultivated root is
contrary to sound agriculture. In fact,
we’ll see in verse 24 later that he writes it is contrary to nature.
Let’s look at a few pictures of what
grafting is. Brian is really a subject
matter expert in this area. I know he
could explain far more into the details than I will be able to. Hopefully, it will be enough for our needs.
You can cut a notch in a branch of a
living tree, and then take a small live piece of another tree and then insert
it into that cut, wrap it up or put a protective coating on it, then it will be
joined to the other branch. This is done
in all sorts of fruit trees, grapes, and olives, of course.
In order for the new grafted piece to
have room to grow and thrive, a branch or branches of the original tree are
often cut off to make space. You see an
example of that in the lower right corner.
The pictures on the left side are taken from an olive tree in Nazareth
in Israel. In that case, all the
original branches have been cut away.
There are only new branches.
Then, in the upper right, the trunk and root of that tree is supposed to
be 2000 years old. It was probably a
little tree when Jesus was on the earth.
You can get into a lot of neat parallels
about the benefits of grafting. One
advantage is controlling the fruit that you get. Apples and olive trees benefit from cross
pollination. When you eat an apple, that
fruit was not often pollinated by the same type of apple. What that means is the seeds in the apple are
some kind of hybrid. If those seeds get
planted, you don’t end up with the same apple you’re eating. Weird, right?
That’s why you don’t graft wild trees into cultivated trees. It’s just not the normal thing to do.
At the same time, this cross pollination
idea is interesting. If you’re talking
about fruit trees, you typically have one tree of one type and one of
another. In Paul’s example, we have one
root, Jesus. If you have the natural
branches (Jewish believers) and wild branches (Gentile believers), it is a
special tree. Having both varieties
together allows for cross-pollination that increases the fruit yield of both
varieties. I think that’s cool.
Let’s continue. We have this warning, “Do not consider
yourself to be superior to those other branches.”
If
you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.
–Romans 11:18
There are at least a couple of ways to
look at this thought. Jesus told the
woman at the well that “salvation is from the Jews.” (John 4:22)
Romans 9 told us that the people of Israel have so many blessings in their
history including the human ancestry of the Messiah. There is a root of God’s work in and through
Israel which supports us.
As I mentioned before, I tend to think
more in terms of the Lord Jesus as the root who supports us. We sing a song based from Isaiah 12:2,
“Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord my
God is my strength and my song, He also has become our salvation.” The Lord, Yahweh, the great I am, is our
salvation. He is the root who supports
us.
You
will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted
in." Granted. But they were broken
off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith.
–Romans 11:19-20
I like the how the Phillips translation
brings out the thought in this verse. “You
may make the natural retort, ‘But the branches were broken off to make room for
my grafting!’ It wasn’t quite like that. They lost their position because they
failed to believe; you only maintain yours because you do believe.”
Again, the branches broken off are
unbelieving Jews. The imperative here
again is belief. Without faith, we are
not connected to God. We are spiritually
dead.
Do
not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He
will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of
God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you
continue in His kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. –Romans 11:20-22
I would like to share again from the
Phillips translation these two verses. “The
situation does not call for conceit but for a certain wholesome fear. If God
removed the natural branches for a good reason, take care that you don’t give Him
the same reason for removing you.”
We should not be arrogant or conceited
about our position rather, we should have reverent or wholesome fear. We need to remember that our connection to
God is not through something we have done or earned. It is by God’s grace.
Paul writes repeatedly on this subject
of humility and fear. Philippians
2:12-13 says that we should “continue to work out our salvation with fear and
trembling for it is God who works in us to will and to act in order to fulfill
His good purpose.” II Corinthians 13:5
tells us to “examine ourselves to see if we are holding to our faith.” Are we doing things in a manner consistent
with what we say we believe? Hebrews 4:1
says that we should be careful.
Truth and Love; Kindness and Sternness
both are needed. If kindness is ignored,
God appears to be a tyrant. If sternness
is ignored, God appears to be ambivalent to sin and evil.
