CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 11:6.—εἰ δὲ χάριτι, by grace, thus not of works. Salvation must be either by one or the other.
Romans 11:7. The election.—The faithful remnant which has profited by the free grace given to it by God. Were hardened.—πώρωσις is a medical term applied to the induration of the flesh or bones so as to become like porous stones.
Romans 11:8.—A spirit of stupor, numbness, insensibility; that bewilderment or stupefaction which is the result of conscience awakened too late. The Hebrew word, as well as the Greek, is often used to signify a permission of that which we can hinder.
Romans 11:11.—Did they stumble in order that they should fall? They have swerved aside from the right path, but they have not fallen down utterly so as never again to rise. They have fallen aside so that the Gentiles might excite them to rise.
Romans 11:12.—Wealth of [to] the world—that is, a rich mine of blessing to a whole world, by occasioning the admission of all nations into the birthright of Israel.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 11:6-12
Human folly and divine grace.—St. Paul’s clearness of thought and precision of expression are brought out in the sixth verse. Grace and works cannot be combined in human salvation. If salvation be a free gift, it cannot be earned. Here is shown St. Paul’s anxiety to establish foundation principles. Having mentioned election by grace, he cannot pass on to the discussion of his main topic without striving to leave his readers under no misapprehension. Grace is eliminated if the blessing be earned; works as a ground of merit are excluded if the blessing be freely bestowed. Salvation is so precious that it is above human price. It cannot be bought with silver, neither can it be valued with the pure gold of earth. Human efforts cannot reach divine heights. Ethical systems have failed for human salvation. Moralities have no redeeming force. The grace of God that bringeth salvation has done an effective work, and is destined to work to a still larger extent. Human efforts have shown human folly.
I. Human folly.—
1. Goes on a bootless errand. Israel seeks, and does not find. Seeking their own righteousness, they could not possibly find; for all human righteousness is as filthy rags. Seeking human ideas in a Divine Messiah, they could not find; for He came to reveal the divine thought, to incarnate and unfold the divine idea of love and redeeming mercy. Seeking to establish themselves as the Church and people of God, they could not find; for He would have a pure Church, a people not guided by pride and self-will. Seeking gain, they could not find; for that which they thought to be gain was bitterest loss. Human seekers are divine losers. Folly seeks, and never finds; it mistakes the true way and the right soul end. We seek for pleasure, and find pain. We seek for riches, and find soul poverty. We seek for fame, and sink into obscurity. We seek for righteousness, and cannot get away from the sense of guilt.
2. Produces stupor. A spirit of slumber passes over the frame of the morally insensate. How often is the Jew a remarkable example of the possibility of combining great worldly sharpness and intellectual power with moral blindness and darkness! The Jew hath eyes to see material beauty and a prospect of material gain; but it does not follow that the Jew hath eyes to see moral beauty. There are glad prospects which his vision never beholds. And the Jews have many brethren among the Gentiles—unseeing eyes behind the eyes which can see the ways of commerce, the steeps of politics, and even the beauties of nature as science can unfold—unhearing ears behind the ears that can be thrilled with the harmonies of nature, with the swelling strains of music, with the rhythmical measures of poetry. Christ the light-bringer and sight-producer must pour the light of heaven upon the visual orbs of the foolish sleepers.
3. Turns divine blessings into curses. The table becomes a snare, a trap, and a stumbling-block. How true of the mere sensualist! The table spread with dainties becomes a physical snare; it is a stumbling-block to physical health, and more, also a hindrance to intellectual growth, death to moral life. Human folly turns divine blessings into curses. Amid both material and moral bounties we should learn to distinguish between use and abuse.
II. Divine grace.—
1. Leads on a fruitful errand. God has no vain seekers in His kingdom. God’s elect always obtain. They are wounded, but never beaten. They may be faint with pursuing, but somehow they must reach the goal. They may be cast down, but can never be destroyed in the royal part of them: the essential greatness of their manhood will survive every battle-field. They obtain and possess eternally soul treasure.
2. Endows with moral sensibility. God’s elect have eyes to see the unseen. They pierce farther than either the range of the telescope, or the ken of the philosopher, or the scrutiny of the scientist. The eyes of the faithful require no earth spectacles. They see afar off, and as they see the vision grows and brightens. They hear sounds which earth’s ear-trumpets cannot catch. They hear eternal voices; the whispers of the infinite are richer to them than the loudest choruses of time.
