Now if you would take a copy of God’s Word in your hands. We are continuing our January intensive; we are doing an overview of the whole book of Romans in the course of the month of January, covering large sections of the book – Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and on Wednesday nights – so that we cover the entirety of Paul’s letter to the Romans in this one month. We’ve come today to the eleventh chapter of Paul’s letter, which you can find on page 946 of the church Bibles.
In chapters 1 through 3, Paul gave us the bad news about human sin. In chapters 3 and 4, he gave us the good news about the righteousness of Christ available to sinners, received by faith alone. And then in chapters 5 through 8, he outlined the implications of the Gospel – we have peace with God, we have assurance of salvation, we have growing personal holiness under the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And last Wednesday evening we looked at chapters 9 and 10 together and we saw Paul turn from the individual to the universal, from the experience of the private Christian to the cosmic scope of God’s saving design, purposed in eternity in the mysterious, divine counsels of God in election, and working by the means of grace, the preaching of the Word and the prayers of God’s people, to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. And now this morning, Paul concludes that fourth section of Paul’s letter here in chapter 11 where he deals with the fate of the Jewish people in particular and offers us bright hope for the future related to the evangelization of the nations.
Now before we look at the passage in any detail, there are a couple of preliminary things to say by way of preface. First of all, at the moment, the nation of Israel is very much in the news. Isn’t that right? And it’s not uncommon for conservative Christians in contemporary America to confuse the modern, secular nation-state of Israel with the Biblical references to Israel or the Jewish people. But the two are not the same thing. It’s very important that we understand that. As we are going to see, the passage before us holds out the promise of the future conversion of the mass of the Jewish people around the world one day, but it has nothing to say about the political validity of any action of the modern, democratic and secular state of Israel. And we mustn’t confuse those things. A zeal for the salvation of the Jews, to which the Bible unambiguously calls us, is not the same as political support for the modern, Israeli state in which the Bible is absolutely silent. Political support for Israel may be good and right and proper, but the Bible has nothing whatever to say about it and this pulpit will therefore remain entirely silent on the question. Our concern is with the eternal destiny of Jews and Gentiles, not the rise and fall of the geo-political fortunes of any modern nation-state. That’s the first thing to say.
The second thing to say by way of preface is that reformed and Presbyterian Christians and churches like ours have historically pointed to this chapter of Romans in particular as a major incentive for both Jewish evangelism and for global mission as a whole. So for example, the Westminster Larger Catechism – we heard about the memorization and recitation by Anderson Payne of the Shorter Catechism; there is an even longer and more challenging catechism than the shorter – the Larger Catechism expounds the Lord’s Prayer in question 191, echoing exactly the language of Romans 11:25. And it says this, “In the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, which is, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan, we pray that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, that the Gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called,” and the language of Romans 11:25 – “and the fullness of the Gentiles brought in.” The same Westminster Assembly that wrote the confession and catechisms also produced a directory for the public worship of God which required ministers to pray, “For the propagation of the Gospel and the kingdom of Christ to all nations, for the conversion of the Jews and the fullness of the Gentiles, the fall of anti-Christ, and the hastening of the second coming of our Lord.” Notice again the language of Romans 11:25.
Based on our passage this morning, our puritan and reformed forebearers believed that one day a point in the evangelization of the Gentiles around the world will be reached, at a day and a time unknown to us but determined by God in His inscrutable purposes. And when it is reached, a remarkable awakening among the Jewish people will take place bringing many of them to faith in their Messiah and enfolding them at last once more into the church. This awakening among the Jews will in turn spell even greater blessing for the rest of the world as the Gospel penetrates into every tribe and language and nation before Jesus comes. And in this way, a whole theology of missions was developed that worked to bring the fullness of the Gentiles in that the Jews might be called and the nations evangelized for Christ.
Sadly, we have largely lost that vision today, clouding it and confusing it with political and sometimes faulty theological opinions so that we now rarely ever pray for the conversion of the Jews; we rarely give any focus to Jewish evangelism, themes that were once a hallmark of reformed missions. But they’ve almost disappeared from the minds of most modern missiologists and mission-sending agencies, not to mention ordinary churches and ordinary Christians. But in my judgment, a recovery of the teaching of this chapter as our forefathers understood it would greatly help inflame a new generation to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth and to propel an army of missionaries, zealous for the good news, to go into all the world and make disciples.
