9    God Has Not Canceled His  Promises to Israel—part 2  His Setting Israel Aside Is Passing (11:11-24)

I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their transgression be riches for the world and their failure be riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? And if the first piece of dough be holy, the lump is also; and if the root be holy, the branches are too. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more shall these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? (11:11–24)

The second major truth that Paul presents in Romans 11 is that God’s act of setting Israel aside is passing, not permanent. This hopeful truth is seen in its definite purpose, its definite premonition, and its definite promise.

IT HAS A DEFINITE PURPOSE

I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their transgression be riches for the world and their failure be riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (11:11–15)

First, God’s temporarily setting Israel aside was not an afterthought or an outburst of emotional anger but had a definite purpose. Again (see 11:1) Paul introduces his point by asking a rhetorical question and then giving the strongest negative answer possible: I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! God has not allowed His chosen people Israel to fall into such unbelief and disobedience that they are unsalvageable. He has indeed given them “a spirit of stupor,” and He “let their eyes be darkened to see not” (vv. 8, 10). For a divinely appointed time, He has let them wander about in spiritual blindness and darkness. Yet their blindness is not irreversible, and their darkness was never to be permanent.

The severe stumbling of which Paul speaks is, of course, Israel’s rejection of her Messiah, Jesus Christ. But Israel’s rejection of God’s own Son and His kingdom did not thwart God’s plan. On the contrary (but), the Lord used that terrible transgression of His people to accomplish His own divine objective.

That vast objective is twofold: to bring salvation to the Gentiles and to the Jews.

GENTILE SALVATION

salvation has come to the Gentiles (11:11b)

Through the stumbling of Israel, God’s gracious, far-reaching salvation was extended to the Gentiles. Israel’s temporary loss was the Gentiles’ permanent gain. “I say to you,” Jesus promised, “that many [Gentiles] shall come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom [unbelieving Jews] shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:11–12). The very people for whom the kingdom was intended and to whom the kingdom was offered will be shut out of the kingdom. Individual Jews who reject their Messiah will be banned and sent permanently “into the outer darkness,” but the unbelieving nation shall one day believe and be restored. In the meanwhile, because of their rejection of the kingdom, God has offered the kingdom, and the salvation it represents, to a people called out from among the Gentiles.

On a later occasion, Jesus warned unbelieving Israel through a parable: “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it” (Matt. 21:43). He proceeded to tell the enraged chief priests and Pharisees still another parable (22:1–14) that vividly portrayed their rejection of Him and His Father’s rejection of them, while inviting into the kingdom the despised Gentiles to whom it had not originally been promised.

Although the widespread salvation of Gentiles came about because Israel as a nation refused her Savior, that extension of grace was not an afterthought with God. From His first calling of Abraham, it was God’s intent that His chosen people should be the instruments of bringing salvation to the Gentiles. “In you,” the Lord told Abraham, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). In the covenant at Sinai God called Israel to be His witnesses, His spiritual ambassadors to the world as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Like their Messiah, “the tribes of Jacob, and … the preserved ones of Israel” were to be “a light of the nations so that [God’s] salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isa. 49:6).

Paul applied that same calling to himself and Barnabas. To the resentful and jealous Jews in Pisidian Antioch, and in the presence of many Gentiles, the two men declared, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For thus the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have placed You as a light for the Gentiles, that You should bring salvation to the end of the earth’” (Acts 13:46–47).

Some years later, while preaching to unbelieving and blasphemous Jews in Corinth, Paul “shook out his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood be upon your own heads! I am clean. From now on I shall go to the Gentiles’” (Acts 18:6). In his last recorded words to his unbelieving “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3), the apostle said,

Paul was uniquely called to be God’s apostle to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:13; cf. Acts 9:15), as one to whom, “the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8). Yet when he first came to a city, he invariably would go first to the synagogue or search out individual Jews if they were too few to have a synagogue. Some of those hearers would believe, but, for the most part, they resisted and rejected the gospel that was “spoken against everywhere” (Acts 28:22). At that point, Paul would turn his focus to the Gentiles. The church is the new people of God, called from among all nations.

