Romans 11:1 - Meaning and Application

The apostle raises a fair objection against God’s way of dealing with the Jewish nation in Romans 11:1: Has God rejected his people? Has the rejection been total and final? Have they all been left to wrath and ruin forever? Has God stopped having a special people for himself? In answer, Paul shows that even in this severe-looking judgment, God’s mercy and goodness are still at work. He stresses three things: some Jews were rejected, but not all, the Gentiles were brought in, and the Jews, in God’s time, would be brought back into the church.

The first point is that the Jews were rejected in part, but not all. Paul answers the idea with a strong, “By no means.” He will not allow such a thought. God had already made a difference among them, and that difference rested on his own choice. There was a chosen remnant of believing Jews who received righteousness and life through faith in Jesus Christ, as Romans 11:1-7 explains. They are called the elect, meaning the people God chose by his loving purpose before the world began.

Paul shows that he himself was one of this remnant. He says, “I am an Israelite,” as if to say, “If all Jews were rejected, I would be rejecting myself too.” Paul was God’s chosen servant (Acts 9:15), yet he was also from Abraham’s family, from the tribe of Benjamin, one of the smallest tribes in Israel. He also points out that, just as in Elijah’s day, this chosen remnant was larger than people might first think. That shows it is nothing new for God’s saving favor to be limited to a remnant within Israel.

Scripture speaks of this in Elijah’s story, the great reformer of the Old Testament. Elijah made a wrong judgment about Israel, thinking the faithless condition of the nation in Ahab’s time was so widespread that he alone remained faithful. Paul refers to 1 Kings 19:14, where Elijah speaks to God against Israel. It was a strange kind of prayer, a pleading that treated Israel as ripe for judgment. Elijah said that the rulers had killed God’s prophets, torn down his altars, and were hunting his life. The faithful were pushed aside while idolaters seemed to fill the land. In such a time, even good and wise people might think the cause of true religion was lost.

God corrected Elijah’s mistake with this answer: “I have reserved” a remnant for myself (Romans 11:4). We should learn, first, that the church is often in better shape than wise and godly people fear. They may be ready to give up hope too quickly when all is not lost. Second, when people widely turn away from God, there is usually still a remnant that stays faithful, though it may be small. Third, that faithful remnant exists because God keeps them. If he left them to themselves, they would follow the crowd too. It is his free and mighty grace that makes the difference.

The seven thousand in Elijah’s day were a suitable number to stand against Israel’s idolatry, though they were very few compared with the many thousands in the nation. They were like the few grapes left after the harvest. Christ’s flock is a little flock, yet in the end it will become a vast and countless crowd (Revelation 7:9). These faithful ones had not bowed the knee to Baal, the false god then honored across the land. In palace, city, and countryside, Baal had the upper hand, and most people paid him respect in one way or another. The best proof of true faith is refusing the corrupt ways that are common in one’s own time and place, even when the current runs strong the other way. It is worthy of praise when people will not bow to Baal because everyone else does. Honest, steady difference from the crowd is often the mark of real sincerity.

Paul then applies this to the present: “Even so at this present time” (Romans 11:5-7). God still deals with his church in the same way he always has. As it was then, so it is now. If there was a remnant under the Old Testament, when grace was less clearly shown and the Spirit was less fully poured out, then there is even more reason to expect a remnant now under the gospel, when God’s saving grace shines more clearly. It is a remnant, a few out of many, believing Jews left faithful while the rest remained stubborn in unbelief.

This is called a remnant according to the election of grace. These are people chosen from eternity, in the loving plan of God, to be vessels of grace and glory. “Those whom he predestined he also called.” If the difference between them and others comes only from God’s grace, as it surely does, then it must be according to election. We know that whatever God does, he does according to the counsel of his own will.

About this remnant, we can notice first where it comes from, from the free grace of God (Romans 11:6), the grace that leaves no room for works. The eternal choice by which God first made a difference between some and others is pure grace, free grace, not based on works done or foreseen. If it depended on works, it would no longer be grace. Grace is not truly grace if it is not completely free. Election is according to the good pleasure of his will (Ephesians 1:5).

Paul’s heart was so full of the freedom of God’s grace that, in the middle of his argument, he pauses to say, “If it is by grace, it is no longer by works.” Some also note that faith itself, which is opposed to works when we speak of justification, is included with works here. Faith is suited to receive God’s free grace for our justification, meaning our being put right with God, but not for our election.