Well all of that said by way of preface, would you look with me now at Romans chapter 11 please. You remember chapter 9, Paul told us God’s purpose in election – choosing to show mercy on some sinners and passing by the rest and treating them as their sins deserve justly. Then in chapter 10, he reminded us that the discriminating choice of God in election actually supports rather than undermines this missionary impulse that drives the apostle Paul. And the same impulse, by the way, that Paul is now trying to cultivate into Roman Christians as well. And along the way you may have noticed that in both chapters 9 and 10 and really throughout Romans thus far, the mysterious unbelief of most of the Jewish people and the ready welcome of the Gospel among many Gentiles has been a constant theme.
And now here in chapter 11 Paul stops to explain how that has happened. What is going on? How come the Jews, who are God’s ancient covenant people, have rejected the Gospel of the Messiah, Jesus Christ? His answer has three parts to it. It has to do, verses 1 through 10, first of all, with divine election. That’s part of the explanation. God is sovereign. Secondly, it has to do with the Gentile mission. God intends for the Gospel to go to the Gentiles and not to the Jews only – in verses 11 through 24. So divine election, Gentile mission, and then thirdly, God has a plan for remarkable Gospel expansion – verses 25 through 36. You see the three parts of Paul’s explanation? Divine election, Gentile mission, and Gospel expansion. That’s what God is up to in what may at first appear a counterintuitive plan.
Before we get to those three themes, let’s pause and pray and then we’ll read some portions of chapter 11 together. Let us pray.
O Lord, we need to hear Your voice. This is a challenging passage, often overlooked, but all of Your Word is inspired, breathed out by God, and useful. And so we pray that You would give us ears to hear what You would say to Your church, by Your Spirit and for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Romans chapter 11 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’ But what is God’s reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”
Then turn forward to verse 13:
“Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.”
And then look down at verse 25:
“Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness 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 banish ungodliness from Jacob’; ‘and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.
John Piper once wrote that, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church, worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over,” writes Piper, “and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity, but worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of mission.”
Paul is actually making the same point when he concludes at the end of chapter 11 this dazzling survey of the purposes of God for the evangelization of the whole world here in Romans 11 when he concludes it with an explosion of praise and doxology. Do you see it in verses 33 through 36?
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
You see, for Paul, the end and design of God in ordering all things so that one day the whole world will hear the Gospel, the goal is the glory and praise of His own great name. And so as Paul glimpses that master plan, exactly that come bursting out of his heart. “Look how wise God is,” he says. “Look how inscrutable His purposes. Whoever would have planned it like this to go this way, and yet how glorious are His plans. All things are His and all things ultimately serve His glory.” God’s plan for missions makes Paul worship. It makes him worship. And as we think in turn about the cause of global mission in this chapter, we need to keep that priority firmly in view. The point of taking the Gospel to the world isn’t ultimately to see unbelievers become believers, to see sinners become Christians. That’s not the ultimate goal. That’s a means to the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to see God exalted in the salvation of sinners. Mission isn’t focused on man; it is focused on God. And the God-centeredness of missions really is the architectonic principle that shapes Romans 9 through 11 together and chapter 11 in particular. Let’s look at it together.
Paul, remember, is addressing the question in verse 1 – “Why don’t the Jews, God’s ancient covenant people, believe in their own Messiah? I ask then, ‘Has God rejected His people?’” What is God up to in the way that history has unfolded, so unexpectedly, so counterintuitively, the Jews denying their own Messiah, Jesus Christ, while Gentiles who have no reason to believe in Him are embracing Him? Paul’s first answer has to do with, of course, with divine election. Notice how Paul points out not all the Jews have rejected Jesus. Paul himself is Jewish – a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, verse 1. But just as it was in the days of Elijah, when so many in Israel turned from the worship of the Lord to embrace idols, verse 5, so to at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace, a minority left of the Jewish people who believe because of God’s choice. So verse 7 – “Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.” Paul is recapping here his teaching from chapter 9. The reason only some Jews believe has to do with the mystery of election and predestination. And yet, according to the sovereign plan of God, even so there remains still a remnant of believing Jews who do embrace the good news.
But that’s only part of Paul’s explanation. God, it turns out, has a wider design in the surprising providence of Jewish unbelief. It does have to do with divine election, but it also has to do, in the second place, with God’s plan for the Gentile mission. Divine election. Secondly, the Gentile mission. Look at verses 11 through 24. You’ll notice immediately in verse 11 that the fall of the Jews into unbelief is not a fall that is beyond recovery. Did they stumble that they might fall? Is there corporate rejection of Jesus final? By no means, Paul says. Their rejection serves a missionary propose. Verse 11 again – “through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.” God still plans on the conversion of the Jews. And how He will accomplish that in part is to provoke them to jealousy by showing them Gentiles, like most of us, trusting in the Jewish Messiah ahead of them.
