Romans 11:1

CHAPTER XI.

God has not universally nor finally rejected Israel; nor are

they all at present rejecters of the Gospel, for there is a

remnant of true believers now, as there was in the days of the

Prophet Elijah, 1-5.

These have embraced the Gospel, and are saved by grace, and not

by the works of the law, 6.

The body of the Israelites, having rejected this, are blinded,

according to the prophetic declaration of David, 7-10.

But they have not stumbled, so as to be finally rejected; but

through their fall, salvation is come to the Gentiles, 11-14.

There is hope of their restoration, and that the nation shall

yet become a holy people, 15, 16.

The converted Gentiles must not exult over the fallen Jews; the

latter having fallen by unbelief, the former stand by faith,

17-20.

The Jews, the natural branches, were broken off from the true

olive, and the Gentiles having been grafted in, in their place,

must walk uprightly, else they also shall be cut off, 21, 22.

The Jews, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be again grafted

in; and when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, the great

Deliverer shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, according to

the covenant of God, 23-27.

For the sake of their forefathers God loves them, and will again

call them, and communicate His gifts to them, 28, 29.

The Gospel shall he again sent to them, as it has now been sent

to the Gentiles, 30-32.

This procedure is according to the immensity of the wisdom,

knowledge, and unsearchable judgments of God, who is the

Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and to whom all

adoration is due, 33-36.

NOTES ON CHAP. XI.

This chapter is of the prophetic kind. It was by the spirit of prophecy that the apostle foresaw the rejection of the Jews, which he supposes in the two preceding chapters; for when he wrote the epistle they were not in fact, rejected, seeing their polity and Church were then standing. But the event has proved that he was a true prophet; for we know that in about ten or eleven years after the writing of this letter the temple was destroyed, the Jewish polity overthrown, and the Jews expelled out of the promised land, which they have never been able to recover to the present day.

This, 1. confirms the arguments which the apostle had advanced to establish the calling of the Gentiles. For the Jews are, in fact, rejected; consequently, our calling is, in fact, not invalidated by any thing they suggested, relative to the perpetuity of the Mosaic dispensation. But that dispensation being wholly subverted, our title to the privileges of God's Church and people stands clear and strong; the Jewish constitution only could furnish objections against our claim; and the event has silenced every objection from that quarter.

2. The actual rejection of the Jews proves Paul to be a true apostle of Jesus Christ, and that he spoke by the Spirit of God; otherwise, he could not have argued so fully upon a case which was yet to come, and of which there was no appearance in the state of things when he wrote this epistle. And this very circumstance should induce us to pay great attention to this chapter, in which he discourses concerning the extent and duration of the rejection of his countrymen, to prevent their being insulted and despised by the Gentile Christians.

(1) As to the extent of this rejection, it is not absolutely universal; some of the Jews have embraced the Gospel, and are incorporated into the Christian Church with the believing Gentiles. Upon the case of these believing Jews he comments, Romans 11:1.

(2) As to the duration of it, it is not final and perpetual, for all Israel, or the nation of the Jews, which is now blinded, shall one day be saved or brought again into the kingdom or covenant of God. Upon the state of these blinded Jews he comments, Romans 11:7 to the end of the chapter. His design, in discoursing upon this subject, was not only to make the thing itself known, but partly to engage the attention of the unbelieving Jew; to conciliate his favour, and, if possible, to induce him to come into the Gospel scheme; and partly to dispose the Gentile Christians not to treat the Jews with contempt; (considering that they derived all their present blessings from the patriarchs, the ancestors of the Jewish nation, and were engrafted into the good olive tree, whence the Jews had been broken;) and to admonish them to take warning by the fall of the Jews; to make a good improvement of their religious privileges, lest, through unbelief, any of them should relapse into heathenism, or perish finally at the last day.

The thread of his discourse leads him into a general survey and comparison of the several dispensations of God towards the Gentiles and Jews; and he concludes this survey with adoration of the depths of the Divine knowledge and wisdom exercised in the various constitutions erected in the world, Romans 11:30.

Verse Romans 11:1. I say then, hath God cast away his people?] Has he utterly and finally rejected them? for this is necessarily the apostle's meaning, and is the import of the Greek word απωσατο, which signifies to thrust or drive away, from απο, from, and ωθεω, to thrust or drive; has he thrust them off, and driven them eternally from him? God forbid-by no means. This rejection is neither universal nor final. For I also am an Israelite-I am a regular descendant from Abraham, through Israel or Jacob, and by his son Benjamin. And I stand in the Church of God, and in the peculiar covenant; for the rejection is only of the obstinate and disobedient; for those who believe on Christ, as I have done, are continued in the Church.