Second, notice what this remnant receives. Israel, meaning the nation as a whole, sought what it did not obtain (Romans 11:7). “Israel has not obtained what it seeks,” that is, justification and acceptance with God (see Romans 9:31), “but the elect have obtained it.” In them, God’s promise is fulfilled, and his ancient kindness to that people is remembered. Paul calls the believing remnant not simply “the elect,” but “the election,” to show that the whole ground of their hope and joy lies in God’s choice. They were the people God had in view in the loving purpose of his counsel. They are the election, God’s chosen ones.

Such was God’s favor toward the chosen remnant. But “the rest were blinded” (Romans 11:7). Some are chosen and called, and that call becomes effective. Others are left in their unbelief, and even become worse because of what should have helped them. The gospel, which is the “savor of life” to believers, becomes the “savor of death” to unbelievers. The same sun softens wax and hardens clay. Simeon, the old man in Jerusalem, had foreseen that the child Jesus would be set “for the falling and rising of many in Israel” (Luke 2:34).

“They were blinded” can also mean “they were hardened.” They became dull and insensitive, unable to see the light or feel the touch of gospel grace. Blindness and hardness describe the same deadness of spirit. They shut their eyes and would not see, and that was their sin. Then God, in righteous judgment, blinded their eyes so they could not see, and that was their punishment.

Because this sounds severe, Paul supports it with two Old Testament witnesses. First, Isaiah spoke of such a judgment in his own day (Isaiah 29:10; Isaiah 6:9). The “spirit of slumber” means a deep indifference toward duty and toward what is good for them. They were under a settled carelessness, like people half asleep, not moved by anything said or done. They meant to stay as they were and would not turn. The words that follow explain it further: eyes that should not see, and ears that should not hear. They still had eyes and ears, but they did not use them for what belonged to their peace. They saw Christ, but did not believe in him. They heard his word, but did not receive it. In that sense, their hearing and seeing were useless, as if they had none at all. Of all judgments, spiritual judgments are the hardest and most to be feared, even though they make the least noise.

“This has been true until this day.” Ever since Isaiah prophesied, this hardening has been at work. Some among them were blind and senseless then. Or rather, ever since the gospel was first preached, they have had the strongest proof of its truth, the most powerful preaching, the clearest offers, and the plainest calls from Christ himself and his apostles, yet they remain blinded to this day. It is still true of many of them even now, generation after generation. Their stubborn unbelief has continued, according to their own fearful curse, “His blood be on us and on our children.”

Second, David speaks of the same thing in Romans 11:9 and 11:10, quoting Psalm 69:22, 23. David, speaking by the Spirit, foretold the suffering of Christ at the hands of the Jews, especially their giving him vinegar to drink (Romans 11:21), which was fulfilled literally (Matthew 27:48). In the same breath, in the form of a prayer against them, he foretold God’s terrible judgments on them for it. “Let their table become a snare” is applied here to the present blindness of the Jews and the offense they took at the gospel, which made their hardness worse. This helps us understand other prayers of David against his enemies. They should be read as prophecies of God’s judgments on the open and stubborn enemies of Christ and his kingdom. His prayer that it might be so was really a prophecy that it would be so, not just a burst of personal anger. It also served to justify God and clear his righteousness in such judgments.

David speaks first of the ruin of their comforts: “Let their table become a snare.” That means, as the psalm explains, let what should have been for their good become a trap. God’s curse can turn food into poison. It is like the warning in Malachi 2:2, “I will curse your blessings.” Their table becomes a snare, an occasion both for sin and for misery. Even the food meant to nourish them will bring harm.

He also speaks of the ruin of their powers and faculties (Romans 11:10), with their eyes darkened and their backs bent down, so they can neither find the right path nor, if they could, walk in it. After the Jews rejected Christ and his gospel as a nation, they became foolish in their politics, so that their own plans worked against them and helped bring about their ruin at the hands of the Romans. They looked like a people marked for slavery and contempt, with bowed backs, ready to be ridden and trampled by the nations around them. Or this can be understood spiritually: their backs are bowed down in fleshly and worldly thinking. They set their minds on earthly things.

This describes the present condition and spirit of that people very accurately. If the reports about them are true, there is no more worldly, stubborn, blind, selfish, or ill-tempered people in the world. They are still, even today, under the power of this curse. God’s curses can last a long time. It is a sign that our own eyes are darkened if we are ruled by worldly thinking.

