Romans Commentary

Ver. 11. — I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.

Having proved that God had not cast away His people, by referring to the fact that even then a remnant, according to the election of graces was preserved, Paul supports his denial of their rejection by the consideration that in process of time the whole nation shall be restored. This restoration, as has been already remarked, forms the subject of nearly the whole remainder of the chapter. I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? — This is the Apostle’s own question, and does not, as Dr. Macknight and Mr. Stuart allege, proceed from an imaginary objector. It naturally springs out of the declaration made in the four preceding verses concerning the blindness of those called ‘the rest,’ in contradistinction to the remnant comprehended in the election. The question is, ‘Has the great body of the Jewish nation stumbled, that they should fall for ever, and is this the purpose of their fall?’ Paul replies by a strong negative. Nothing was further from the purpose of God with respect to His ancient people. They had stumbled, as was said, ch. 9:32, ‘at that stumbling-stone,’ according to the predictions of the Prophets respecting Christ; but still it was but a temporary stumbling, from which the nation will finally recover. God had a double purpose in this. His design in their stumbling was not that they should fall for ever, but rather that through their fall salvation should come to the Gentiles, and that, through this, the nation of Israel might ultimately receive the Messiah. To provoke them to jealousy. — It is probable from this, that the Jews will be excited, by seeing God’s favor to the Gentiles, to reflect on their own fallen condition, and to desire to possess the same advantages. When the Jews can no longer hide from themselves that the God of their fathers is with the nations whom they abhor, they will be led to consider their ways, and brought again into the fold of Israel. This is according to the prophecy already quoted by the Apostle in the 19th verse of the preceding chapter.

It was in this manner, then, that God purposed to bring the Jewish nation finally to submit to Him, in order that they might receive His blessing; and thus in His sovereignty He overrules the fall and ruin of some for the salvation of others. His awful judgments against the audacious transgressors of His laws, warn the beholders to flee from the wrath to come; and, on the other hand, the conversion of men who have been notorious sinners, excites others to seek the salvation of Christ. Who can calculate what extensive, permanent, and glorious effects may result throughout the whole creation, and in eternal ages, from the fall of angels and men — from the redemption of God’s people in Christ — from His dispensations towards the Church and the world? Ephesians 3:9-11. We ought to remember that the Lord may have infinitely wise and gracious motives for His most severe and terrible judgments. Thus did the fall of the Jews become the occasion of the Gentiles being enriched with the inexhaustible treasures that are in Christ, so that the justice, the wisdom, and the faithfulness of God were glorified in this awful visitation.

Ver. 12. — Now, if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?

In the foregoing verse, the Apostle had said that through the fall of the Jews salvation was come to the Gentiles; he had also intimated that they should be recovered from their fall. This might lead the Gentiles to apprehend that, in the restoration of the Jews, they might in like manner he cast off. To this Paul now answers, that, on the contrary, if the fall of the Jews be the riches of the Gentiles, much more so will be their restoration.

The temporary fall of the Jews was fraught with the richest blessings to the rest of the world. Their rejection of the Messiah was the occasion of the assuring of the great sacrifice for sin, and of the Gospel being preached to all nations. In consequence of their rejecting the testimony of the Apostles, the remnant who believed fled from the persecution of their countrymen, and, being scattered abroad, went everywhere preaching the word. Besides, the Jewish nation, which had been constituted the witnesses of God, Isaiah 43:10, and to whom the oracles of God had been committed, have firmly preserved their sacred trust, even amidst all their unbelief and consequent sufferings. In this we discern an illustrious proof of the Divine origin of the Old Testament Scriptures which testify of the Messiah; while the preservation of the Jews as a distinct people amidst and the changes and revolutions of ages, stands forth a lasting miracle, not to be explained on natural principles, furnishing incontestable evidence of the truth of the Gospel.

Thus the diminishing of the Jews was the aggrandizement of the Gentiles; for, in the inscrutable counsels of Jehovah, His gift of salvation to them was connected with the degradation and downfall of His ancient people.

But here the Apostle goes the assurance that the fullness of the Jews — their restoration as a body, when they shall acknowledge Christ as the Messiah — will yet prove a far greater blessing to the Gentiles. It will be connected with a calling of the nations to an extent beyond anything yet witnessed, and also with a great enlargement of their knowledge of the Gospel. This was consistent with what is said in the sequel of that prediction to which Paul had just referred. In the same way, Moses, after foretelling the many evils that were to come upon his nation, and of the calamities that were to be heaped upon them, concludes the whole by predicting all that the Apostle here declares: ‘Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adversaries, and wise be merciful unto His land and to His people,’ Deuteronomy 32:43.