JEWISH SALVATION

to make them jealous. Now if their transgression be riches for the world and their failure be riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (11:1 lc-15)

God’s second objective in setting Israel aside was to make her jealous of Gentiles. To make translates a Greek infinitive with a preposition and carries the idea of purpose. And although jealousy is essentially a negative term, God’s intention was for Israel’s jealousy of Gentiles to be a positive stimulus to draw His people back to Himself. But Jews had long disdained Gentiles, whom they considered to be outside the boundaries of God’s grace. To be told they had lost their special relationship to God was distressing enough, but to be told that God offered that forfeited relationship to Gentiles was a bitter pill indeed.

Paul already had reminded his Jewish readers of God’s ancient revelation concerning His purpose for the Gentiles. Through Moses He said, “I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you,” and through Isaiah said, “I was found by those who sought Me not, I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me” (Rom. 10:19–20).

But God’s ultimate purpose in setting Israel aside was not to drive His people further away but to bring them back to Himself. He wanted to make them face their own sin and its consequences, to sense their alienation from Jehovah and to recognize their need for the salvation that He now offered the Gentiles. As Jews see the Lord pour out the kind of blessings on the Gentile church that once were reserved for Israel, some of them desire that blessing for themselves and come to Jesus Christ, their spurned Messiah, in repentance and faith. That happens with individual Jews throughout this age, and will one day happen to the whole nation.

One of the great ironies of history is the relationship of God’s chosen people (the Jews) to the rest of humanity (the Gentiles). Anti-Semitism by Gentiles has often been paralleled by, and sometimes precipitated by, the anti-Gentile sentiments of Jews. It therefore was—and no doubt still is for many Jews—an enormous leap from a negative contempt of Gentiles to a positive jealousy of them. Yet that is precisely the leap the Lord intends for them to make as a first step in bringing them back to Him.

It should be the desire of every Christian to manifest the spiritual realities of a transformed life that would draw unbelieving Jews to belief in our Lord and their Messiah, a witness that would tap their divinely-inspired jealousy of Gentiles and be used to turn it to a divinely-desired faith in His Son.

Unfortunately, the Christianity that Jews see in many professed, and even some genuine, Christians reflects little of the love and righteousness of Christ and of the salvation He brings. When they see Gentile Christians who are dishonest and immoral, and especially those who are anti-Semitic in the name of Christ (who was the supremely perfect Jew), they are deeply and understandably offended and repulsed. They are anything but jealous of such Gentiles, and they distance themselves still further from the Lord instead of drawing closer to Him.

A future time will come when the nation will recognize her Messiah, repent of killing Him, and be saved (Zech. 12:10).

God has used even the great transgression of Israel in rejecting her Messiah to accomplish His ultimate purpose of bringing spiritual riches to the world, that is, the Gentiles, just as He had declared to Abraham when He first called Israel to Himself: “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Although Israel failed to witness to the world in righteousness, God caused her to witness to the world, as it were, in unrighteousness. Because the Lord could not use Israel’s faithfulness to bring riches to the Gentiles, He instead used her failure.

But how much more will their [the Jews’] fulfillment be! Paul exults. That is, if the Lord has used Israel’s great transgression of rejecting her Messiah to bless the Gentile world, how much more will He bless the world when Israel turns to Him in faith and the glorious millennial kingdom comes.

Earlier in the letter Paul had used another extreme contrast to portray the greatness of God’s love and grace: “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Rom. 5:8–10). If a dead Savior could redeem us, how much more can a living Savior sustain us.

By the same logic, if a faithless Israel could bring salvation to the Gentiles, how much greater blessing will her faithfulness bring. The Lord promises that when Israel one day receives the Messiah she rejected, He “will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced” (Zech. 12:10). “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity” (13:1). Following that, “the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one. … And there will be no more curse,… Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations … will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts” (14:9, 11, 16).