Another point that makes this teaching about the Jews’ rejection easier to understand is this: though they were cast off and no longer counted as God’s visible people, the Gentiles were brought in (Romans 11:11-14). Paul then uses this to warn the Gentiles in Romans 11:17-22. The Jews’ loss made room for the Gentiles’ welcome. What was left behind by the Jews became a feast for poor Gentiles (Romans 11:11). Paul asks, “Have they stumbled so that they should fall?” Was God’s only purpose in rejecting them to destroy them? He recoils from that idea and rejects it strongly, as he usually does when anything seems to reflect badly on God’s wisdom, righteousness, or goodness. “God forbid!” No, through their fall, salvation has come to the Gentiles.

This does not mean the Gentiles could only be saved if the Jews first rejected the gospel. Gentiles could have been saved in another way if the Jews had believed. But in God’s plan, the gospel was preached to the Gentiles after the Jews refused it. That is what we see in the parables, where those first invited were found unworthy, and the invitation then went to the highways and hedges (Matthew 22:8-9; Luke 14:21). We also see it in history: “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but since you reject it, we now turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46; see also Acts 18:6). God will have a church in the world. He will fill the wedding feast with guests. If one will not come, another will, or else why make the invitation at all? The Jews refused, so the offer passed to the Gentiles.

See how infinite wisdom brings light out of darkness, good out of evil, meat out of the eater, and sweetness out of the strong. Paul says the same thing in another way in Romans 11:12: their fall became the riches of the world. That is, it sped the gospel into the Gentile world much sooner. The gospel is the greatest wealth a place can have. It is better than thousands of pieces of gold and silver. Or he may mean that the Gentiles’ riches were the many converts among them. True believers are God’s jewels.

He says the same in Romans 11:15: their casting away meant the reconciling of the world. God’s anger toward the Jews opened the way for his favor toward the Gentiles. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). So he used the Jews’ unbelief as a public way to disown them, even though they had once been his special people. He showed that in giving his favor, he would no longer work through narrow privilege and restriction. Now, in every nation, anyone who fears God and does what is right is accepted by him (Acts 10:34-35).

Paul then turns this teaching to practical use. As one who was himself a Jew, he speaks a word to stir them up and urge them to receive the gospel offer. God meant his favor to the Gentiles to make the Jews jealous and move them to return (Romans 11:11). Paul presses that purpose in Romans 11:14: “If by any means I might provoke to emulation those who are my flesh.” Shall the despised Gentiles carry off all the comforts and privileges of the gospel, while we stay outside because of our refusal? Should we not repent, believe, obey, and be pardoned and saved too?

There is a good kind of holy rivalry in the life of the soul. Why should we not be as holy and as happy as anyone around us? In this kind of striving, there is no need for suspicion, undercutting, or rivalry that harms others. The church has room enough, and the grace and comfort of the new covenant are enough for all. These blessings are not reduced because more people share them. Paul also says, “and might save some of them.” That shows what his work was: saving souls. Yet even the most gifted preacher may only be able to save some. Ministers should count their labor well spent if they are used to save even some people.

As an apostle to the Gentiles, Paul also gives them a warning. “I speak to you Gentiles.” You believers in Rome have heard how much salvation has come to you because of the Jews’ fall, but be careful not to do anything that would lose that blessing. Paul keeps applying his teaching to the Gentiles because he was appointed to serve their faith and to plant and water churches among them. That was the purpose of his special mission, “I will send you far away to the Gentiles” (Acts 22:21; compare Acts 9:15). It was also part of his ordination and calling (Galatians 2:9; compare Acts 13:2). It should be our main concern to do good to those under our care. We must pay special attention to the work that belongs to us.

This was a great love to the poor Gentiles, that God appointed Paul, who excelled all the apostles in gifts and grace, to be their apostle. The Gentile world was a larger field, and the work there needed a very able, skilled, zealous, and courageous worker. Paul was such a man. God calls people to special work when he sees they are fit for it, or makes them fit for it. Paul could say, “I magnify my office.” Some people despised his office and him because of it. It was because he was the apostle to the Gentiles that the Jews attacked him so fiercely (Acts 22:21-22). Yet he did not value his office any less for that.