3. Educes salvation. Out of the fall a gracious rise. Destruction ministers to salvation. True temporally: the fall of one nation the rise of another. True spiritually: the fall of the Jew the rise of the Gentile. How true that Christ by His fall brought salvation! He conquered when He fell.
Romans 11:12. Human falls.—The Fall popularly used of Adam’s sin and loss of happiness in Eden. Not so used in the Bible (only in margin). Used here of Israel’s loss of land and privileged position. What St. Paul says of Israel’s fall here gives us teaching about man’s fall from Eden.
The Fall a sad event for man. Before it no sin, no pain, no death. Yet not altogether bad for man, or God, the all-good, would never have allowed it to happen. Israel’s falls sad, yet each produced good. First, led to stricter observance of religion afterwards. Second, helped towards dissemination of Christianity. So with man’s fall. Banishment from Eden:
1. Threw man on his own resources, developed energy.
2. Gave him knowledge of self, compelled him to seek God in a way he could not have done before.
3. Pain brought out sympathy.
4. Previous to Fall human race innocent, yet like a child; afterwards sinful, yet like a man.
5. More to God’s glory to be worshipped by child who fell and came back again than by child who did not, could not fall. Our Lord says so (Matthew 18:12-13). Two sorts of fall while climbing a cliff: fall downwards to destruction; fall forwards, from which you rise bruised, but continuing ascent. Man’s fall latter.
Remember this:
1. When grumbling at toil;
2. When suffering pain.—Dr. Springett.
Grace and works opposed to each other as grounds of salvation.—In reference to the doctrine of grace St. Paul maintained a most watchful and “godly jealousy.” On points of a less vital nature he was ready to concede as far as possible; but on the point of salvation by grace through faith he was firm and immovable. He would not give way for a moment, even though all the college of apostles had opposed him, or an angel from heaven had professed to have received a commission to proclaim anything that was inconsistent with it. In the superstructure of our religion there might be errors, yea, considerable errors, as he tells, and yet our souls be saved. Injurious indeed they would be, extremely injurious, to our welfare; but still they would not be utterly subversive of our hopes. But if the error affected the foundation of our religion, he declared it to be utterly incompatible with our final salvation. This jealousy of his is peculiarly visible in the words which we have just read. They were not necessary to the apostle’s argument. In the preceding context he is showing that God has among the Jews as well as among the Gentiles a chosen remnant: but having called them “a remnant according to the election of grace,” he lays hold on the opportunity to confirm his favourite position that salvation is altogether of grace—so entirely of grace as absolutely to exclude works altogether from having any share in meriting or procuring it. The observation thus introduced deserves the deeper attention, because it shows how near to the apostle’s heart the truth was that is contained in it. Let us then, in considering this observation, attend to:—
I. The truth of it.—The observation is simply this, that salvation must be altogether of grace or altogether of works; for that the two cannot possibly coalesce, since each of them excludes the other, as light and darkness. Now this observation is true in reference to every part of our salvation. The truth of the apostle’s observation being established, we proceed to show—
II. The importance of it.—We have already called your attention to the way in which the observation is introduced, and which we conceive marks very strongly the importance of it in the apostle’s mind; and we may notice the same from the very pointed way in which the observation is made. The apostle seems determined that nobody shall misunderstand him; and he has effectually secured his object in that particular. To show the importance of his observation, then, we say that it establishes beyond all doubt the freeness and fulness of the gospel salvation, and it secures against all invasion the honour of God. It makes clear the path of the true penitent. On the observation thus explained we ground a few words of advice. Accept with gratitude this free salvation, and give no occasion for the objections that are raised against it. Recommend and adorn it by a holy conversation. Show by your lives what the proper tendency and effect of grace is. We are told that “the grace of God which bringeth salvation teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live righteously and soberly and godly in this present world.” Show, then, by all your dealings with men what true righteousness is; show by your perfect self-government in all your tempers, dispositions, and habits what true sobriety is; and show by the spirituality of your minds and the heavenliness of your lives wherein true godliness consists. This will recommend the gospel more effectually than all the encomiums that can be lavished upon it, and will operate more strongly to convince men of its excellence than all the arguments that can be urged. Let it be seen, then, that whilst you magnify and extol the grace of God, you are the truest friend of good works; for that though you exclude them from your foundation, you display them in your superstructure, and in fact raise them higher and of a nobler quality than any other people in the universe.—Simeon.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 11:6-10