In that day the Lord Jesus Christ will establish His kingdom on earth, Israel will reign with Him, and her people will become the faithful witnesses and blessing to the world that God always intended them to be. And in that day when Israel turns to Christ, Satan will be bound, the heavens and earth will be renewed, justice will prevail on earth, and there will be worldwide righteousness and universal peace. That will be the much more blessing that Israel’s faith will bring to the world.

As this spiritual revival of Israel begins during the Great Tribulation, the Lord will seal for Himself “one hundred and forty-four thousand … from every tribe of the sons of Israel” (Rev. 7:4), and through their faithful witness “a great multitude [of Gentiles], which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, [will stand] before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches [will be] in their hands” (v. 9). The fruit of Israel’s faithful fulfillment will be worldwide salvation. That also will go on during the kingdom, as Jews lead Gentiles to the Lord Christ.

Paul reaches deeper into the evidence of his own genuine affection for Israel. I am speaking to you who are Gentiles, he says, and inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry. In other words, he does not want to underplay his special calling to reach the Gentile world for Christ. He emphasized that calling wherever he ministered (see Acts 18:6; 22:21; 26:17–18; Eph. 3:8; 1 Tim. 3:7). But he also knew that “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22), and that “the gospel … is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16). In addition to that knowledge, he had great personal love for his fellow Jews and “great sorrow and unceasing grief in [his] heart” because of their lostness. “For I could wish that I myself were accursed,” he testified, “separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites” (Rom. 9:3–4). His constant “heart’s desire and … prayer to God [was] for… their salvation” (10:1). His special calling to and love for the unsaved Gentile world in no way diminished his affection for unsaved fellow Jews and for unbelieving Israel as a people.

He therefore makes no apology for his own intention, which reflected his Lord’s intention to bring to jealousy [his] fellow countrymen and save some of them. In addition to wanting to bring Gentiles to salvation for their own sakes, he also wanted their salvation to be God’s instrument for redeeming Jews. And if their rejection can lead to the reconciliation of the world, he goes on to say, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? The tragedy of their rejection will be surpassed by the glory of their acceptance.

In speaking of life from the dead, Paul was not referring to bodily resurrection. Regarding individual Jews, he was speaking of receiving spiritual life as a gracious gift to displace spiritual death, the wage of unbelief. Regarding Israel, he was speaking of its rebirth and the rebirth of the whole world in the glorified millennial kingdom of God (see, e.g., Isa. 11:1–9; Rev. 20). In that glorious day, even “the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

IT WAS A DEFINITE PREMONITION

And if the first piece of dough be holy, the lump is also; and if the root be holy, the branches are too. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. (11:16—22)

Second, God’s temporarily setting Israel aside was a definite premonition. Paul here gives a stern warning to Gentiles about having the same kind of arrogant, presumptuous pride that caused unbelieving Israel’s removal from blessing. God did not judge Israel and offer the gospel to Gentiles because Jews are inherently more unrighteous and unworthy or because Gentiles are inherently more righteous and worthy (cf. Rom. 2:14–15). That is the reverse of the view Jews had long had of Gentiles.

It did not take long for early Gentile Christians to be tempted to scorn the Jews because they had scorned Christ. That notion poured fuel on the fire of anti-Semitism that had existed in many Gentile nations and cultures for countless centuries. It is seen in Scripture in the enmity between Israel and her surrounding neighbors—such as Syria, Phoenicia, Moab, Edom, the Philistines, and other Canaanite peoples. It is seen in Israel’s conquest and domination by Babylon, Assyria, Greece, and then Rome. And because many Gentile believers in the early church had been raised in the midst of pagan anti-Semitism, it was not difficult for Satan to tempt them to continued prejudice against Jews because of Israel’s rejection and crucifixion of her own Messiah and Savior.

