The Conversion of Israel, 11:25–32
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27 And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, 29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. 30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 31 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. 32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Until now Paul has spoken of a “remnant” of Israel that is saved while the bulk of the nation has been “hardened”. As he brings his discussion of justification to a close, he looks forward to the time when “all Israel” will be saved. Some commentators see in this a vision of the time at the end of the age when the whole nation of Israel will turn to Christ and enter the salvation for which he died. They point out that throughout this section of the epistle Paul is concerned with the nation, and specifically they see no good reason for seeing a difference of meaning in “Israel” in verses 25 and 26. So they see Paul as looking forward to a glorious time when the Jews, as a nation, will turn to Christ. There may be some individuals who will not respond to the gospel, but the nation as a whole will become Christian. Others insist that Paul has been giving special attention to the “remnant” throughout the discussion until now, and they ask on what grounds we should hold that Paul thought that the last generation on earth before Christ comes again would be treated differently from all the others. They also hold firmly that “all Israel” is a curious way of referring to most of the last generation, after many, many generations have died outside Christ. Should not “all Israel” have something to say about these generations? They see in “Israel” accordingly a reference to the true people of God and thus to elect Jews in all generations including the last. While both positions are held very firmly, it cannot be said that either group has been able to bring forward an argument so decisive that it makes the position of the other untenable. It is clear that we must examine what Paul says with great care.
25. “For” is omitted by NIV, but it is important; it links this verse closely with verse 24 and indeed with the whole of the argument leading up to this point. What has preceded is no idle conjecture, “for” Paul has a revelation which assures him of its truth.
I do not want you to be ignorant is an opening Paul uses a number of times (see the note on 1:13). This opening always leads into something Paul regards as important, and he always follows it with
brothers, which joins him with his readers in the bonds of Christ and removes any impression that he is taking up a position of superiority. He has been using the singular pronoun in addressing a hypothetical reader, but he switches now to the plural, and he retains the plural throughout the subsequent discussion.
He speaks of a
mystery, a term the Christians used in the sense of something that people could not possibly know of themselves, but which has now been revealed to them. It was not incomprehensible, not “mysterious” in our sense of the term; it was something beyond us to discover, though we can understand it all right when God has made it known to us. It is an important term: in this discussion of the place of Israel Paul is not referring to the obvious, but to something that required a revelation before Christians could understand it. Paul uses it to refer to a number of facets of the Christian message (e.g., 1 Cor. 2:7; 15:51; Eph. 3:4), but especially to the gospel (e.g., Eph. 6:19). Here his thought is that the place of Israel could not be worked out by the unaided human mind; if we are to understand it, it has to be made known by God. This revelation is
so that you may not be conceited, “wise in yourselves”. In other words, you may not think that your own intellect or merit has brought this knowledge.110 Evidently some Gentile believers were tempted to think that there was no future for Israel. She had rejected the gospel and it had now passed to the Gentiles; Israel was finished, rejected, cast off. God had chosen them instead. It is this kind of pride that Paul is opposing.
That about which Paul does not want his readers ignorant is that
Israel has experienced a hardening in part. Goodspeed translates “only partial insensibility”, but most agree that it is not partial hardening but part of Israel that is meant (cf. RSV, “a hardening has come upon part of Israel”; Chrysostom says, “not the whole people”). This is a temporary hardening, taking place while God’s purpose is worked out among the Gentiles or, as Paul puts it,
until the full number of the Gentiles114
has come in. The word NIV renders
full number is that rendered “fullness” in verse 12. NIV may well be right in seeing a reference to number. In that case a certain number of Gentiles are to be saved, and God is waiting until that number has been reached before taking action for Israel. Another possibility is that here, as perhaps also in verse 12, something like “fullness” is meant. It is also possible to understand the expression as the fullness of the blessing of the Gentiles or the full contribution of the Gentiles, or the Gentiles as a whole. Whichever way we take it, the fullness is regarded as active and as entering the scene (it “comes in”). This verb is sometimes used of entering the kingdom or life (as in Matt. 7:21; 18:8; Mark 9:43–47), and absolutely in much the same sense (Matt. 7:13; 23:13; Luke 13:24), as SH point out. We should probably see a reference to the fulfilment of God’s purpose in bringing Gentiles into his kingdom, however we understand the individual words.