We’ve talked before about how those who
believe are not at risk of losing their salvation. That’s another reason why I liked the
Phillips translation. These verses end
saying, “Take care that you don’t give Him the same reason for removing
you.” It wouldn’t be fitting to behave
in a way that would give God reason to remove us. Take care, be careful, be reverent. Show proper honor and respect toward God.
And
if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to
graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is
wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive
tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into
their own olive tree! –Romans 11:23-24
Here we catch up to the thought that
grafting wild olive branches into a cultivated olive tree is contrary to nature. You could say it’s scandalous.
Jesus spoke of bringing in the Gentiles,
too. In John 10:16, he said, “I have
other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also … and
there will be one flock with one Shepherd.”
The other sheep are Gentiles.
This sheepfold is the Jewish one where he was preaching. In the end though, there will be one flock
with one Shepherd.
I also thought that grafting broken off
branches back into a tree is “contrary to nature.” A grafting must be wick, it must have life in
it to be successfully grafted. You can’t
graft a dead twig. But even if it is
contrary to nature, it is not contrary to God to graft broken off branches into
a tree.
When Jesus told the disciples that it
was harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God that for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle, they replied, “Who then can be saved?” “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man
this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’ ” (Matthew 19:26
NIV) With God, all things are possible!
Apparently, this message was a good one
for prompting songs to come to mind. We
sing another song based on II Corinthians 9:8.
It says that God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all
things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good
deed.” God is able!
And God is “up to something.” It’s a bit of a longer passage, but before we
go on to the end of Romans 11, I’d like to read Ephesians 2:11-22 to set the
stage.
Remember
that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised"
by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (which is done in the
body by human hands)– remember that at that time you were separate from Christ,
excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the
promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you
who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he
himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the
barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law
with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new
humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both
of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He
came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were
near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently,
you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's
people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the
apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In
him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in
the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which
God lives by his Spirit. –Ephesians
2:11-22
Now, Romans 11:25 …
I
do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that
you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the
full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be
saved. As it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; He will turn
godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away
their sins." –Romans 11:25-27
God is doing a great thing. The passage from Ephesians sets out what the
end result will be. Reconciliation. Family.
A unified dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.
Here in Romans 11, we see that there is
sequence in how this will come about.
There is a partial hardening of Israel.
It is temporary. By this, the
full number of Gentiles will be able to come in to God’s family. All the Gentiles who will believe in Christ
will come in.
We also see that all Israel will be
saved. It turns out that the expression
“all Israel” appears a bunch in Scripture. (131 times in the NIV) Most frequently, it refers to the nation of
Israel or a group within Israel, like the army.
It refers to them at a specific point in time. Sometimes, it talks about all Israel in the
present, or sometimes all Israel at a future time.
All Israel is mentioned only two times
in the New Testament. Once here in
Romans 11:26. The second occurrence is
earlier in Acts 2:36 where Peter preaches, “Therefore let all Israel be
assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and
Messiah.” In other words, let every man,
woman, and child in Israel be assured, God has made Jesus both Lord and
Messiah.
In our verse, there are a few possible
interpretations of “all Israel.” It
could mean the total number of elect Jews from every generation analogous to
the full number of Gentiles (a remnant across the ages). It could mean the total number of the elect,
both Jews and Gentiles of every generation, but that seems not so likely
because the previous verse says Israel is hardened. That’s does not apply to a spiritual Israel. Finally, it could mean a great majority of
Jews of the final generation (the whole nation at that time including the
leaders would turn to Christ). Jeremiah
31:34 hints at something like that.
The salvation of the Jews will be on the
same basis as Gentiles: personal faith in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen
from the dead. The quote at the end
there comes from Isaiah 59:20. The idea
of this deliverer / redeemer was understood by the Jewish teachers, the rabbis,
to mean the Messiah. Paul appears to use
it in a similar way here drawing the attention to Jesus as our
deliverer/redeemer.
As
far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as
election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's
gifts and His call are irrevocable. –Romans 11:28-29
Again, as the hardening is
temporary. The enmity is temporary. Back in Romans 11:11, it explains that
Israel’s stumble allowed salvation to come to the Gentiles.
