I say then, Have they stumbled in order that they might fall? Far be the thought but by their fall [there is] salvation to the nations to provoke them to jealousy.
Paul asks whether Israel's stumbling over Christ was meant to end in ruin. His answer is no. Their failure became the moment salvation went out to the nations, and God aims that salvation back at Israel.
Paul is not asking whether Israel tripped — that much is agreed. He is asking what the trip was for, and "fall" here carries the weight of a final, unrecoverable end.
The second question must now be answered: "Did they stumble in order that they might fall?" They have indeed stumbled at the stumbling stone, the stone laid in Zion. Was it for their everlasting ruin? That is the sense in which "to fall" seems to be used here. Their ruin, we learn, is not God's purpose. His purpose is the blessing of Gentiles, to provoke Israel to jealousy. God has cast Israel off only for a time. The nation will be saved, and saved as a nation.
Commentators press the difference between a slip and a crash. That distinction carries the whole argument.
Had Israel then stumbled that they might fall? By no means! By their slip, salvation has come to the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy. God had merciful thoughts in store for Israel. He judged their sin and used it as the occasion to call the Gentiles. He did not do this as if He had abandoned the Jews for ever as His people. He did it to stir them up to holy longing. Israel had slipped, not finally fallen.
You cannot make a stranger jealous. The very method God chose to reach Israel gives away His intentions toward them.
They stumbled over Him in whom they saw no beauty and whom they did not desire. They did not receive Him, though He had come to His own. But this did not result in their complete fall. In His infinite wisdom and all-wise purpose, God used their fall to bring salvation to the Gentiles and to provoke them to jealousy. In this statement we see again that God has not cast away His people Israel. If He had cast them away, why should He wish to provoke them to jealousy? And He provokes them to jealousy so that some of them may be saved.
The word "jealousy" is not Paul's invention. He is quoting a much older warning.
Paul points back to the words of Deuteronomy 32. Their bearing on the question is clear, and to a Jew their authority could not be disputed. It was not Paul but Moses who said the Jew provoked the LORD to jealousy and forgot the Rock who gave him birth... "They have made me jealous with what is no god; they have provoked me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are no people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." This is God's sure and solemn threat of displeasure. He turns from Israel to the Gentiles, just as surely as Israel used to turn from the LORD to false gods. But the threat itself contains the no less sure hint of restoring mercy in the end.
If jealousy is the goal, then God has not written the nation off. He is waiting for something from them — though only He can produce it.
They had stumbled, but not in order to fall for good. We see this clearly: the salvation of the Gentiles was meant to provoke them to jealousy. God still then was expecting from them what His own grace alone could produce. But if such blessings came from their fall, will not their fulness, when it comes, bring even greater blessing to people at large?
Gentiles gained from Israel's fall. But that gain comes with a condition and a warning.
As a people, the Jews have stumbled at the stumbling stone of Messiah's humiliation. But they did not stumble in order to fall. Through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke Israel to jealousy — not to cast Israel off. Again, the figure of the olive tree teaches the same lesson... the Gentile is only a wild olive. God grafted him in after breaking off some of the branches. He is called not to be proud but to fear. If he does not remain in God's goodness, he too will be cut off.
- Stumble — Israel tripped over Christ, the stone laid in Zion. But the trip was never aimed at a final fall. A slip, not a collapse.
- Occasion — God did not cause their sin. He judged it, then used it as the opening for salvation to reach the nations.
- Jealousy — The stated goal of Gentile blessing is to stir Israel. The method itself proves God still counts them as His.
- Moses — The jealousy language comes from Deuteronomy 32. It warns that God will turn away, and it carries the promise of His return.
- Fulness — If Israel's stumbling brought the world this much, their restoration promises far more. Meanwhile the grafted-in Gentile must fear, not boast.
But if their fall [be the] world's wealth, and their loss [the] wealth of [the] nations, how much rather their fulness?
Paul has just asked whether Israel stumbled so as to fall, and answered with a flat denial. Now he reasons forward. If the nation's failure already poured wealth into the world, what will their recovery bring?
Where the ESV says "trespass" and "failure", older translations say "fall". One writer shows that this one English word covers two different Greek words:
The word "fall" is used three times here as though it were the same word in the original each time. The second and third are the same word, but not the first... To fall down after a stumble is the meaning! The stumble in this chapter was the rejection of Christ. In the wilderness they fell, never to rise again. Here, though, we learn that Israel has stumbled but has not fallen for good. They will yet rise again. The other word, translated twice as "fall", is paraptomati = transgression... Israel has stumbled and offended, but they have not fallen. As branches they will once more be grafted in.