Some modern “Christian” cults are based on the notion of British Israelism. They hold the totally unscriptural and unhistorical notion that Anglo-Saxons comprise the ten so-called lost tribes of Israel—a name to which they believe Jews have long lost all claim, because God eternally rejected and condemned them for rejecting and putting Jesus Christ to death. Anti-Semitism is the very underpinning of such cults.

Less extreme prejudice, often hidden and usually denied, is also reflected in some Christian churches and organizations. It is not impossible even for true believers to become infected with that age-old spiritual disease which the Lord so intensely detests.

As always, Paul’s logic is irrefutable. If the first piece of dough be holy, he points out, the lump is also. First piece of dough translates the single Greek word aparchē, which literally means a firstfruit (as in the KJV) offering of any kind, animal as well as grain. It refers to the first portion of an offering which was set aside specifically for the Lord.

Through Moses, God instructed His newly-delivered people: “When you eat of the food of the land, you shall lift up an offering to the Lord. Of the first of your dough you shall lift up a cake as an offering; as the offering of the threshing floor, so you shall lift it up. From the first of your dough you shall give to the Lord an offering throughout your generations” (Num. 15:19–21). Those cakes, or loaves, were given to feed the priests, who served—and thereby represented—the Lord in their unique ministry in the tabernacle and later in the temple. Therefore, before any bread would be eaten by a household, a special portion, the first piece of dough, was first consecrated and presented to the Lord.

Although only a portion of that special piece of dough represented the entire loaf (the lump), all of which was acknowledged as being from the Lord. In other words, they were giving back to the Lord a representation of all He had provided for them. It is for that reason that the lump is also holy (“set apart”). That idea is expressed in the lovely stanza sometimes sung in worship services just before or after the offering:

Another, and somewhat reverse, analogy is given using the figure of a tree or vine. And if the root be holy, the branches are too. If the foundational part of a plant (the root) is holy, then that which it produces (the branches) must likewise (too) be holy.

But Paul’s specific use of the analogy in this passage points up the truth that, if the firstfruits and root of Israel—perhaps symbolizing the first patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)—were holy, consecrated to the Lord, so were all their descendants, the people of Israel. Therefore, for God to forsake Israel would be for Him to renege on His promises to those patriarchs—something His holy character will not allow.

Even John Murray, a leading amillennialist (one who does not believe in a literal, 1,000-year earthly kingdom promised to the Jews and ruled by Christ on the throne of David in Jerusalem, but who generally believes that God’s dealing with the nation of Israel ended with their rejection of Jesus Christ), cannot resist the power of the marvelous truth that Paul stresses here. In his commentary on Romans, Murray amazingly observes that “there cannot be irremediable rejection of Israel. The holiness of the theocratic consecration is not abolished and will one day be vindicated in Israel’s fulness and restoration” (The Epistle to the Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965], p. 85).

In order to be faithful to His own Word, the Lord must provide a future salvation for Israel. Israel has not yet completely fulfilled God’s covenant promise to Abraham or His countless reiterations of that promise to redeem and restore Abraham’s descendants. If the root, Abraham and the other patriarchs, is holy, then the branches, their descendants, are holy too. They were divinely called and set apart before the foundation of the world and God’s work with those branches will not be complete until they bear the spiritual fruit He intends to produce in and through them, until the end of the age when they actually become the holy people they were destined to be.

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,” God said to Israel through Isaiah, “who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain; when he was one I called him, then I blessed him and multiplied him” (Isa. 51:1–2). God established His permanent relationship with Israel through His covenant with their forefather, Abraham. They were consecrated as a people in the consecration of Abraham.

Paul continues with the figure of a tree: But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree.