Ver. 13. — For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the Apostle of the gentiles, I magnify mine office: The Apostle continues, to the beginning of the 16th verse, to amplify still further what he had just announced, in proof that the salvation of the Gentiles is closely connected with God’s dealings towards the Jews. The Gentiles were largely blessed with the Gospel when it was rejected by the Jews; but they will be blessed with it to an unspeakably greater extent when the Jews shall be recalled. Paul was the Apostle of the Gentiles, and by uttering this prediction with regard to the Gentiles, at the period of the restoration of the Jews, he says he magnifies his office. He here addresses himself particularly to those in the church at Rome, who were of the Gentiles. For as he had been appointed their Apostle, he was desirous to commend his ministry among them, to assert the honor of his commission, and to prove its great importance in imparting to them the knowledge of the Gospel. He shows, with regard to the Gentiles, that its value was enhanced in proportion as a greater number of Gentiles will be saved. In this view, it is greatly for the interest of the Gentiles that the Jews should be brought back, and this should increase their efforts for their conversion.

Ver. 14. — If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.

The Apostle also desired to excite the attention of his countrymen by this view of Divine favor to the Gentiles. He endeavored to move them to emulation, that in this way they might be directed to Christ the Savior of sinners, and that some of them might be saved. He says some, not all, for he was aware that the body of the nation was at that time rejected, but he knew not who among them were of the remnant according to the election of grace, who, although still rejecting the Messiah, might, by means of the Gospel which he preached, be finally saved.

Ver. 15. — For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

Here the Apostle further explains and illustrates the argument he had employed in the 12th verse. The Gospel was preached to the world only after Israel rejected it. This was not the result of accident; it was according to the fixed purpose of God. The middle wall of partition was then broken down. The command was given to preach the Gospel to every creature.

After the great sacrifice had been offered, it was no longer to be limited to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The world was to hear the Gospel; and thus the Gentiles received the grace of God only through the unbelief and rejection of the Jewish nation. But if the casting away of the Jews was such a blessing to the world, their recall will be a blessing unspeakably greater. It will occasion a revival among the Gentile churches, from a dead and almost lifeless state, which will resemble a resurrection. The numbers then converted will be as if all the dead had risen out of their graves. The Divine dispensations being at that period so far developed, and the prophecies respecting the rejection and restoration of the Jews so fully accomplished, no doubt will any longer be entertained regarding the Divine origin of the Holy Scriptures. A great additional light, too, will be thrown on those parts of them which at present are most obscure, so that, in the providence of God, the result will be an unexampled blessing both to Jews and Gentiles.

Ver. 16. — For if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.

The whole of the Apostle’s argument goes to establish the restoration of Israel. He shows that they were not cast off, — first, by his own example; and, secondly, by referring to the remnant among them according to the election of grace, which proved that they were not devoted to destruction like Sodom and Gomorrah, ch. 9:29. It was true that the predictions of which he had spoken were fulfilled; but although, consistently with these, they had stumbled, it was not that they should irrevocably fall; but this was the way in which God had appointed salvation to come to the Gentiles. Even in this, however, God had their restoration in view; for the kindness shown to the Gentiles would be the means of provoking their jealousy, and great as were the benefits which accrued to the world from their fall, those of their restoration would be still greater. The verse before us contains a third argument to prove the future conversion of the Jewish nation.

The Apostle here employs two similitudes, one taken from the law, respecting the first-fruits, by which the whole of the harvest was sanctified; and the other from nature, by which, under the figure of a tree, he evidences the truth he is exhibiting respecting the final restoration of the whole nation of Israel. By the first-fruit some understand the first Jewish converts; but it rather appears that both the first-fruit and the root refer to Abraham, as the first-fruit to God, and the root of the Jewish nation. As Abraham was separated to the service of God, so, in the sense of a relative holiness, all his descendants in the line of Isaac were holy, standing in an external relation to God in which no other nation ever stood. But Abraham was also personally holy; and so, in every age, had been many of his descendants through the heir of promise; and so, also, shall be an innumerable multitude of them hereafter. For, according to the figure here employed, they shall as branches be grafted in again, and so all Israel shall be saved.

It is therefore here shown that the future conversion of Israel is guaranteed by the peculiar covenant relation in which they stand to Abraham.