But even more than that, God has a very specific program for the future of the global missionary cause. Look at verse 12. “Now if their trespass” – he means the Jewish unbelief and rejection of Jesus – “if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure” – their failure to believe – “means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!” In the wake of Jewish rejection of Jesus, the Gospel went to the nations, to the Gentiles. That much is clear. But then Paul makes an argument – do you see this – from the lesser to the greater. He says that if their rejection means blessing for us, how much more wonderful will it be for us when they are included once more into the people of God through faith in Jesus Christ. And note carefully this is not an aspiration; it’s not a mere possibility. It’s not even a missionary priority towards which he and we all should work. It is stated here as a future certainty, as a promise. The Jews, one day, will be included once again and what a day for the world that will be.
And just to be sure we get what he is saying, he repeats his point again in verse 15. Look there please. Verse 15. Still arguing from the lesser to the greater, he says, “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.” A relatively small number of Jews believed in Jesus in Paul’s day; that’s still true in our day. But they are just the firstfruits of a greater harvest that will surely come, Paul is saying. The firstfruits, you may remember, were consecrated to God as a sacrifice in the temple. But the firstfruits only presaged the full harvest on its way. The few Jews who believed, Paul says, they are only the root, but the branches one day will spread wide and bear fruit. A bright future hope for the Jews, and through them for the world, is being promised to us here. Do you see it?
And please don’t miss the implications for us. Paul sort of hits the pause button and applies this to the consciences of his Gentile readers in Rome and to all of us in verses 17 through 21. Twice over, he says his teaching here about Jews and Gentiles ought to generate great humility in our hearts. Gentiles, he says, are wild branches cut from an uncultivated tree. And the natural branches, the Jews, grown from the cultivated tree of God’s covenant people, they are cut off in their unbelief so that we might be grafted in through faith. But if some of the branches were cut off so that you could be grafted in, verse 18, “do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.” Verse 20, “They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.”
The Gentile church had been grafted into the one people of God, the covenant people – the covenant established with Abraham so long ago. Many Jews had been cut off from that cultivated olive tree so that we could be grafted in. And so we ought not to despise our Jewish neighbors, as sadly in the history of the church many Christians too often have done. Right? The root from which they and we have sprung, the root of God’s ancient covenant, supports us. The Gentile church has been brought into their inheritance by faith in their Messiah, and so a posture of gratitude and indebtedness and humility toward the Jews should mark us. Not pride. We are not members of the people of God because we are superior and the Jews inferior. That ugly lie has persisted with dreadful consequences across the ages, hasn’t it, but it has no support whatever in the Word of God.
But more than humility toward the Jewish people, Paul says his teaching here should generate in our hearts the deepest humility before God. Verse 22, “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.” We are not special; that’s his point. God cut them off for their prideful rejection of the very idea that they needed Jesus and He will cut us off too if we ever begin to believe that we are favored because we deserve to be, that we are elite, that we are special. No, no. We owe all the privileges of salvation entirely to the kindness of God. It’s all mercy. “Note,” he says, “Take note. Make sure you grasp this. Let it register. Let it sink in. Note the kindness and severity of God. Humble yourselves before Him to whom you owe your whole eternity.” It’s only faith in the work of Christ that has secured your inclusion into the people of God, in His obedience and blood, in His mercy and grace. Not any merit of ours that saves us. And so we are to humble ourselves as we take in God’s master plan.
So only a remnant of the Jews believe, first of all, because of divine election – verses 1 through 10. But more than that, history unfolds in the way that it does because of God’s plan for the Gentile mission – verses 11 through 24. And that ought to humble us to the dust. They were cut off so that we might be grafted in. And then thirdly, God’s plan aims at worldwide, Gospel expansion in verses 25 through 32. If you’ll look there please. Verse 25 – “I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved.” The phrase, “the fullness of the Gentiles,” I take to refer to God’s appointed moment when the Gentile mission around the world reaches a point when the conversion of the mass of the Jewish people will begin in earnest according to God’s timetable and plan. And then their inclusion once more will mean greater riches for the world, verse 12. It will be like life from the dead, verse 15.
Romans 11 is teaching us that one day the bulk of the Jewish people will come to faith in their Messiah and be grafted back again once more into the covenant people of God, that is, to the church of Jesus Christ. And when they are, it will spell the beginning of revival on a global scale. Now I do not believe as some do in a golden age at the end of history when the whole world will be Christianized. I think it’s clear God does indeed promise remarkable Gospel success before the end of the age, but He also promises in other places in Scripture that keeping pace with that success there will be a commiserate, hostile reaction from the unbelieving world. Persecution will grow right alongside Gospel advance. Opposition will gain momentum right along with revival and kingdom growth.