The proof that God has not finished with them is buried in His own stated motive — He means to make them jealous.
They stumbled over Him in whom they saw no beauty and whom they did not desire. He had come to His own, and they did not receive Him. But this did not result in their complete fall. In His infinite wisdom and all-wise purpose, God used their fall to bring salvation to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. In this statement we see again that God has not cast away His people Israel. If He had cast them away, why should He wish to provoke them to jealousy?
The "riches" are not vague. One writer names what the world received, and at whose expense:
The ministry of reconciliation, with all the blessings that come with it and flow from it, has come to us through the cutting off of the natural branches.
And the effect has spread far beyond those who believe:
The nations hardly realize how much they owe to the gospel. Yet everywhere Christianity has spread its blessed influence, it has lifted civilization to a higher, more honourable and sensible level. Only blindness can ignore this.
The force of Paul's argument comes from a fact easy to miss:
The transgression of Israel has opened the treasures of divine mercy to the world. The shrinking of Abraham's now disowned descendants has made the Gentiles rich. But if so, he argues, how much more will these blessings flow from their restoration... The apostle argues from the lesser to the greater. His argument draws its force from this: the present time of grace to the Gentiles has limited effects, and it could end at any time.
So the blessing Christianity has brought, real as it is, is not the ceiling:
The believer's portion is so magnificent that, left to our own thoughts, we might well suppose these blessings fulfil all God's purposes of grace. But Scripture teaches otherwise... Only the "fulness" of Israel, then, brings in the world's complete measure of blessing.
Their "fulness" — what the ESV calls their "full inclusion" — is their restoration as a nation. With it comes a complete reversal of character:
God will restore His ancient people and use them as the very means of blessing to the nations in the millennium. How much more blessing will earth see then than it has ever seen before! Israel will then be a fit representative of God. Under the law they grabbed every blessing for themselves; then they will hand blessing out to the nations with all their heart.
This verse settles an argument about the phrase "the fulness of the Gentiles" a few verses later:
The coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles cannot mean the conversion of all the Gentiles. The earlier part of the chapter itself speaks of fuller blessing to the Gentiles — to the world — through the receiving of Israel than through its fall. Suppose God has brought all the Gentiles into blessing before He restores Israel. How then could the apostle speak this way about Israel's restoration and its effects on the Gentiles — and in this very chapter?
- Stumble — the English wording hides a distinction. Israel stumbled and transgressed, but did not fall beyond recovery. They will rise, and be grafted in again.
- Riches — because God set Israel aside, the ministry of reconciliation reached the nations. Whole civilizations rose without knowing whom to thank.
- How much more — Paul argues from lesser to greater. The present flow of grace to the nations has limits, and it could end at any time. It is not God's final measure.
- Fulness — Israel restored stops hoarding blessing and starts distributing it. The nation once disowned becomes the channel that carries God's full blessing to the earth.
- Therefore — the world's best days lie ahead of Israel's recovery, not behind the gospel's spread. That is why "the fulness of the Gentiles" cannot mean every Gentile converted first.
For I speak to you, the nations, inasmuch as *I* am apostle of nations, I glorify my ministry;
Here Paul turns and speaks straight to the nations. Two questions follow. What is this office that he makes so much of? And why would a man who aches for Israel take pride in a ministry aimed away from her?
The words mark a shift in audience. One writer notes that the group in view is not the same thing as the assembly of believers:
The apostle starts his subject of the olive tree by writing, "Now I am speaking to you Gentiles." He does not speak to the Church as such, although his teaching is for the Church. He has in view the present period, in which God is dealing with the Gentiles.
Paul did not appoint himself apostle to the nations. His commission traces back to the moment the risen Christ stopped him on the road, and the order of the words spoken to him then is itself instructive:
Notice that bearing Christ's name before Gentiles comes first. The sons of Israel come last, with "kings" between them. He was to be "apostle of Gentiles" (Rom. 11:13). For this, the call of the Lord from heaven was most fitting. On earth He had sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When He sends from heaven, Israel ceases to have any such place. Before this, all mankind had joined together and been lost in one common guilt. The Jews had even led the Gentiles to crucify Him. So Israel's superiority in the flesh was completely gone. Sovereign grace alone governs from now on. If anyone is to be named prominently, it is those who are most needy.