Although the whole nation had never been internally holy, they had all along been in a peculiar manner separated or consecrated to God, in the same way as, according to the law, the first-fruits of the harvest were consecrated; for when the corn was kneaded, a cake of the first of the dough was to be given to the Lord, Numbers 15:19-21; and thus the whole of the harvest was set apart or sanctified, 1 Timothy 4:5. On this ground, Moses, even when reminding the Israelites of their unhallowed rebellion against God in the wilderness, declared, ‘Thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself,’ Deuteronomy 7:6. And a little after, when rehearsing to them their several rebellions, and informing them that the Lord had pronounced them to be ‘a stiff-necked people,’ and when he claims the heavens and the earth, and all that they contain, as the property of Jehovah, he says to Israel, ‘The Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you, above all people,’ Deuteronomy 10:15, and Deuteronomy 4:37, 14:2, 26:19, and 32:8, 9. ‘God,’ it is also said, ‘heard their groanings, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them,’ Exodus 2:24. Moses assured the people, the Lord ‘will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He swore unto them,’ Deuteronomy 4:31. And it is said by the Prophet Isaiah 43:21, ‘This people have I formed for Myself.’ In like manner, when Samuel was in the strongest terms reproaching Israel for their rebellion, in forsaking the Lord and choosing a king, he still exhorts them to serve the Lord, notwithstanding their past wickedness. ‘For,’ he adds, ‘the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake; because it hath pleased the Lord to make you His people,’ 1 Samuel 12:22. Innumerable declarations to the same effect are interspersed throughout the Old Testament. The Apostle’s argument then is, that as the lump is holy through the offering of the first-fruit, and as the tree derives its character from the root, so the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom the Lord chose, were set apart by solemn covenant for His service and glory.

In consequence of God’s love to the fathers, He delivered them from Egypt, and separated them by the Sinai covenant from all other nations as His peculiar people. But while that transaction announced the most important purposes, it was not faultless, Hebrews 8:7. It pointed out their duty, but did not communicate those dispositions which are essential to obedience. It was therefore only a figure for the time then present, imposed on them for a season, Hebrews 9:9,10, and intended to be introductory to a better covenant established upon better promises, by which the law was to be put in their inward parts, and God was to be a God to them in a higher sense than He was by that first covenant. This was taught them in the land of Moab, where God promised to circumcise their heart and the heart of their seed, and is repeated by Isaiah 59:21, Jeremiah 31:31, and referred to by the Apostle in the 26th and 27th verses of the chapter before us. Thus Israel has been set apart as a holy people, devoted to the service of God, since the call of Abraham. Their unbelief has not made the faithfulness of God of none effect. Their rebellions have all been subservient to His eternal purpose. The tree was of the Lord’s right-hand planting, a noble vine; many of the branches have been broken off, but still the root remains, bound round, as it were, ‘with a band of iron and brass;’ and the branches shall be grafted in again, by their partaking of the faith of Abraham. And as they were God’s witnesses when enjoying His blessing in the land of Canaan, Isaiah 43:10,12, 44:8, and are His witnesses in their rejection, and in being ‘left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill,’ Isaiah 30:17, so shall they be His witnesses in their restoration. In God’s treatment of them we see His abhorrence of sin. In them we behold a memorial of the severity of God, Romans 11:22; but in them shall also be witnessed a nobler monument of His goodness.

The Apostle’s argument, then, amounts to this — that as the lump is holy, through the offering of the first-fruits, so this is a pledge that the lump, or body of the nation, will yet be made holy. The restoration of Israel is not only plainly asserted by the Apostle here, but it is essential to the fulfillment of the parable exhibited in God’s dealings with the nation of Israel. That nation was a type of the true Israel, and in God’s dealings with them all the great doctrines of the Gospel are exhibited. It was therefore necessary that Israel should be restored, otherwise the parable which shadows forth the final preservation of the people of God, declared in Romans 8:35, would have been incomplete. We see the sovereignty of God in choosing Israel, in bestowing on them so many advantages, in punishing them so severely, and making the whole to redound to His own glory and the salvation of all who are ordained to eternal life. They have been the chosen instruments employed for the salvation of the world; and their last end, after all their wanderings, and all their rebellions, and all their unbelief, shall exhibit them as the true circumcision, who rejoice in Christ Jesus. When, therefore, the calling of the Gentiles and the rebellion of Israel are announced in the strongest terms, it is immediately added, ‘Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, destroy it not, for a blessing is in it; so will I do for My servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of My mountains; and Mine elect shall inherit it, and My servants shall dwell there,’ Isaiah 65:8. ‘As a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof,’ Isaiah 6:13. All this accords with those repeated declarations of Scripture already referred to, in which it is said that the Lord will never forsake His people, for His great name’s sake. It likewise accords with the numerous and peculiar privileges conferred on Israel as a nation, as enumerated in the ninth chapter of this Epistle, and summed up in these words, ‘Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came.’ And consistently with the whole, it is declared in the sequel of the chapter before us, that the time is coming when all Israel shall be saved, and the natural branches, or descendants of Abraham, shall be grafted in again into their own olive tree. On these grounds it is evident that, while those whom the Apostle calls the ‘rest’ of Israel, had in the meantime fallen, and although successive generations should behold Jerusalem forsaken, and Israel wandering without a home through the world, yet the restoration of the nation shall hereafter testify the unchangeable faithfulness of that God who, in dividing to the nations their inheritance, ‘set the bounds of the people, according to the number of the children of Israel.’

