Commentary - Romans 11:1-10

Bird's-eye view

In this crucial section of Romans, the Apostle Paul addresses a question that would naturally arise from his argument in chapters 9 and 10. If Israel has stumbled so badly over the stumbling stone of Christ, and if God's righteousness is now revealed apart from the law to all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike, does this mean God has washed His hands of His ancient covenant people? Has He nullified His own promises? Paul's answer is an emphatic and resounding "No." He sets out to demonstrate that God's plan has not been derailed in the slightest. He does this by pointing to three central realities: first, the existence of a believing remnant (of which Paul himself is exhibit A); second, the principle of God's sovereign, gracious election which has always distinguished true Israel from ethnic Israel; and third, the judicial hardening of the rest, which itself serves a larger redemptive purpose in God's global plan. This is not God breaking His promises, but rather God fulfilling them in a way that confounds human pride and magnifies His sovereign grace.

Paul is laying the groundwork for his famous olive tree analogy later in the chapter. He wants his readers, particularly the Gentile believers in Rome, to understand that God's program with Israel is not over. The unbelief of the majority does not equate to a wholesale rejection by God. The promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob remain in effect. The present state of affairs, with a believing remnant and a hardened majority, is perfectly consistent with how God has always worked, as illustrated by the story of Elijah. God's grace, not ethnic descent or human works, has always been the determinative factor. Therefore, there is no room for Gentile arrogance, but only for a sober-minded understanding of God's mysterious and merciful plan for both Jew and Gentile.

Outline

Context In Romans

Romans 9, 10, and 11 form a distinct unit within Paul's letter. Having magnificently concluded chapter 8 with the believer's absolute security in the love of God, Paul must immediately address the elephant in the room: the Jews. If nothing can separate the elect from God's love, what about God's elect nation, the majority of whom were currently being separated from that love by their rejection of the Messiah? Did God's promise fail? Chapter 9 defends God's absolute sovereignty in election, showing that "not all Israel is Israel." God has always distinguished between the children of the promise and the children of the flesh. Chapter 10 explains the human responsibility side of the equation: Israel's failure was due to their pursuit of a righteousness based on law-keeping instead of submitting to the righteousness that comes by faith. Now, chapter 11 answers the final question: Is this rejection final? Paul argues that it is not. This section is therefore the capstone of his argument concerning Israel, demonstrating that even in their stumbling, God's sovereign purposes of mercy are being worked out for the salvation of the world, and ultimately, for Israel's own future restoration.

Key Issues

God's Unfailing Promise

The question Paul tackles here is of monumental importance. If God can go back on His promises to national Israel, what assurance do any of us have? If the covenant promises recorded in the Old Testament can simply be set aside, then the gospel itself rests on shaky ground. Paul's entire argument is that God has done no such thing. The problem is not with God's faithfulness, but with a faulty understanding of how God's promises work. The promises were never a blanket guarantee of salvation for every individual descendant of Abraham. The covenant has always had faithful and unfaithful members. God has always preserved a faithful remnant, and He has always been free to show mercy on whom He will show mercy. The stumbling of the majority of first-century Israel, far from being a sign of God's failure, is actually a confirmation of how God has always operated, a pattern deeply embedded in their own Scriptures.

This section is a potent corrective to two opposite errors. The first is the error of dispensationalism, which drives a hard wedge between Israel and the Church, effectively creating two peoples of God with two different plans. Paul's argument about the remnant and the olive tree shows an organic continuity. The second error is replacement theology, which claims that the Church has simply and finally replaced Israel, and that God has no future purpose for ethnic Jews. Paul's argument here, and especially later in the chapter, refutes this entirely. God has not cast away His people.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 I say then, has God rejected His people? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

Paul begins with a direct, pointed question. The Greek is emphatic, suggesting a complete and final rejection. Has God repudiated His people, the ones He chose and made promises to? His answer is the strongest possible negative in the Greek: me genoito. Let it not be! Absolutely not! It is an unthinkable thought. And his first piece of evidence is himself. "Look at me," he says. "I, the apostle to the Gentiles, am a full-blooded Jew." He is not just a general Israelite, but a descendant of Abraham, the patriarch to whom the promises were given. He even specifies his tribe, Benjamin, a tribe with a noble history, loyal to the Davidic house. If God's policy was a wholesale rejection of the Jewish people, then Paul himself, the chief proclaimer of this gospel, would be a walking contradiction.

2 GOD HAS NOT REJECTED HIS PEOPLE whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?

He repeats his denial, but this time adds a crucial qualifier. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. This is not just a general awareness, but the intimate, electing knowledge of God spoken of in Romans 8:29. God has not cast off His elect. The promise was never to every single ethnic Israelite, but to the true Israel, the remnant chosen by grace. To prove this is not a new idea, he appeals to a well-known story from their own Scriptures, the story of Elijah. He frames it as Elijah "appealing to God against Israel," which is a striking way to put it. Elijah was essentially filing a covenant lawsuit against the nation, declaring them to be in total apostasy.

3 “Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE.”

Paul quotes from 1 Kings 19. This is Elijah at his lowest point, hiding in a cave on Mount Horeb. From his perspective, the situation was hopeless. The apostasy under Ahab and Jezebel was total. The covenant structures were destroyed, the faithful messengers had been executed, and he, the last man standing, was a fugitive with a price on his head. By all empirical evidence, Elijah's assessment was correct. If you took a poll in Israel at that time, faithfulness to Yahweh would have been a statistical anomaly. This is precisely how many might have viewed Israel in Paul's day. The leadership had killed the ultimate Prophet, and the apostles were being hunted.