26. And so, Paul says,
all Israel will be saved. This expression has caused unending disputation among expositors. Paul’s
so is usually taken to refer to what precedes, in which case it surely means “in this way”, that is, through the divinely appointed process whereby the hardening of part of Israel brought salvation to the Gentiles, a temporary hardening effective only until “the fullness of the Gentiles” has come in. But
so can also refer to what follows (e.g., 10:6; 1 Cor. 3:15, etc.). If that is the case here, we should put a full stop at the end of verse 25 and see a new thought in verse 26, namely that all Israel will be saved when the Redeemer comes to Zion. This second suggestion is not impossible, but on the whole the former way seems more likely to be correct. The end result of this process will be the salvation of
all Israel, an expression that exegetes have found notoriously difficult. There is considerable agreement that
all Israel does not mean “each and every Israelite without exception”; the term refers to the nation as a whole. It is used in this way in the Old Testament (1 Sam. 12:1; 2 Chron. 12:1; Dan. 9:11). Particularly instructive is a passage in the Mishnah which assures the reader that “All Israelites have a share in the world to come” (Sanh. 10:1) and then goes on to give a considerable list of Israelites who “have no share in the world to come”, sometimes mentioning classes such as those who deny the resurrection of the dead and sometimes individuals such as Jeroboam and Balaam. Clearly
all Israel indicates the people as a whole, but it leaves open the possibility that there may be exceptions. So much is clear.
But some exegetes understand
Israel here of the nation while others see it as referring to spiritual Israel, the people of God whether Jewish or Gentile (so Calvin). Lenski has a strong argument for the elect Jews. But what seems decisive is the fact that “Israel” in verse 25 plainly means the nation (it is physical Israel, not spiritual Israel, that is hardened in part), and it is not easy to understand why in the next line it should have a different meaning (Hodge has a strong argument for this position). A further strong argument is that Paul has just said that this is a “mystery”. Now it is no “mystery” that all the elect, Jews as well as Gentiles, will be saved. Nor is the conversion of a few Jews in each generation such as has happened until now the kind of thing that needs to be the subject of a special revelation. That looks for a very different kind of happening. It may also be argued that Paul is looking for the restoration of the Jews in the sense in which they had been rejected, that is, the nation generally. Paul then is affirming that the nation of Israel as a whole will ultimately have its place in God’s salvation. This may well be located in the end time and be part of the eschatological program that Paul anticipates then.119 But if “all Israel” means more than one generation, it will take place earlier.
Paul proceeds to quote Isaiah 59:20–21 along with a line from Isaiah 27:9.
The deliverer is surely a reference to Christ, but whether Paul sees a reference to the incarnation with its messianic salvation coming out of Zion (Lenski), or the parousia with the Savior coming to Zion in glory (Parry, Cranfield) is not clear. Denney finds it impossible to say whether the apostle is referring “to the first or to the second advent: the distinction is not present to Paul’s mind as he writes”. Zion may be the earthly city or it may stand for the heavenly city, in which case the deliverer is thought of as coming from the very presence of God (cf. Isa. 2:3). His function is given in terms of turning
godlessness away from Jacob. He is to remove their sin, more particularly as it is seen as sin against God. The nation is more commonly called Israel than Jacob, but there seems no real significance in the choice of name.
27. Paul’s quotation moves on to the thought of the covenant, the covenant that originates with God. The particular aspect of the covenant to which attention is drawn is that which has to do with the forgiveness of sins (cf. Jer. 31:34). This does not mean that the covenant is concerned only with forgiveness; in fact a good deal more is involved. But Paul’s subject throughout these chapters is justification by faith and how what happened and will happen to Israel fits into that great doctrine. So he concentrates on the sins aspect.
When is indefinite; the prophet leaves the time unspecified.
Take away is a verb with a wide range of meaning, but basically it signifies “take from, take away”; in the context it clearly means the complete removal of sins. When the covenant is put into force, God will take such action as will remove sins from the scene. An important feature of God’s salvation is that sin will no longer be there to disrupt relationships. The saved will live in unbroken fellowship with God.
