Romans 11:15

In truth, it will not be till the national conversion of Israel take place, that the work of God shall reach its perfection among the Gentiles themselves, and that the fruit of his labor as their apostle will break forth in all its beauty. Such is the explanation of the words of Romans 11:13: “inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles.” As a Jew, he certainly desires the conversion of the Jews; but he desires it still more, if possible, as the apostle of the Gentiles, because he knows what this event will be for the entire church. It is clear how closely the for at the beginning of this verse joins it to Romans 11:13-14, and how needful it is to guard against making these two last a parenthesis, and Romans 11:15 a repetition of Romans 11:12. It is also clear how wide of the truth are Bauer and his school, when they find in these verses a clever artifice by which Paul seeks to render his mission among the Gentiles acceptable to the so-called Judeo-Christian church of Rome. According to this interpretation, his meaning would be: “You are wrong in taking offence at my mission to the Gentiles; it is entirely to the profit of the Jews, whom it must end by bringing to the gospel;” an adroit way, if one dared say so, of gilding the pill for them! Not only is such a supposition unworthy of the apostle's character, but it is just the opposite of his real thought.

Here it is as it results from the three verses combined: “To take it rightly, it is as your apostle, you Gentiles, that I labor in seeking to provoke the Jews to jealousy by your conversion; for it is not till they shall be restored to grace that you yourselves shall be crowned with fulness of life.” This saying is not therefore a captatio benevolentioe indirectly appealing to Judeo-Christian readers; it is a jet of light for the use of Gentile-Christians.

The term ἀποβολή strictly denotes the act of throwing far from oneself (Acts 28:22: ἀποβολὴ ψυχῆς, the loss of life). How is the rejection of the Jews the reconciliation of the world? Inasmuch as it brings down that wall of law which kept the Gentiles outside of the divine covenant, and opens wide to them the door of grace by simple faith in the atonement.

Now, if such is the effect of their rejection, what shall be the effect of their readmission? The word πρόσληψις (translated by Osterv. their recall, by Oltram. their restoration, by Segond, their admission) strictly signifies the act of welcoming. When cursed, they have contributed to the restoration of the world; what will they not do when blessed? There seems to be here an allusion to what Christ Himself did for the world by His expiatory death and resurrection. In Christ's people there is always something of Christ Himself, mutatis mutandis.

A host of commentators, from Origen and Chrysostom down to Meyer and Hofmann (two men who do not often agree, and who unfortunately concur in this case), apply the expression: a life from the dead, to the resurrection of the dead, in the strict sense. But 1st. Why use the expression a life, instead of saying as usual ἀνάστασις, the resurrection? 2d. Why omit the article before the word life, and not say as usual the life, life eternal, instead of a life? And more than all, 3d. What so close relation could there be between the fact of the conversion of the Jews and that of the bodily resurrection? Again, if Paul confined himself to saying that the second event will closely follow the first, this temporal relation would be intelligible, though according to him the signal for the resurrection is the return of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:23), and not at all the conversion of Israel. But he goes the length of identifying the two facts of which he speaks: “What shall their return be but a life?” It is evident, therefore, for all these reasons, that the expression: a life from the dead, must be applied to a powerful spiritual revolution which will be wrought in the heart of Gentile Christendom by the fact of the conversion of the Jews. So it has been understood by Theoph., Mel., Calv., Beza, Philip., etc. The light which converted Jews bring to the church, and the power of life which they have sometimes awakened in it, are the pledge of that spiritual renovation which will be produced in Gentile Christendom by their entrance en masse. Do we not then feel that in our present condition there is something, and that much, wanting to us that the promises of the gospel may be realized in all their fulness; that there is, as it were, a mysterious hindrance to the efficacy of preaching, a debility inherent in our spiritual life, a lack of joy and force which contrasts strangely with the joyful outbursts of prophets and psalmists; that, in fine, the feast in the father's house is not complete...why? because it cannot be so, so long as the family is not entirely reconstituted by the return of the elder son. Then shall come the Pentecost of the last times, the latter rain. We are little affected by the objection of Meyer, who alleges that, according to St. Paul, the last times will be times of tribulation (those of Antichrist), and not an epoch of spiritual prosperity. We do not know how the apostle conceived the succession of events; it seems to us that, according to the Apocalpyse, the conversion of the Jews (chap. Romans 11:13 and Romans 14:1 et seq.) must precede the coming of the Antichrist, and consequently also Christ's coming again. Paul does not express himself on this point, because, as always, he only brings out what belongs rigorously to the subject he is treating.