Such is the method by which the Apostle in this verse continues to substantiate his declaration that God had not cast away His people. He had shown that their destruction could not have been intended, since a remnant was preserved; and he is now proving that, as a body, they shall finally be restored to God’s favor. In declaring the peculiar privileges of Israel, derived from their first progenitors, the Apostle, by exhibiting their distinguished superiority over all other nations, lays a foundation for the forcible warnings which, down to the 23rd verse, he proceeds to deliver to the Gentiles who had been received into the covenant of God. Mr. Stuart remarks of this 16th verse, that it is illustration rather than argument; but it is an illustration which has been adopted by the Spirit of God as a pledge of the event. If it be not argument, it is evidence, and is recorded as a revelation of the Divine purpose, that the lump, or body of the nation of Israel, shall yet be holy.

Ver. 17. — And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Before alleging anything further to prove the future conversion of the Jews, Paul here, and onwards to the 25th verse, continues to employ the figure of a tree and its branches. In doing so, he takes occasion to administer a salutary caution to the Gentile believers. In this and the following verses, down to the 25th, he warns them to beware of self preference, or of being puffed up against the Jews, on account of the blessings with which they themselves were now favored. The Jewish nation was God’s olive tree. They were all the people of God in a typical sense, and the greater part of God’s true people had been chosen out of them; but now, by their unbelief, some of the branches were broken off from the tree. By the term ‘some,’ as has been observed, verse 14, is meant not all, Hebrews 3:16; for it implies that others, as the Apostle had shown, verses 2-5, remained. And among, or rather instead of, those that were broken off, the Gentiles, who were a wild olive, having had no place in the good olive tree, are now made the children of Abraham by faith in Christ Jesus, Galatians 3:26-29. They were grafted into the good olive tree, whose root Abraham was, and were made partakers of his distinguished privileges. It has sometimes been remarked that there is no grafting in the olive tree. But this makes no difference.

The illustration from the process of grafting is the same, whether the operation be performed in the particular tree mentioned or not. Mr. Stuart says that the wild olive ‘was often grafted into the fruitful one when it began to decay, and thus not only brought fruit, but caused the decaying olive to revive and flourish.’ This, however, whether it be fact or not, is not to the purpose of the Apostle, for he is beating down the arrogance of the Gentile believers, and not pointing out the advantages they occasioned to Jews. Nor is the stock of the olive here supposed to be decayed, but to be full of sap and fatness, to partake of which, and not to benefit the fruitful olive, is the wild olive grafted into the tree.

Ver. 18. — Boast not against the branches: but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

It is probable, from what is here said, that even in the Apostle’s time the Gentile believers were beginning to exhibit an overbearing disposition towards the Jews, and a complacent feeling of self-preference. At all events, the sin against which they are thus warned well describes the spirit that has long prevailed among the Gentiles who profess Christianity. What marvelous ignorance, folly, and vanity, are often displayed even in God’s people! Nothing but the constant lessons of the Spirit of God will teach them that all spiritual difference among men is by God’s grace. But if thou boast. — Whenever Gentile Christians feel a disposition to boast with respect to the Jews, let them remember not only that the Jews were first the people of God, but that the first Christians were also Jews.

The Jews received no advantage from the Gentiles; but, on the contrary, the Gentiles have received much from the Jews, from whom the Gospel sounded out — its first preachers being Jews, and of whom even Christ Himself, as concerning the flesh, came. The Gentile believers become the children of Abraham, and all the blessings they enjoy are in virtue of that relation. Hence the covenant, Jeremiah 31:31, includes all believers; yet it is said only to be made with the house of Israel and Judah.