But be that as it may, we mustn’t lose sight of the teaching of the apostle Paul that the future of the Gospel is bright. Do you believe that? The future of the Gospel is bright. I think we are sometimes prone, aren’t we, to view things and say, “Things are worse now than they have ever been.” It’s a temptation we have, isn’t it? We’re prone to catastrophize and to declare that the moral decay and the decline of the church is more rapid and precipitate in our generation than in any time previously. Sometimes church leaders even try to motivate renewed dedication to discipleship and evangelism by scaring you with dire predictions of impending doom and the final collapse of the church and the end of civilization as we know it, the eradication of all hope. But that neither squares with the evidence of history nor the New Testament teaching. Yes, we ought to expect things to get harder, maybe even harder than ever before, but in that difficult context, the Gospel will shine brighter than ever before. Remember that Paul is writing Romans, that the whole purpose of his letter really is to enlist the Roman Christians to support him as he lands in Rome and then plans to go on further missionary journey to Spain. He wants to make Rome his missionary base and he wants the Romans to get excited about and “buy in” as it were to his planned missionary endeavors. He wants to awaken in them missionary zeal and missionary passion. And so he supplies them here in our passage with a missiology, a theology of mission that doesn’t drive us forward by the whip of guilt or the fearful threat of looming defeat. No, Paul’s theology of mission rings with Gospel optimism. Gospel optimism.
Now I know I hide it well, but as a Scotsman, I am natively pessimistic. I know that’s a great surprise to you, but I have to say that my pessimism about myself, about human wisdom and human culture and human institutions, I think that’s entirely supported by holy Scripture. Pessimism about myself and the products of human wisdom. But listen, neither my native Scottish pessimism nor perhaps your own tendency to catastrophize, neither of them have any place in our Christian hearts when it comes to the prospect of the Gospel itself. I doubt myself. I doubt human wisdom. I doubt human institutions. Maybe you do too; that’s well and good. But do not doubt that one day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Do not doubt that men and women, boys and girls, more numerous than anyone can count will be found at the last, pressing in around the throne of God and of the Lamb, mingling their voices together in adoring wonder that they should be found among the redeemed of the earth. Paul wants us to grasp and to believe and act in light of the sure, certain promise of Gospel success and kingdom advance. We are to be the instruments of God in bringing the good news to the nations. That plan may yet endure many setbacks and fall foul of many human errors and endure much, even severe persecution before the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. But the plan, let’s never forget, is the plan of God and none of His plans ever fail. The fullness of the Gentiles will come in as we bring the good news to the world and then all Israel will be saved.
And so Paul is saying to the Roman Christians, he’s saying to you and me, “Do not grow weary in well doing. Do not lose heart as you bear witness to Christ. Do not let the day of small things” – that’s what it feels like now, doesn’t it? The day of small things – “Do not let the day of small things lead you to the misplaced conclusion that it’s all downhill from here.” No, the Gospel’s future is bright. It’s bright, and we are its servants. So be bold. Believe God more than you believe your eyes and your ears as you survey our culture. Give in support of mission. Pray for the lost. Pray for our missionaries as we send them around the world to reach the lost. Preach Christ to your unconverted friends and family and neighbors and see how the arm of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save.
As Paul takes all of that in, his heart erupts, it bursts in praise in verses 33 through 36. Doesn’t it? And as we said at the beginning, that’s the whole point; that’s the big agenda. God wants to set you on fire with wonder and gratitude and worship at what He purposes to do, what He will surely accomplish, and how He will use even you and me to get it done. Marvel at the masterplan and get up and go to the world and bring the nations with us into the joy of everlasting praise. May God make it so. Let’s pray together.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We pray for help to believe it more than we believe our eyes and our ears. It’s easy when, in some cases at least, all we have playing in the background every moment of every day is cable news, catastrophizing and playing the politics of fear. It’s easy with a constant diet of those voices to believe that everything is terrible and the prospects for the Gospel are bleak and it’s only just going to get worse. But it is not so. It may get harder to be a follower of Jesus, there may yet be mounting persecution, but You promise great Gospel success in the midst of opposition. One day we bless Your name, one day the fullness of the Gentiles will come in, and all Israel will be saved, the whole people of God, from every tribe and language and nation. Use us, please, in the accomplishment of that great design for the glory and praise of Your name. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.