Here the apostle makes his point by referring to the familiar practice of grafting. Olive trees were an agricultural and commercial mainstay in ancient Palestine and much of the Near East and Mediterranean areas, and still support a valuable industry in most of those regions today. Olive trees can live for hundreds of years, but as they age, they become less and less productive, and in order to restore productivity, branches from younger trees are grafted to old ones. When a branch ceased to produce olives, a younger one was grafted in its place.

That is the figure Paul uses here. The old, unproductive branches of Israel were broken off. Centuries earlier God had warned His people of what their continued unbelief and idolatry would bring. “The Lord called your name, ‘A green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form’; with the noise of a great tumult He has kindled fire on it, and its branches are worthless. And the Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to provoke Me by offering up sacrifices to Baal” (Jer. 11:16–17). Jesus Himself warned His own people Israel, “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation [better, “a people” NIV] producing the fruit of it” (Matt. 21:43).

In place of the unfaithful, unproductive branches of Israel, those of a wild olive, the believing Gentiles, were grafted in among them. Those Gentile branches, people from all nations who believe in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, then became partaker with them, the believing descendants of Abraham, in the rich root of the olive tree, the root of divine blessing and of eternal relationship to God through salvation.

At the beginning of that verse, Paul makes clear that some, but not all, of the branches were broken off. That is also indicated by the phrase among them. There always had been a believing remnant in Israel, and many Jews believed in Christ during His earthly ministry and in the time of the early church. Probably until the end of the first century, most Christians, including all the apostles, were Jews. Those original Jewish branches remained attached to the rich root of God’s olive tree, as have Jewish branches from then until now. Gentile believers are joint heirs with them and of Abraham, “the father of all who believe without being circumcised [without being or becoming Jews], that righteousness might be reckoned to them” (Rom. 4:11).

Now comes a command to the Gentiles based on that truth: Do not be arrogant toward the branches, that is, the unbelieving Jews who were cut off; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root (the promise to Abraham that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” Gen. 12:3), but the root supports you. The Gentiles themselves were not the source of blessing any more than believing Jews had been. Believing Gentiles are blessed by God because they are spiritual descendants of faithful Abraham. We are blessed because we have been grafted into the covenant of salvation that God made with Abraham and now graciously offers to all who believe in Abraham’s God. As Paul had explained to the churches in Galatia a few years earlier,

A few verses later in that same chapter of Galatians, the apostle explains further that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’—in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (vv. 13–14). How ridiculous and presumptuous then, for believing Gentiles to be arrogant toward the natural branches, even those who were cut off in unbelief. Remember, he continues, that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. The blessing of both Jewish and Gentile believers comes through the root of God’s covenant promises and power.

It is tragic and lamentable that, throughout much of church history, Jewish converts to Christ have often been subjected to attitudes of Gentile superiority and been shunned or reluctantly accepted into Christian fellowship.

Paul anticipated that, in spite of this clear truth, some of his Gentile readers would continue to argue against him. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, he concedes, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. In other words, the breaking off and grafting in were based on belief, not on any inherent racial or national inferiority or superiority. The issue is not worthiness and it is not racial, ethnic, social, intellectual, or even moral. The only issue is faith. The Jews were broken off because of that unbelief, and Gentiles who believed were grafted in, that is, made to stand, on the basis of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You therefore have no reason to be conceited, but very good reason to fear, Paul warns. He gave a similar warning to the church at Corinth: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). For if God did not spare the natural branches, His covenant people Israel, neither will He spare you Gentiles, who are not a part of that covenant. If Israel’s special calling and blessing from the Lord could not protect them from being broken off, then certainly the Gentiles’ lack of that calling and blessing cannot protect them from being broken off for their unbelief. Therefore you would do well, Paul advises his Gentile readers, to have a righteous fear and to strongly resist any temptation to arrogance (v. 18) and conceit (v. 20).

Paul reminded believers at Ephesus, “Therefore remember, that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called ‘Uncircumcision’ by the so-called ‘Circumcision,’ which is performed in the flesh by human hands—remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:11–12). If God cut off an apostate Israel because of her unbelief, how much more surely will He cut off an apostate church because of unbelief.