Ver. 19. — Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off that I might be graced in.

Ver. 20. — Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear.

The Gentile believers might reply, that the branches were broken off to give place to them, and in a certain sense this is admitted by the Apostle.

But unbelief was the cause of the fall of the Jews, while it is by faith only that the Gentiles stand. It was not, then, on account of their superior merits that they were grafted into the good olive tree, since faith is the gift of God, bestowed on whom He will, and therefore leaves no room for boasting or self-preference. Among the Gentiles who professed the faith, there was soon a great falling away, and ‘the man of sin,’ though he boasts of being exclusively the good olive tree — the only true church — is broken off altogether, and doomed to inevitable destruction. It becomes all Christians to be humble, and to fear lest they also fall by error of the same kind. It is very usual, when they perceive the errors of other Christians, to glory over them. This is highly unbecoming. If a Christian understands any part of the will of God of which his brethren are still ignorant, it is God that has made the difference. A haughty spirit goeth before a fall; and if arrogance be indulged by any one, it is likely that God will give him up to some error as pernicious as that into which others whom he despises have fallen.

Ver. 21. — For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee.

This verse contains another argument by which the Apostle urges the Gentile believers to humility and watchfulness. If the natural branches were not spared, this was an additional reason why those whom He addressed should be on their guard lest they also should fall through unbelief. It appears also to be a prophetical intimation of the apostasy of the great body of the professors of Christianity under the mystery of iniquity.

Ver. 22. — Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell severity; but towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

The Apostle lastly enforces his warning to the Gentile believers by four concluding arguments: First, he calls on them to behold the severity of God’s strict justice in cutting off and casting out the unbelieving Jews.

Second, to consider His goodness in conferring unmerited favor on the Gentiles, who had attained that righteousness after which they were not following. Third, to remark the necessity of continuing in that goodness, by abiding in the faith of the Gospel; and, Fourth, to observe the assurance that if they abide not in the faith, they should be themselves cut off.

Men generally form in their imagination the character of God according to their own inclination. It is the duty of the Christian to take God’s character as it is given by Himself. His goodness is no evidence that He will not punish the guilty; and the most dreadful punishment of the guilty is consistent with the existence of supreme goodness in the Divine character. That God will yet lay righteousness to the line, and judgment to the plummet, is now seen in His treatment of Israel, whom He had so long spared after they had sinned against Him. Let none imagine, then, that He will spare them if guilty, because they have the name of being His people.

Rather let them dread the more terrible vengeance on that account. The evidence that we are the true objects of the goodness of God here mentioned, is, that we continue in it, by continuing in the faith of the Gospel. Continuing in goodness is not to be understood here to mean, our continuing in a state of integrity, according to Mr. Stuart. There is no real difficulty in the expression, continuing in God’s goodness. We continue in God’s goodness, by continuing in the faith.

Ver. 23. — And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.

The Apostle having, from the beginning of the 17th verse, pressed upon the believing Gentiles the necessity of humility, now reverts to the subject of the future conversion of the Jews. In order to furnish a new proof of this great event, he introduces a fourth argument (see exposition of verse 16), taken from the power of God. God is able to graft them in again. — According to the figure which the Apostle had been employing respecting the casting off and the restoration of that part of the Jewish nation that was blinded, comparing them to branches broken off, there might seem to be no probability that they could be restored. When branches are severed from a tree, they wither and cannot be replaced. Paul, therefore, here refers to the power of God. What is not done in nature, and cannot be effected by the power of man, will be done by God, with whom all things are possible. He is able to make the dry bones live, and to restore the severed branches of the Jewish nation. Some argue that, because the grafting of the Jews into the olive tree here spoken of is conditional, it is not promised.

But the Apostle’s design is evidently, even in this verse, to excite hopes by showing its possibility. There is no other ground of exclusion with respect to them but unbelief. If that sin were subdued, they would be received. God is able to graft them in if they believe, and He is able also to give them faith.

Ver. 24. — For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graced contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

The former argument, drawn from God’s power, is here further insisted on. The Jews were so obstinately prejudiced against the Gospel, that it seemed very improbable that they should ever embrace the truth. But the Apostle had declared the possibility of this being accomplished by the mighty power of God. He now shows its probability. If the Gentiles, he says, who were strangers to the covenants of promise, have been grafted into the good olive tree, how much more is it to be expected that the descendants of the patriarchs, to whom the promises were made, and who are therefore the natural branches, shall be grafted into their own olive tree?