28. There is no connective to link this with the preceding; Paul moves abruptly to a new aspect of his subject. He sees the Jews in two relationships to God—one linked to the gospel, the other to the fathers.
As far as the gospel (see the note on 1:1)
is concerned, the Jews are
enemies. There has been some discussion as to whether we should understand this term passively (i.e., the Jews are the objects of God’s hostility), or actively (the Jews are hostile to God). What turns the scale is probably the fact that
enemies stands over against
loved, and
loved must mean “loved by God”. In such a context Paul must be saying that in connection with the gospel the Jews are the objects of divine hostility. They have refused to believe in Christ, they have turned their backs on the divinely appointed way of forgiveness, so what else could the situation be? This does not mean that the gospel makes them God’s enemies, a suggestion that is immediately negatived by the fact that Jews like Paul himself had responded to the gospel and entered into salvation. It is “with reference to” (not “because of”) the gospel that they are enemies. As a whole they did not receive it, and this opened the way for it to be preached to the Gentiles so that a large Gentile church emerged. It is in order to bring about this spread of the gospel that they are enemies. They are enemies
on your account; in the providence of God their rejection of the gospel was not aimless. It was the means of bringing salvation to others. God’s purpose was carried on through it. This carries with it the possibility that when the gospel has had its effect among the Gentiles they will come back, and that is precisely the point that Paul is making.
So he goes on to refer to a different set of relationships,
as far as election is concerned. For
as far as see the note on the opening to this verse (the construction is identical), and for
election see that on 9:11. Paul is emphasizing the divine plan; though Israel had been faithless and thus the object of God’s hostility, God had nevertheless worked through this faithlessness to bring about his will. And he had not forgotten that Israel was his people; their refusal to accept the gospel did not alter the fact that he had chosen them to be in a special relationship to him, the people through whom he would make his revelation and to whom he would send his Son. Election is an important concept even when the nation had not lived up to all that is involved in its calling. And election means that
they are loved on account of the patriarchs. It does not mean that they are all elected to eternal salvation; Paul is talking about the place of the nation in God’s plan, not the fate of individuals. The reference is to the nation (as in v. 2), not to the remnant (as in v. 7). The nation is
loved (cf. 9:25), and Paul links this with
the patriarchs (he says “the fathers”). We should not understand this in the sense of the rabbinic doctrine of the merits of the fathers that won all sorts of benefits for their descendants. Rather, Paul is appealing to the covenant God had made with Abraham and the promises he had made again and again to Abraham’s descendants. God will carry his purposes out (as Paul will insist in v. 29).
Käsemann makes an important point when he says of verses 28–32 “The justification of the ungodly, which is announced in various places in our chapters, emerges now as the dominant theme of the whole portion” (p. 314). We must bear in mind that chapters 9–11 are part of Paul’s treatment of justification, not a historical essay or an exercise in Jewish patriotism. Paul is showing that the doctrine he has been expounding in the earlier part of the epistle is not vitiated by what had happened to Israel. God had made promises to Israel, and these promises would be kept. Israel’s refusal to accept the gospel did not mean either that the gospel was a failure or that God would not perform all he had promised to his ancient people. But we make sense neither of the Old Testament Scripture nor of the history of Israel nor of the place of the Christian church unless we see that justification by faith is central. Here the point is that God justifies Israelites who believe just as he justifies Gentiles who believe, and the whole history of Israel is to be seen in the light of that fact.
29. For introduces a reason for what Paul has just said; there is a logical basis for his position. In the Greek the first word of this verse is
irrevocable; God does not change his mind after he has made gifts or issued calls. He does not take them back. What God has done and said stands. Paul speaks specifically of God’s
gifts, a very general term. Godet sees the word as denoting “the moral and intellectual aptitudes with which God endows a man with a view to the task committed to him.” He thinks that Greeks, Romans, and others had their own gifts while Israel had “singular qualities for their mission as the salvation-people.” There may be something in “singular qualities”, but Paul is not referring to natural endowments of any kind. He is speaking rather of the gifts he has listed in 9:4–5. Israel was a special people and had special gifts accordingly, gifts like covenants, adoption, and the like which are not to be thought of as individual or racial endowments. With this Paul links God’s
call. Some consider this as more or less equivalent to
gifts, but the two words are distinct. As Cranfield points out, aspects of call like commission, function, and task are not gifts. God gives gifts, then, and calls people and nations. And he does not go back on either. God can be relied on.