The restoration of the Jews a blessing to the Gentiles.—“The ways of God are in the great deep, and His footsteps are not known.” They are utterly inscrutable to us. “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are His ways and His thoughts above our thoughts.” We cannot see the end of any one of His dispensations. Who could ever have conceived the designs of God in suffering Joseph to be sold into Egypt? Yet did God intend by that dispensation to keep the whole Egyptian nation from perishing by famine; yea, and the very persons who sold him thither. No less mysterious are His dealings with the Jews. They are cast off, they are led captive of all nations. Yet are they suffering for the good of all people amongst whom they dwell, and even for their own ultimate advantage also. This is strongly asserted in the passage before, where their fall is said to be “the riches of the Gentiles,” as their recovery also will be in a far more signal manner and degree. We presume not to think that we can ever fathom this deep mystery. Yet will it be profitable for us to consider it as far as it is revealed; and therefore we shall endeavour, according to the light given us, to show you what an interest the Gentiles have in God’s dealings with the Jews, particularly in—
I. Their present dispersion.—This was designed of God for the salvation of the Gentiles. The fall of the Jews has led to the salvation of the Gentiles. The present rejection of the Jews is ultimately designed also even for the good of that benighted people. But still richer benefits will flow to the world from—
II. Their future restoration.—That the Jews will in due time be converted to Christianity is certain, and the effect of this upon the Gentiles will be blessed in the extreme. From this subject the following reflections naturally arise: What compassion should we feel for the Jewish nation! How should we fear and tremble for ourselves! How earnestly should we labour for the conversion of the Jews! God has decreed that they shall be converted, and we have reason to believe that the period fixed for it in the divine counsels is not far distant. It is a fact that multitudes in the heathen world are expecting a change in their religion. The Mohammedans and Hindus throughout our Eastern empire are strongly impressed with this idea; and the exertions making in every possible way for the conversion of the heathen world warrant us to hope that “their fulness” will speedily commence. At all events, “we are debtors to the Jews,” and should seek to discharge our debt. Though they are at this time “enemies for our sakes, they are still beloved for their fathers’ sakes”; and if, notwithstanding their present enmity against Christ, they are beloved of God for their fathers’ sakes, should they not be beloved of us? Think how indebted we are to their fathers, to those who, at the peril of their lives, brought the glad tidings of salvation home to us; and should we not labour to recompense all this in acts of love to their descendants? It is a favourite notion with many that to attempt the conversion of the Jews is a hopeless task. But what ground is there for such a desponding thought as this? Are they further off from God than the Gentiles were when the gospel was first published to them? or is it a harder thing to convert them than to convert us? God expressly tells us that it is a work of less difficulty. “If thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?” Despair not, then, of doing them good; but exert yourselves in every possible way for their conversion to the faith of Christ. You are told that, “if they abide not still in unbelief, they shall be graffed in again.” Seek, then, to convince them of the truth of Christianity, and to bring them to the knowledge and love of their Messiah. If you desire only the conversion of the Gentile world, you should begin with the Jews, because it is the fulness of the Jews that is to operate on the Gentiles, and to effect, as it were, among them “a resurrection from the dead.” But it is for God’s sake whose people they are, and for Christ’s sake who bought them with His blood, and for your own sake who must give an account of the talents entrusted to your care, that I call upon you to be workers together with God in this great cause; and if you have any sense of God’s “goodness to you,” seek to avert and terminate “His severity to them.”—Simeon.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 11
Romans 11:13. Practical preaching.—A practical preacher is one who knows what he means to say and says it in the simplest words, who hits something because he aims at something, who acts in the spirit of the Baptist’s noble words about his Master, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” When Demosthenes had done speaking, the Athenians said, “Let us fight Philip.” When Cicero ceased, the Romans said, “What a fine orator!” After hearing Massillon at Versailles, Louis XIV. said to him, “I have heard many great orators in this chapel, and have been highly pleased with them; but for you, whenever I hear you I go away displeased with myself, for I see more of my own character.” Preachers magnify their office when they lead their hearers to be displeased with themselves and think much of Christ.
Romans 11:22. God is love.—Mr. Spurgeon relates that he deemed it a strange thing when he saw on a country weathercock the motto “God is love,” and he. asked his friend if he meant to imply that the divine love can be fickle as the wind. “No,” said he; “this is what I mean—whichever way the wind blows God is love; though the cold north wind, the biting east wind, still God is love, as much as when the warm, genial breezes refresh our fields and flocks.” God is love both in severity and in goodness. Whatever be the divine aspects, the divine nature is love.