The subject of the chapter is this—God has not rejected His people. The apostle gives three proofs that Israel is not finally rejected of God. 1. There is, as in the time of Elijah, a remnant. The rejection which affects Israel does not strike in an absolute way the totality of the people. (ver. 1-10.) 2. This rejection is not definitive. God, in putting His people aside for a time, calls the Gentiles to provoke His people to jealousy. Israel is not therefore cast off, if there remains for them the opportunity of returning to God, even in a case of being animated by a feeling of jealousy towards the Gentiles. The call of the Gentiles should arouse Israel, instead of being a proof that God had done with them. (ver. 11-24) 3. The time will come when all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. (ver. 25-32.) The chapter, with the exception of the last four verses of doxology, is summed up in these three points. There are details to consider, above all in that which concerns the olive tree of the promises mentioned in this subject, and on which we may gather up the following remarks; —The olive-tree represents the line of promise and testimony, (“by nature” Israel, the posterity of promise which issued from Abraham) That is shown by the fact that the Jews, as well those who abide as those who were cut off for their unbelief, are its “natural branches,” and that it is added that when the Jews shall cease to be disobedient, they shall be anew grafted into “their own olive-tree.” Israel, according to nature, is Israel viewed as a nation descended from Abraham, the posterity issued from him according to the flesh. That point offers no difficulty. Thus, to take Israel at the root, it must be taken in Abraham, for before him it was not a question of Israel. It was in the person of the patriarch that this nation commenced. The root of the promises, then, is Abraham; and the fatness, namely the sap which springs from the root and which circulates in the tree, answers consequently to the promises which God deposited as it were in Abraham. Thus viewed, he is the personification of the three principles—election, calling, and promise.
The olive-tree is upon the earth. God who has once planted it, neither cuts nor roots it up; He could not annul His promises. According as He finds it good, He removes some branches. He graft's in others in their place; but as to the olive-tree, He leaves it—yea mix He maintains it.
It came to pass that at a certain moment God considered the state of this tree, and decided to remove from it the dry branches, i.e., the unbelieving Jews, and to graph in their stead the believing Gentiles. This operation has changed for a time the aspect of the olive-tree, without causing nevertheless that the tree should cease to be the same stock. In this respect it is with the olive-tree as with a bank, whose firm changes in the course of years whilst the capital abides the same. The persons who have their fortune there deliver drafts upon this bank; and though, in course of time, their drafts may have borne different addresses, the fact is, notwithstanding, that the clerks have always been at the same bank to cash them.
The place which the Jews and the Gentiles occupy on the olive-tree has not been given to the one and the other in virtue of the same principle. The first, as being the Israelitish race, Abraham's posterity, are found there by birth; they are there according to nature; this tree is their own olive-tree. But the Gentiles, grafted on this tree by the blessing of the gospel, enter in by virtue of a new principle, that of faith. An example of it is seen in Cornelius. With regard to this, it may also be remarked that Christianity, as grafted upon the olive-tree of the promises, succeeds Judaism. The national Churches, such as established Protestantism, Popery, and the Greek Church, are right as to this. But it must be added that Christianity, after having been set up by God, has been over-run, later on, by the number of professors, and is become Christendom such as is seen at this day. The doom of this grafting in of the Gentiles, and therefore, the doom of the professing masses, is found thus decided; for the Gentiles, in receiving a place on the olive-tree, were put under this condition; “toward thee, goodness, [i. e. of God,] if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”
If it be asked whether the olive-tree is not the Church, the answer is, No. The Church is the creation of one new man, (Eph. 2,) the formation of one new body, which, far from succeeding to Abraham and to Israel here below, has only its existence for heaven. The olive-tree leaves the Jews and the Gentiles distinct, (Rom. 11) whilst the Church takes out of the one and the other, and unites them in one single body. ( Eph. 2) It may well be that the individuals composing the Church, united to Christ in heaven, are also branches of the olive-tree on the earth—that they have these two relations, but the olive-tree never could be the Church. How should the Jews, at the time of the Savior, Caiaphas, Pharisees, &c., be of the Church? Finally, in the consideration of what is to come, remark once more that if a portion of Israel has been cut off the olive-tree, this chastisement will have an end. The moment will come when the Jews, returned from their unbelief; shall be grafted in again. Then Israel, as a people, shall be reinstated in the blessing of the promises: “the Deliverer shall come to Sion, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” This return of Israel to God is the subject of the close of the chapter. The whole is a blessed picture of the faithfulness of God and His ways towards Israel. Originally the tree was Jewish, it is now Gentile, but finally it will be Jewish again.