The visible church today is mostly Gentile, and that church encompasses a large percentage of apostates, heretics, and others who reject the absolute and inerrant authority of Scripture and deny its cardinal truths, including the deity of Christ. And the Lord’s judgment will fall on the apostate Gentile church just as surely and swiftly as it did on apostate Israel. Jesus warned the church at Pergamum, “You also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore; or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth” (Rev. 2:15–16). And to the church at Laodicea, He promised that nominal, unbelieving Christians will be spit out of God’s mouth in disgust (Rev. 3:16). Collectively, they are later referred to as the Babylonian harlot of the end times whom the Lord will cause to be brutally devastated by Antichrist and his ten-nation confederacy (Rev. 17:16).

The apostle had made clear earlier in this passage on Israel (chaps. 9–11), “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone” (9:30–32). From the beginning and throughout the epistle, Paul repeats that foundational truth over and over. As far as man’s part is concerned, salvation has always been and will always be by faith and faith alone. It is, of course, God’s sovereign grace that makes faith possible, acceptable, and effective, but His grace will not save apart from faith.

Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. Severity translates apotomia, which has the root meaning of cutting right off, or cutting quickly, and corresponds to the verb ekkoptō (cut off), with which this verse ends. And in this context, piptō (fell) means to fall down so as to be completely ruined. Paul is therefore speaking of an extremely serious spiritual condition, in which people fell from spiritual opportunity into judgment.

That looks at the past. Paul then warns those in the present who have identified with the saving gospel that they must continue in His kindness or they, too, will be judged severely like those in the past who were near the blessing and fell. That is a familiar New Testament idea, which affirms the reality of true, saving faith by its continuity. That is the perseverance of the saints that evidences their genuine conversion (see John 8:31; 15:5–6; Col. 1:22–23; Heb. 3:12–14; 4:11; 1 John 2:19).

Because of God’s blessing of ancient Israel as a nation, many Jewish unbelievers shared in that blessing. In the same way, because of God’s blessing on the church, many unbelievers within the church taste that blessing. But if they fall away, God’s patience will be exhausted and His offer of grace withdrawn, that blessing by association will be of no value when unbelievers face the living God in judgment and are eternally cut off from Him. Those who in unbelief refuse God’s kindness in the offer of salvation are destined to be cut off by His severity.

IT HAS A DEFINITE PROMISE

And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more shall these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? (11:23–24)

Third, God’s temporarily setting Israel aside has a marvelous and definite promise. Although the promise is given here with a condition (parallel to the condition of being judged for not continuing in belief)—if they do not continue in their unbelief—God had long beforehand assured His people that the condition would be met. Israel will at last see Jesus as her Messiah and will repent of her unbelief and lament her rejection of Him. Through Zechariah the Lord declared, “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born” (Zech. 12:10). God is able to graft them in again, and He will.

In the end times, during the Great Tribulation, the apostate Gentile church—which had been cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and [was] grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree—will itself be cut off, just as Israel once was. And at that time Israel, the natural branches, will then be grafted [back] into their own olive tree. The natural descendants of Abraham will also become his spiritual descendants and once again be the Lord’s chosen people of blessing.

One of the more interesting texts that promises the future restoration of Israel is found in Revelation 11.

In that vision, the apostle John is told to take a measuring rod (cf. Ezek. 40:5) and measure the temple, the altar, and the worshipers. That act appears to define the extent of God’s property (cf. Rev. 21:15). In other words, God commands John to mark off His divine possession for preservation.

Although at the time John wrote there no longer was a temple, the prophets had often spoken of a temple in the last days (Dan. 9:27; Amos 9:11; Mic. 4:1; Hag. 2:9; Zech. 6:12–13; Mal. 3:1; cf. Matt. 24:15; 2 Thess. 2:4).

