Rom 11:25-32 | JFB | STEP | 25. For I would not ... that ye should be ignorant of this mystery-- The word "mystery," so often used by our apostle, does not mean (as with us) something incomprehensible, but "something before kept secret, either wholly or for the most part, and now only fully disclosed" (compare ; ; , ; , ). lest ye should be wise in your own conceits-- as if ye alone were in all time coming to be the family of God. that blindness-- "hardness" in part is happened to-- "hath come upon" Israel-- that is, hath come partially, or upon a portion of Israel. until the fulness of the Gentiles be-- "have" come in-- that is, not the general conversion of the world to Christ, as many take it; for this would seem to contradict the latter part of this chapter, and throw the national recovery of Israel too far into the future: besides, in , the apostle seems to speak of the receiving of Israel, not as following, but as contributing largely to bring about the general conversion of the world--but, "until the Gentiles have had their full time of the visible Church all to themselves while the Jews are out, which the Jews had till the Gentiles were brought in." (See ).

‏ Romans 11:25-32

25. For I would not ... that ye should be ignorant of this mystery--The word "mystery," so often used by our apostle, does not mean (as with us) something incomprehensible, but "something before kept secret, either wholly or for the most part, and now only fully disclosed" (compare Ro 16:25; 1Co 2:7-10; Ep 1:9, 10; 3:3-6, 9, 10).

lest ye should be wise in your own conceits--as if ye alone were in all time coming to be the family of God.

that blindness--"hardness"

in part is happened to--"hath come upon"

Israel--that is, hath come partially, or upon a portion of Israel.

until the fulness of the Gentiles be--"have"

come in--that is, not the general conversion of the world to Christ, as many take it; for this would seem to contradict the latter part of this chapter, and throw the national recovery of Israel too far into the future: besides, in Ro 11:15, the apostle seems to speak of the receiving of Israel, not as following, but as contributing largely to bring about the general conversion of the world--but, "until the Gentiles have had their full time of the visible Church all to themselves while the Jews are out, which the Jews had till the Gentiles were brought in." (See Lu 21:24).

26-27. And so all Israel shall be saved--To understand this great statement, as some still do, merely of such a gradual inbringing of individual Jews, that there shall at length remain none in unbelief, is to do manifest violence both to it and to the whole context. It can only mean the ultimate ingathering of Israel as a nation, in contrast with the present "remnant." (So Tholuck, Meyer, De Wette, Philippi, Alford, Hodge). Three confirmations of this now follow: two from the prophets, and a third from the Abrahamic covenant itself. First, as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and

shall--or, according to what seems the true reading, without the "and"--"He shall"

turn away ungodliness from Jacob--The apostle, having drawn his illustrations of man's sinfulness chiefly from Psa 14:1-7 and Is 59:1-21, now seems to combine the language of the same two places regarding Israel's salvation from it [Bengel]. In the one place the Psalmist longs to see the "salvation of Israel coming out of Zion" (Psa 14:7); in the other, the prophet announces that "the Redeemer (or, 'Deliverer') shall come to (or 'for') Zion" (Is 59:20). But as all the glorious manifestations of Israel's God were regarded as issuing out of Zion, as the seat of His manifested glory (Psa 20:2; 110:2; Is 31:9), the turn which the apostle gives to the words merely adds to them that familiar idea. And whereas the prophet announces that He "shall come to (or, 'for') them that turn from transgression in Jacob," while the apostle makes Him say that He shall come "to turn away ungodliness from Jacob," this is taken from the Septuagint version, and seems to indicate a different reading of the original text. The sense, however, is substantially the same in both. Second,

28-29. As concerning the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes--that is, they are regarded and treated as enemies (in a state of exclusion through unbelief, from the family of God) for the benefit of you Gentiles; in the sense of Ro 11:11, 15.

but as touching, the election--of Abraham and his seed.

they are beloved--even in their state of exclusion for the fathers' sakes.

30-31. For as ye in times past have not believed--or, "obeyed"

God--that is, yielded not to God "the obedience of faith," while strangers to Christ.

yet now have obtained mercy through--by occasion of

their unbelief--(See on Ro 11:11; Ro 11:15; Ro 11:28).

32. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief--"hath shut them all up to unbelief"

that he might have mercy upon all--that is, those "all" of whom he had been discoursing; the Gentiles first, and after them the Jews [Fritzsche, Tholuck, Olshausen, De Wette, Philippi, Stuart, Hodge]. Certainly it is not "all mankind individually" [Meyer, Alford]; for the apostle is not here dealing with individuals, but with those great divisions of mankind, Jew and Gentile. And what he here says is that God's purpose was to shut each of these divisions of men to the experience first of an humbled, condemned state, without Christ, and then to the experience of His mercy in Christ.