Ver. 1-10. Far be the thought, then, that God had cast away His people, Israel. For, as the apostle urges, himself also was one of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. It was a pledge of more, and a proof that God had not cast away His people as a whole, not about the elect remnant, but that remnant showed that God did not finally discard Israel. This leads the apostle to refer to the case of Elijah. “Know you not what the scripture says in [the history of] Elias? How he pleads to God against Israel, saying,” &c. But what says the divine answer to him? “I have left to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Thus, then, at the present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace; “And if by grace, no longer of works, since [if it were,] grace is no more grace.” That is, the apostle illustrates the remnant in his day by a reference to Elijah's day when he, the most energetic of faithful men in Israel, did not know of one but himself that owned Jehovah. But it was want of faith. God knew 7000, whose existence proved God's love and faithful care. If Elijah pleaded against Israel, it only drew out God for them, and the disclosure of a complete though hidden remnant, whom the prophet had failed to discern. There was a remnant still in the apostle's day. God showed thereby that He had not done with Israel. But if sovereign grace thus dwelt with an election from Israel, the mass were but lying under the tremendous maledictions which he next proceeds to quote from their own prophets. (7-10.) The remnant were blessed, the rest were blinded, just as Moses, David, and Isaiah, had predicted. They might talk of their works, but they had eyes not to see and ears not to hear until this day. Their own scriptures were clear enough that it should be so—clear as to a little godly remnant—clear as to an ensnared and hardened mass in Israel.
Ver. 11-24. Had Israel then stumbled that they might fall? Far be the thought; but by their slip, salvation [is come] to the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy. God had merciful thoughts in store for Israel. He judged their sin, took advantage of it to call the Gentiles, but this not as if He had abandoned the Jews forever as His people, but rather to stir them up to holy emulation. Israel had slipped, not finally fallen. And if their slip [be] the world's wealth, and their loss the Gentiles' wealth, how much more their fullness? He is speaking to the Gentiles, but it is about Israel, whose temporary slip gave occasion to the revelation of God's grace to Gentiles, and whose future restoration in full would be life from the dead to the world. If their disgrace brought blessing to the Gentile, what would not be the fruit of their honor when grace gives it to them?
It will be observed that Paul is here tracing the question of responsibility on earth, and reconciling it with the sure and triumphant faithfulness of God at the end. The subject is neither the salvation of the soul, nor the peculiar calling of the Church, the body of Christ. It is the line of promise here below, and God's wise and holy ways as to it on a large scale. It need hardly be said that he is not proving that God was saving Israelites individually, for that needed no proof; but as he had used the fact of a Jewish elect remnant to show that God had not wholly cast off Israel, but ever hung over them, as an earnest of future mercy to them as a nation, so he interprets the call of the Gentiles as done meanwhile to provoke Israel to jealousy, not to give them up altogether.
It is astonishing how persons who believe in the eternal life of the believer can apply the olive-tree, of which we next hear (ver. 16-24), to salvation or the Church. If it did bear such a meaning, it would follow that branches, not of the wild olive, but natural branches—in that case meaning members of Christ -could be broken off. Take these branches as the Jews, the natural heirs of the promise to Abraham, and all is plain. They have been broken off in part. They trusted to their works and their own goodness; they have slipped from their place as God's witnesses. The Gentiles meanwhile enjoy the light and testimony of God. They have replaced the incredulous Jews in this respect. They are grafted into the olive-tree.