4 But what does the divine response say to him? “I HAVE LEFT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL.”

Here is the heart of the argument. God's perspective was entirely different from Elijah's. The "divine response" or oracle corrects the prophet's despairing analysis. God says, "I have left..." or "I have reserved for Myself..." The preservation of this remnant was God's own doing. It was not that seven thousand men had managed to hold out through sheer grit. No, God had sovereignly kept them from apostasy. They were hidden from Elijah, but they were not hidden from God. The number seven thousand is likely symbolic, representing a complete and sufficient number known to God. The point is this: things are never as bad as they seem to the man who relies on his own eyes. God always preserves His people.

5 In this way then, at the present time, a remnant according to God’s gracious choice has also come to be.

Paul applies the historical principle to his own day. "In this way" means the principle still holds. Just as in Elijah's time, so also "at the present time" there is a remnant. And the defining characteristic of this remnant is not its Jewishness, its zeal for the law, or its moral superiority. It is a remnant that exists "according to God's gracious choice," or, as the Greek says, an "election of grace." The existence of Jewish Christians like Paul, Peter, James, and thousands of others was not an accident. It was the direct result of God's sovereign, electing grace, the very same grace that preserved the seven thousand.

6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.

Paul cannot mention grace without defining it, because the natural human heart is always trying to corrupt it. He draws a line in the sand with the sharpest possible antithesis. Grace and works are mutually exclusive principles of acceptance before God. You cannot mix them. If salvation is by grace, it cannot be based on works in any way, shape, or form. If you introduce even a little bit of works as the basis, then grace ceases to be grace. It becomes something else, a wage or a debt. This is a direct shot at the Judaizers and the whole system of Pharisaical righteousness, which was an attempt to earn God's favor through meritorious works. The remnant is saved by pure, unadulterated, free grace, and nothing else.

7 What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but the chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened;

He now summarizes the situation with a stark conclusion. "What then?" is Paul's way of asking, "So what is the bottom line?" The bottom line is this: Israel as a whole, the nation in its corporate unbelief, was seeking righteousness. But they were seeking it in the wrong way (by works), so they did not find it. But "the chosen," the elect remnant, did obtain it. And what happened to everyone else? "The rest were hardened." This is a terrifying passive verb. It does not say they hardened themselves, though that is also true. It says they were hardened. This is a judicial act of God, a righteous judgment upon their unbelief.

8 just as it is written, “GOD GAVE THEM A SPIRIT OF STUPOR, EYES TO SEE NOT AND EARS TO HEAR NOT, DOWN TO THIS VERY DAY.”

As is his custom, Paul anchors this shocking statement in the Old Testament. This is not some new, harsh doctrine he has invented. This is the consistent testimony of Scripture. He combines quotes from Deuteronomy 29 and Isaiah 29. God Himself is the one who gives a "spirit of stupor" or deep sleep. He gives them eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear. This is the covenant curse for persistent rebellion. When people repeatedly refuse to see the truth God has plainly revealed, there comes a point where God judicially confirms them in their blindness. And this condition, Paul says, persists "down to this very day."

9-10 And David says, “LET THEIR TABLE BECOME A SNARE AND A TRAP, AND A STUMBLING BLOCK AND A RETRIBUTION TO THEM. LET THEIR EYES BE DARKENED TO SEE NOT, AND BEND THEIR BACKS FOREVER.”

He adds another testimony, this time from David in Psalm 69, a messianic psalm of lament. This is an imprecatory, or cursing, prayer. The "table," a place of fellowship, blessing, and sustenance, is prayed to become a snare and a trap. The very blessings of the covenant, which should have nourished them, become the instrument of their downfall. Their rejection of the Messiah, the true bread from heaven, turned their spiritual feast into a poison. Their eyes are to be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs are to be bent forever, a picture of permanent servitude and degradation. Paul applies this curse to the hardened portion of Israel. Their rejection of Christ was not a small mistake; it was a catastrophic act of rebellion that invited the covenant curses they themselves had recorded in their sacred writings.

Application

This passage should first and foremost produce in us a profound humility. Our salvation, our inclusion among the people of God, is not due to our superior wisdom, our ethnic heritage, or our moral striving. We are here for one reason and one reason only: "a remnant according to God's gracious choice." If we are tempted to look down on those who are hardened in their unbelief, whether Jew or Gentile, we must remember that we are made of the same lump of clay. There is no room for boasting. Grace, by definition, eliminates it.

Second, this passage should give us a robust confidence in the sovereignty and faithfulness of God. From a human perspective, God's plan often looks like it is on the verge of collapse. Like Elijah, we look around at the rampant apostasy and cultural decay and are tempted to despair. But God always has His seven thousand. He is always working, preserving His elect, and fulfilling His promises, even if we cannot see it. His Word will not fail.

Finally, we must take the doctrine of judicial hardening with the utmost seriousness. God is not to be trifled with. To continually hear the gospel and refuse to submit to it is not a neutral act. It is an act of rebellion that invites a holy judgment. The heart that repeatedly says "I will not see" may one day be answered by a God who says, "Then you shall not see." The proper response to the light of the gospel is not to critique it or postpone it, but to bow before it in repentance and faith, thanking God for the grace that allows us to see at all, and praying for mercy on those who are still blind.