God, in love, chose Israel and his
choice of Israel is irrevocable.
We too can draw comfort that God will
not give up on us, and He leaves the path open to restoration. I think this makes us love Him all the more.
Just
as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result
of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that
they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. –Romans
11:30-31
We all come to Christ as
individuals. I said it a couple of weeks
ago. God doesn’t have any
grandchildren. Believers in Christ were all
at one time disobedient and separated from Him.
God is setting up what I find to be one
of the most amazing things in all Scripture. How will He display His mercy? How do we receive it?
For
God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them
all. –Romans 11:32
To be clear, Paul is not preaching a
general universal salvation. It’s not
that God has mercy on all without exception.
God has mercy on all without distinction.
There is not a different way to
salvation for Jew or Gentile. We all
come to God from the same place. All
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And so, it’s this stunning idea that that
God has taken both Jew and Gentile into custody as lawbreakers, bound to
disobedience. But God offers mercy to the
prisoners. His mercy is based on the
person and sacrifice of Jesus. His mercy
is right there for us all.
Whoever comes to Him, He will never
drive away. (John 6:37) Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who
wishes, take the free gift of the water of life. (Revelation 22:17)
Oh,
the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His
judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of
the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?" "Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?" For from Him and through Him and for Him are
all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen. –Romans 11:33-36
These verses are often marked as a doxology
in bibles. The word doxology originates
in the Greek and although it feels like a big important word, it simply means a
written glory or praise. So, if you
praise God and write it down, that’s a doxology.
Paul closes this section. Some say chapters 9-11. Others say, it’s for the whole letter up till
now, chapters 1-11. It is a praise to
God whose wisdom and knowledge brought about His great plan for the salvation of
both Jews and Gentiles.
God’s ways are above or beyond our
ways. Would any of us thought up His
plan of salvation for us? Only He could
do this.
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?”
comes from Isaiah 40:13 and emphasizes God’s wisdom. No one can know the mind of the Lord unless
He reveals it to us.
The second quoted passage comes from Job
41:11 and highlights God’s sovereign conduct.
“Who has ever given to God that God should repay them?” I suppose you could try, but you will never
make God a debtor to you. You can’t out-give God. He will never need to repay a
debt to anyone. We don’t have anything
to give that didn’t originally come from God.
I’ve tweaked on the following, but in
large measure, it comes from David Guzik, a pastor in California.
It
is all from Him: It wasn’t a human idea.
We didn’t say, “We’ve offended God and have to find a way back to Him. Let’s
work on a plan to come back to God.” In our spiritual indifference and death,
we didn’t care about a plan, and even if we did care we aren’t smart enough or
wise enough to make one. It is all from Him.
It
is all through Him: Even if we had the plan, we couldn’t make it happen. We couldn’t
free ourselves from this prison of sin and self. It could only happen through
God, and the great work of Jesus on our behalf is the “through Him” that brings
salvation.
It
is all for Him: It’s not for me, it’s not for you, it’s all for Him. It is to
the praise of the glory of His grace (Ephesians 1:6). It’s for His pleasure
that we are created, and we find our fulfillment in bringing Him glory and
honor.
Robert Mounce said it this way, “Who but
God could have conceived a plan that would turn disobedience into an occasion
for mercy and in the process reach out universally to all who would believe?”
The Phillips translation gives the first
quotation from Isaiah 40:13 this way, “How could man ever understand God’s
reasons for action, or explain His methods of working?”
To
Him be the glory forever: The fact that Paul can’t figure out God makes him
glorify God all the more. When we understand some of the greatness of God, we
worship Him all the more passionately.
Isn’t it amazing? We can rest in Him with confidence. We can share His goodness with others knowing
that He is faithful. He has thought of
everything. Give Him the glory. Let’s pray.
Lord God, You are amazing. Your plans are amazing. Your ability to cause them to succeed is
amazing. Your love is amazing. We worship You in Jesus’ amazing Name Amen.
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