It is a mark of true love to Jesus Christ to count service for him honorable, even when the world treats it as low and shameful. The ministry is an office that should be honored. Ministers are Christ’s ambassadors and stewards of God’s secrets, and they should be highly loved for the sake of their work. Paul calls it “my ministry,” my service, not my lordship or power. It was not the dignity or authority of an apostle that he loved so much, but the duty and work.

Now he urges the Gentiles to do two things in relation to the rejected Jews. First, they should still have regard for the Jews and desire their conversion. Paul hints at this by showing what good would come to the church if the Jews were brought in again, in Romans 11:12 and Romans 11:15. It would be like life from the dead. So the Gentiles must not mock or boast over those poor Jews. They should rather pity them, want what is best for them, and long for their being received back again.

The Gentiles were taken into the church, but they must take care not to stumble and fall like the Jews did (Romans 11:17-22). Paul first points out the privilege they received by being grafted in, like a branch from a wild olive tree into a good olive tree. That is the opposite of how farmers usually do it, since they normally graft a good branch into a lesser tree. But when God grafts people into his church, he finds them wild and barren, fit for nothing by nature.

The church of God is like an olive tree, flourishing and fruitful, as in (Psalm 52:8) and (Hosea 14:6). Its fruit brings honor to both God and people, as in (Judges 9:9). Those outside the church are like wild olive trees, useless and even bitter in what they produce. They are wild by nature, as (Romans 11:24) says. That was the Gentiles' former condition, lacking church privileges and real holiness, and it is the natural condition of all of us.

Conversion is the grafting in of wild branches into the good olive tree. We must be cut off from our old stock and united to a new root. Those who are grafted into the good olive tree share in its root and rich sap. This can point to saving union with Christ, where all who are joined to him by living faith receive from his fullness. But here Paul is speaking of visible church membership, from which the Jews were broken off as branches, and into which the Gentiles were grafted in among those who remained, or in their place.

By being grafted into the church, the Gentiles share the same privileges the Jews had, the root and fatness of the olive tree. The olive tree here means the visible church, as in (Jeremiah 11:16). Abraham is the root in the sense of administration, not the root that gives life, since Christ alone is that root. He was the first with whom the covenant was made in such a solemn way. Believing Gentiles share in this root. Christ is also the son of Abraham (Luke 19:9), and the blessing of Abraham comes on the Gentiles (Galatians 3:14). They also share the same fatness of the olive tree, meaning the same spiritual benefits, such as special protection, the living oracles, means of salvation, a settled ministry, and appointed ordinances. Among these was the visible church membership of their infant children, which was part of the Jewish privilege and should not be thought denied to the Gentiles.

Paul then gives a warning not to abuse these privileges. First, he says, “Do not be proud” (Romans 11:18). Do not boast over the branches. Do not look down on the Jews as a rejected people, and do not insult those who were broken off, much less those who remain. Grace is given to make us thankful, not proud. The law of faith shuts out all boasting, whether against ourselves or against others.

He also says, “Do not say, They were broken off so that I might be grafted in” (Romans 11:19). Do not think you deserved more from God than they did, or that you stood higher in his favor. Remember, you do not support the root, the root supports you. Even though you are grafted in, you are still only a branch carried by the root. More than that, you are an engrafted branch, brought into the good olive tree against nature (Romans 11:24), not born into it, but received by grace. Abraham, the root of the Jewish church, owes you nothing. You owe much to him, as the keeper of the covenant and the father of many nations.

Second, Paul says, “Do not be secure” (Romans 11:20). “Do not be proud, but fear.” Do not become overconfident in your own strength or your place in the church. Holy fear is a good guard against pride. A person is happy if he always keeps this kind of fear. We do not need to fear that God will fail to keep his word. The real danger is that we might fail in our duty. So let us fear, as (Hebrews 4:1) says.

The churches should learn from what happened to others. God told Jerusalem, “Go and see what I did to Shiloh” (Jeremiah 7:12). In the same way, all the churches should look at Jerusalem and see what became of the day of their visitation, so they may hear, fear, and avoid Jerusalem’s sin. The title to church privileges is not for a fixed time, and it does not automatically pass to descendants. It continues only while a church walks faithfully.

Think about how the Jews were broken off. It was not done unfairly or by mere power alone, but because of unbelief. That shows it is possible for churches that once stood by faith to fall into such unbelief that it ruins them. Their unbelief did not only move God to cut them off, it also cut them off themselves. It was both the cause that deserved it and the cause that showed it. The Gentiles should remember they are just as open to the same weakness and corruption.