During the time of the Great Tribulation, the Jews will be converted (cf. Zech. 12:8–14; 13:1–2) and be marked off by God as His own for protection during the Day of the Lord.

John’s measuring of the temple therefore seems to symbolize that the Jews will be His people who will come to salvation and kingdom blessing. The Revelation scene is similar to that depicted in Zechariah 2:1–5, in which Jerusalem is measured for protection by the divine “wall of fire around her” and experiences God’s “glory in her midst” (v. 5). As the city is measured to mark it out as God’s possession, to be rebuilt in millennial glory, so the temple is measured to affirm that salvation is coming for Israel.

The Gentiles at this time are left out (Rev. 11:2). Most of them appear to oppose all that represents God, although some will receive Christ and be saved—but not as a whole people, as with Israel. Again, it is the future of Israel that is in view.

The identity of the two witnesses also speaks of Israel’s coming salvation. They are called, “the two olive trees and the two lampstands” (11:4), terminology taken from Zechariah’s vision. The prophet Zechariah lived between the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. The rebuilding of the temple had been approved in Ezra’s time but had not begun. God therefore used Zechariah to encourage two men to lead in the restoration—Joshua, the high priest, and Zerubbabel, the governor of Jerusalem.

The Jews of that day knew they had sinned and feared they had no basis for God’s favor. They knew He could not tolerate their faithless, evil hearts and felt He had forever forsaken them. But the vision recorded in Zechariah 3 graciously promised restoration.

The high priest Joshua, the symbol of the nation of Israel and the representative of the people before God, is cleansed, forgiven, and restored to act as God’s agent in the restoration of the nation. God reiterated His promise of salvation in the covenant, if the people would obey the conditions. When the people obey God, restoration will come. In verses 8–10 we look all the way to Messiah and His kingdom—the great, ultimate, final, and glorious restoration of holiness and peace.

God chose Joshua to stand before Him as the cleansed and forgiven representative of Israel, in a new temple to be built in a new Israel, returned from captivity to its land and its God. That was a taste, a small preview of the ultimate salvation and restoration that will be directed by Messiah at His second coming.

The second key figure, Zerubbabel, is presented next.

The prophet then describes a spontaneous, automatic provision that is apart from any human agency: “Then I answered and said to the angel who was speaking with me saying, ‘What are these, my lord?’ So the angel who was speaking with me answered and said to me, ‘Do you not know what these are?’ And I said, ‘No, my lord.’ Then he answered and said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts” (4:4–6).”

The Holy Spirit alone has the power to restore Israel, but that power will flow through “two olive trees.”

As seen earlier, Zerubbabel, along with Joshua, is one of the two olive trees God will use. Together, one a priest and one a ruler (governor), they were the human tools the Holy Spirit used to restore the nation.

But there was a final component of God’s plan.

God used those two “anointed ones” to rebuild and restore ancient Israel. Therefore, when we read in Revelation that God has two witnesses who are “olive trees” and “lampstands” (11:3–4), we know what Zechariah’s vision means. God is in the midst of renewal and restoration, only this time the new temple will be millennial, the new work will be national salvation, and the new worship will be of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Joshua and Zerubbabel were God’s tools for the ancient physical restoration of Israel—the “golden pipes” through whom the Holy Spirit flowed. In a similar way the two witnesses of Revelation 11 will be future instruments of Israel’s salvation. They are preaching in Jerusalem (v. 8) at the time they are killed, and their resurrection three and one half days later leads to the salvation of that city (v. 13). The phrase “gave glory to the God of heaven” is best taken to refer to salvation (cf. 14:6–7; 16:9; 19:7). After that salvation, the last trumpet will be blown, and “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).

The destiny of Israel can and will be reversed. Her return to the Lord not only is possible but certain. To be true to His own promise, His chosen people cannot continue forever in unbelief. Quoting from Isaiah, Paul declares with absolute finality that “all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. And this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins’” (vv. 26–27, emphasis added; cf. Isa. 59:20–21).