God’s Inscrutable Mystery: Romans 11 (Part 1)

Romans 9-11 represents Paul’s great argument, against Gentile frustration, anger, and derision, on behalf of his own Jewish people. In chapter 9, he argued that God’s faithfulness and justice have never been dependent on Israel’s faithfulness; God is free to show mercy upon whomsoever God chooses, and the operative word there is mercy. Then in chapter 10, he addressed the irony that his fellow Jews show a genuine zeal for God but it is off-base; when it is on track, zeal is oriented towards sharing the joy of God’s salvation. Now, as we’ll see, in chapter 11 he ends these comments by celebrating the mystery of God’s destiny, which remains first and foremost for the Jews, even if it seems Gentiles are now enjoying its fruits in the present.

Because there’s a lot of text to go over, I’ll break this one study up into two parts for length.

Text

Once again, I’l be tackling a whole chapter at once, so won’t provide a verse-by-verse translation. Please see your preferred translation for the full text. Here is a summary:

Has God rejected Israel? No. Paul himself is evidence of that as a proud Jewish man who has dedicated his life to the gospel. His solace is in the historical idea of the remnant: throughout Israel’s past, no matter how many fell away, there was always a small remnant to keep the faith alive. And that remains true in this new era of the gospel.

This does not mean that Israel has achieved its national goals. Just as in Isaiah’s day, the people have been rendered incapable of understanding what they hear and see. And just as in David’s day, they have become trapped in their own comfort. But the silver lining of this has been that salvation has come to the Gentiles: it was the lack of positive response to the gospel in the synagogues that led the apostles to turn outward and proclaim their message to the Gentiles, and that has accelerated God’s plans to bless the whole world through Israel, as promised to Abraham.

Because of this, Paul urges his Gentile audience to be patient with Israel. God’s plans not only still include Israel, but remain ultimately rooted in Israel. The largely Gentile community of Jesus is not a new tree, but branches grafted onto the existing tree of Israel. So there’s no room for arrogance or boasting over Israel. It’s still ultimately Israel’s tree to which they now belong! And if Israel could fall away, so too can the faithful Gentiles if they aren’t careful. God can cut off and graft in as God sees fit, and the natural branches will be more easily grafted in than the unnatural ones!

Paul is convinced that Israel won’t respond favourably to the gospel until “the full number of the gentiles” has been grafted in. All Israel, he is convinced, will ultimately be saved. For even if they are currently cut off, they remain God’s chosen and beloved people, and God’s gifts and calling are never revoked. And just as Gentiles received mercy following their disobedience, so too will Israel.

All this is part of the divine mystery. Glory to our mysterious God for ever! Amen.

Experience

Throughout this section, I’ve had a nagging feeling that I’m reading someone else’s mail — which, of course, I am. It’s a reminder to keep the original context of the letter in mind. That said, it’s also a pretty powerful statement of how Paul sees the mixed community of Jesus-followers we know as ‘the Church’ in relationship to the ethnic ‘people of God’, even if some of the metaphors are a bit confusing to us today.

Encounter

Once again, God is the main character in this section: the mystery, the agency, the initiative are all God’s. The question is about human response to that. While the text is ‘about’ Jews, it is directed towards Gentiles, and it comes with a big warning for anyone who would dismiss God’s continued faithfulness to the the chosen people.

Explore

The preliminary sections of this study have introduced a few questions that will guide the rest of today’s post:

• What might the setting into which Paul was writing the letter contribute to how we interpret it?
• What else can we learn about the images Paul uses (the runner, the first fruit, and the olive tree)?
• What ultimate destiny does Paul see at work here?

Romans 11 in Historical Context

The Historical Situation

As we saw at the start of this series, the exact situation Paul was writing the Roman churches to address is not clear. Unlike some of his other letters, he doesn’t explicitly outline them. But we have some clues. First is the letter’s strong theme of Jews and Gentiles coming together in one community of faith (1.18-3.20; 11.13-24). Second, despite these themes, the letter seems to be addressed to a primarily Gentile audience. And third, the most likely timing of the letter is in the aftermath of the Emperor Claudius’ death. While the exact nature of his decrees is disputed in the ancient literature, it is clear that this emperor had taken action against Rome’s Jewish population which caused many of the city’s Jews to leave until after he died (Suetonius, Divus Claudius 25; Cassius Dio 60.6.6). This has led to a general consensus that Paul was writing to a Christian community in Rome that was struggling to reintegrate returning Jewish Christ-followers into their now dominantly-Gentile churches.

From what we read in chapter 11, it seems as though many Gentile Christ-followers were dismissive of the faith’s Jewish origins, and dismissive of the returning Jews within their communities as a result. This is likely due to a combination of general Greco-Roman prejudices against Jews as a strange and secretive people who kept to themselves and didn’t participate in the wider community, and to their Christian confusion as to why most Jews rejected Jesus.

Romans 11 in Context

And so, emphasizing his own Jewishness, here Paul makes his case for not only Gentile dependency on Jews for the ‘new’ faith in which they boast, but also for God’s continued faithfulness to, mercy towards, and plans for the Jewish people despite their apparent rejection of the messiah (Eberhart).* The ultimate goal is to inspire non-Jews to show empathy and patience for the Jewish people as a whole, and to celebrate the return of the Jewish Christ-followers as a reminder that it is they, the non-Jews, who are being included in God’s destiny for Israel and not the other way around (Nanos 320).

We can map the argument as follows:

Question: Since Israel has stumbled in their zeal and rejected God’s terms of salvation, has God in turn rejected them? (11.1a)

Answer: Absolutely not! (11.1b)

Discussion:

1. 1. Paul himself is Jewish and therefore evidence that God has not rejected his people (11.1c)
   2. As examples from the stories of David, Elijah, and Isaiah show, it has often appeared as though God’s people have abandoned faith, but there has always been a faithful remnant protected by God’s grace. (11.2-10)
   3. Israel’s stumble has had the positive end of accelerating the spread of the good news of God’s kingdom to non-Jews (11.11-12)
      1. Good beginnings produce good results (11.13-16)
      2. Non-Jews have no cause to boast over or dismiss Jews because it is they Gentiles who have been incorporated into the Jewish story, not the other way around.  (11.17-24)
   4. The destiny of all God’s people continues to be tied up with Israel because God does not have regrets when it comes to calling. If some are disobedient now, it is only for the purposes of God’s ultimate mercy. (11.25-36)

(For more on this summary, see Witherington 265ff; Kruse 422ff.)

Since the examples all deserve more careful study, I’ll leave things here for today for the interest of space, and will pick up with the rest of the study next time.