The unbelieving Jews were in the olive-tree: who will say that they were ever in the Church? Till the death of Christ, Israel, as a whole, composed the olive tree. By nature the Jews were branches in this, the old stock of promise from Abraham. downwards. They were born the natural heirs. All this disappears in the Church, where there is neither Jew nor Gentile: everything there is above nature, and the Jew is no more than a Gentile in that new man, where of twain God makes one. And as Israel nationally never did form the Church or body of Christ, so it never will; whereas all Israel shall be saved and be grafted once more into their own olive-tree. These considerations suffice to show that the Church and the olive-tree are two very different things.
But if the Gentile, wild olive as he was, was grafted into the tree of earthly testimony, let him not boast over the branches: the Gentile does not bear the root, but the root him. And let him remember that through unbelief they were broken off, and that the Gentile, having no natural right, stands by faith. If God spared not the natural branches, it might be He will not spare the Gentile! Nay, it is certain that, if the Gentile abide not in goodness, excision will be his lot, as it was of the Jewish branches who had been unfaithful before him. And God, who cut out the Gentile from the naturally wild olive and grafted him, contrary to nature, into the good olive, how much more will He graft the branches that are according to nature into their own olive? Israel, then, was not cast off.
Ver. 25-32. But there is another reason more express: blindness in part is happened to Israel, but this is until the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in; and so all Israel, instead of being rejected, shall be saved. It is the future national restoration and salvation of Israel. They shall be restored to their own olive, to their place in the line of God's testimony and promises on earth: for heavenly hopes do not enter into view here. Instead of being cast off, Israel, as such, are destined to enjoy all that was promised them. The Deliverer shall come out of Sion; and God will take away their sins. Plainly it is the Jews, the literal Jews, who are here meant; for they are distinguished from, and contrasted with, the Gentiles all through the chapter from verse 11, and very clearly in this verse 26. “The fullness of the Gentiles” means the complete number of such Gentiles as believe—all the Gentiles who share in the blessing during Israel's practical obdurateness. Israel are enemies on account of the Gentiles now as regards the gospel, but as regards election, beloved on account of the fathers. This is in no wise applicable to what people call the spiritual Israel, for they are friends as regards the gospel, and beloved of God the Father, not on account of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand Israel after the flesh, and all is simple: they have made good their enmity as regards the Gospel, and God will not fail to prove in due time that they are beloved on the fathers' account. For the gifts and calling of God are not subject to repentance: they are indefeasible. The election mentioned in verse 28 is that of the beloved people Israel. It must not be confounded with the election according to grace, whereby, in the interval of Israel's rejection, the called Jews and Gentiles are taken for heaven. The first is a national election, the second an individual election, which sets us in far superior blessing, since its object and result are to introduce us into heaven. In fact, the believing Jews, who abode on the olive-tree, share in these two elections.
How strange that Christians who enjoy and maintain the faithfulness of God as to their own souls, should deny it as to Israel, spite of His call and promises to them. But He will never repent. He is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent. He created, and when His work became corrupt, He destroyed. (Gen. 6 vii.) But if He calls, He never casts off: His counsel is irrevocable. He is sovereign in Rom. 9 He is faithful in Rom. 11 “For as the Gentiles at one time believed not in God, but have now had mercy shown them through their (Israel's) unbelief, so Israel have now not believed in the Gentiles' mercy, in order that they also may have mercy shown them. For God has shut up all together in unbelief in order that He might show mercy to all.” Israel shall be reinstated in the blessing of the promises by the same road that the Gentiles have followed to enter into the blessing of the gospel—namely the mercy of God. Through rejecting Christ they lost their title to the promises, and they sealed that loss by opposing and denying the mercy of God which passed on to the Gentiles who received the Christ in heaven, whom the Jews rejected on earth. Thus Israel is stripped of title and stands the object of pure mercy just as much as a Gentile. And thus God will save Israel at the end, not on the ground of their claim but of His mercy.
Ver. 33-36. “O depth of riches, both of God's wisdom and knowledge! how unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways! For who has known the Lord's mind? or who has become his counselor? or who has first given to him and it shall be rendered to him? For of him, and through him, and to him are all things; to him be glory forever. Amen.”