The Jews were natural branches (Romans 11:21). They were not only included in Abraham’s covenant, they came from Abraham’s own body, so they seemed to have a natural right. Yet when they fell into unbelief, God did not spare them. Long use, inherited privilege, and the faithfulness of their ancestors could not protect them. It was useless for them to say, as they often did, that they were Abraham’s seed (Matthew 3:9; John 8:33). They were the first tenants of the vineyard, but when they broke the agreement, it was justly taken away from them (Matthew 21:41, Matthew 21:43).

This is called severity in (Romans 11:22). God measured them by righteousness and judgment and dealt with them according to their sins. The word sounds harsh, and Scripture nowhere else seems to use it in this way for God. Here it is applied to the removal of the Jews from visible church standing. God is most severe toward those who were closest to him in profession if they rebel against him (Amos 3:2). Misused patience and privileges turn into great wrath. Of all judgments, spiritual judgments are the hardest, and that is the kind Paul is speaking about in (Romans 11:8).

Then Paul turns to the Gentile believers and says, “How do you stand?” He speaks to Gentile churches in general, though he may also be correcting one particular person who showed pride over the Jews’ fall. He asks them to consider by what means they stand, namely by faith. Faith is a humble trust that draws strength from heaven.

You do not stand in any strength of your own, so you have no reason to boast. You are only what free grace makes you, and God’s grace belongs to him alone, so he gives or withholds it as he pleases. What ruined the Jews was unbelief, and you stand only by faith. So you have no firmer hold than they had, and you stand on no better foundation than they did.

On what terms, then? Paul says, “Goodness toward you, if you continue in his goodness” (Romans 11:22). That means you must keep depending on God’s free grace and obeying it. The Jews fell because they stopped doing that. So if you want to keep your place in God’s favor, you must keep trying to please him and be afraid of offending him. The whole duty, and the whole path to happiness, is to keep ourselves in the love of God. “Fear the Lord and his goodness” (Hosea 3:5).

Another thing that makes this teaching about the Jews’ rejection less severe is this, their rejection is not final. When the full time comes, they will be brought in again. They are not cast off forever. Mercy is remembered even in the middle of wrath.

Their future conversion is described in several ways. Paul calls it their “fulness” (Romans 11:12), meaning they will be added back to the church and fill the place left empty by their rejection. That will enrich the world, meaning the church in the world, with much more light, strength, and beauty. He also calls it their being “received.” The conversion of one soul is the receiving of that soul, and the conversion of a whole nation is the same. They will be received into favor, into the church, and into the love of Christ, whose arms are open to all who will come to him. This will be like life from the dead, so surprising, and yet so welcome. The church will have great joy when the Jews turn to Christ. See (Luke 15:32), “He was dead, and is alive again,” so it was right to celebrate and be glad.

Paul also calls it their being “grafted in again” (Romans 11:23), back into the church from which they had been broken off. A branch that is grafted into a tree takes life and strength from the root. In the same way, a soul truly grafted into the church receives life, strength, and grace from Christ, the life-giving root. They will be grafted into their own olive tree (Romans 11:24), meaning into the church where they had once been the most visible and honored members. In that way, they will recover the privileges of outward church membership, privileges they had long enjoyed but had now lost through unbelief.

Paul also calls it “the saving of all Israel” (Romans 11:26). Real conversion can truly be called salvation, because it is salvation begun. See (Acts 2:47). Adding them to the church is saving them, and Paul speaks of it as something happening now, because when conversion work goes forward, salvation work goes forward too.

This hope is grounded in the holiness of the first-fruits and the root (Romans 11:16). Some understand the first-fruits to mean the Jews already converted to Christ and received into the church. They were like first-fruits set apart for God, a sign of a fuller and more holy harvest to come. A good beginning gives hope for a good ending. Why should we not believe that others can be brought in just as truly as those already brought in?

Others take the first-fruits to mean the same thing as the root, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs from whom the Jews came. The covenant was entrusted to them as the chief keepers, so they were the root of the Jews, not only as a nation but as a church. If they were holy, not mainly in the sense of inward holiness but of covenant holiness, that is, belonging to God’s covenant people, then we have reason to think God still has kindness for the whole lump, the body of that people, and for the branches, the individual members. The Jews are, in a sense, a holy nation (Exodus 19:6), because they came from holy ancestors. It is hard to imagine that such a holy nation would be completely and finally cast off.