30. Verses 30–31 form one carefully constructed sentence marked by a series of correspondences which may be set out as follows:
verse 30
| verse 31
|
you
| they
|
at one time
| now (the first now)
|
were disobedient
| become disobedient
|
now
| now (the second now)
|
received mercy
| receive mercy
|
their disobedience
| mercy to you
|
Clearly Paul saw justification as working out for both groups and in such a manner that each in some way assisted the other. There is a consistent divine purpose. Just as leads on to a “so too” in the second part of the sentence. Paul’s you sets his Gentile readers over against the Jews. At one time is indefinite, “formerly”. It refers to the past generally, the time when the Gentiles were disobedient.131 The whole pre-Christian experience of Paul’s readers is summed up as disobedience (cf. ch. 1). “But now” (NIV omits “but”) puts the present situation in contrast. Interestingly and significantly the apostle does not say “you have become obedient”, but “you have obtained mercy”. It is no human achievement of which he speaks, but a divine gift. As a result of their disobedience renders a dative which is variously interpreted. But NIV seems to have the sense of it, even if as a result of may be going further than the Greek. Paul is saying that it was the disobedience of the Jews that God used to bring the gospel to the Gentiles (cf. Acts 18:6). In these two verses he is emphasizing the divine mercy and saying that both Jew and Gentile were disobedient before God’s mercy saved them.
31. There is similarity and difference in the experiences of the Gentiles and Jews. There is similarity in that both are characterized by disobedience. There is difference in that it was through the Jews’ disobedience that the Gentiles came to experience God’s mercy but it will be through the mercy God has shown to the Gentiles that he will bring mercy to the Jews. There are two ways of taking the main part of this verse, depending on where we place
God’s mercy to you. GNB puts it in the first clause, “because of the mercy that you have received, the Jews now disobey God, in order that they also may now receive God’s mercy.” But RSV has it in the second clause, “they have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may receive mercy.” The point is that the words in question precede the conjunction
in order that and this would fit easily into the first clause; indeed, some scholars think this rules out the possibility of including them in the final clause. But this opinion is not well grounded, and to take the words as in RSV and NIV yields a better sense. Paul is putting some emphasis on the expression
God’s mercy to you and thus puts it in an especially prominent place. It would be the very mercy God showed the Gentiles that would in due course ensure mercy for the Jews. There is a textual problem regarding the second
now, which is not found in some MSS135 (it is not read by RSV and O’Neill). But its attestation in the MSS and transcriptional probability show that we should accept it, even though it presents us with what Barth calls an “an almost intolerable eschatological tension” (p. 417 n.). Is Paul speaking of the End? Or something that is to happen in this present age?
Now locates it in this age, though, of course, Paul may well mean towards the end of that age.
32. Another
for links this verse to the preceding; what follows is not a general statement about the way God treats mankind, but the conclusion to what Paul has been saying in verses 30–31. God, says Paul,
has bound all men over to disobedience. But we may well question NIV’s translation of the verb rendered
bound over. BAGD translate “has imprisoned them all in disobedience” and then explains this: “i.e. put them under compulsion to be disobedient or given them over to disobedience”. The second suggestion is better than the first: Paul is not saying that God predetermined that all should sin, but rather that he has so ordered things that all people, Jew and Gentile alike, being disobedient, show themselves to be sinners (cf. 1:24, 26, 28) and have no other escape than through his mercy. Cf. JB, “God has imprisoned all men in their disobedience”. There has been a good deal of argument about the meaning of
all men, which some have understood to mean “all of the elect”,138 while others see a reference to universal salvation. But such positions are reached by detaching the words from their context. Paul is dealing with Jews and Gentiles in their disobedience, and it is “the” all in question, both these groups, who are shut up in this way (cf. BDF 275[7]). He is not dealing with the salvation of the individual, but with what happens alike to Jews and Gentiles. And God’s final purpose is that he may have mercy on them all. That purpose is not condemnation or the like. It is always mercy.141
Leon Morris,
The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 418–426.