To magnify the ministry is to hold it up high. And the work Paul holds up was the clearest sign that his own nation stood rejected:
He magnifies his office as the apostle of the Gentiles. His heart always longs for his own people. So he seeks comfort in the very work that witnessed most clearly to the nation's rejection. Some, he hoped, might still be saved this way... Meanwhile he knew that Israel was rejected in fact. But she was not forgotten in God's purposes, which from long ago were faithfulness and truth.
The blessing of the nations was never meant to be the end of the story. God arranged it so that Israel would see what she had refused and want it back — which is exactly why Paul threw his weight behind the work:
This is the second proof that God had no final purpose to cast them off. He arranged it to provoke them to jealousy — that is, not to cast them off. And so the apostle laboured. He magnified his service to the Gentiles as tending to this; so far was he from thinking little of Israel.
The same words that lift up the office also humble the reader. Gentile believers learn what their blessing rests on, and it is not themselves:
The apostle magnifies his office of apostle to the Gentiles by showing how it bears on the Jews. In this way he puts the Gentiles in their place and guards them against the pride of supposed superiority in the flesh. And here comes the solemn warning to them. The stock of promise began with Abraham and ran on naturally in this world through the Jews. The root bore the branches, and the Gentiles had no ground for pride.
Making much of a ministry is not the same as making much of yourself. Paul held both together:
Such strangely perverse creatures are we, that unless the flesh is kept under, service, instead of making us humble, tends to puff us up. The publicity, which to a great extent cannot be separated from service, the position it gives the servant, and the many things that tempt the servant to think something of himself, arising from the very nature of the work — all these may tend to self-exaltation... Humility in the apostle did not mean weakness — when the occasion called for it, he knew how to magnify his office, and he could write to another and say, "Let no man despise thy youth"; but of himself as a worker he could say, "Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given."
- Sent — the office began with a call from heaven, and that call named the nations first. On earth Christ had sent only to Israel. Now sovereign grace governs, not natural descent.
- Addressed — "Now I am speaking to you Gentiles" marks out the place the Gentiles hold in God's dealings, not the Church as such.
- Magnified — Paul holds his ministry high, yet the man stays low. He calls himself the very least of all the saints.
- Aimed — he magnified it because it worked back toward Israel. It stirred his own people to want what they had refused, and some might yet be saved.
- Levelling — the honour of this ministry leaves no room for Gentile boasting. The root carries the branches, so there is no ground for pride.
if by any means I shall provoke to jealousy [them which are] my flesh, and shall save some from among them.
Paul has just told the Christians at Rome that Israel's stumble opened the door to the nations. Now he explains why he makes so much of his work among the Gentiles. His eye has never left his own people. Blessing for one is meant to bring back the other.
Paul does not praise his own work for its own sake. He makes much of it because of what it may do back home in Israel.
This is the second proof that God's purpose was never to cast them off for good. It was arranged to provoke them to jealousy — that is, not to cast them off. And so the apostle worked. He made much of his service to the Gentiles because it worked toward this. He was far from thinking little of Israel.
This is also why Paul brings the Gentiles into a discussion about Israel's future at all.
He was speaking to the believers at Rome: "Now I am speaking to you Gentiles." He then adds, "Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry." So how or why should he forget God's mercy to them? That mercy hangs on God's ways with Israel, which were his subject here.
The plan goes back to Moses, long before Paul.
Moses speaks of the Lord provoking Israel to jealousy by their seeing Gentiles coming into blessing. Paul also sought to do the same, that they might be saved. Deuteronomy 32:21; Romans 10:19; Romans 11:11, 14.
There is a reason this method works on the heart.
One discovery stirred up the fierce anger of the Jews. The riches of the gospel, which in their insane folly they had despised, were now going to the Gentiles. If they had truly thought the gospel a worthless fable, they would not have minded it going out to the nations. When a man rejects something and then grows jealous because another receives it, his jealousy is a powerful witness. Deep down he feels that it is of real value.
Paul is not talking about strangers. He works among Gentiles, but his heart stays with his own people.
He magnifies his office as the apostle of the Gentiles. His desire is to stir to jealousy those who are his own flesh. His heart always longs for his own people. So he finds comfort in the very work that showed most plainly that the nation had been set aside. He hoped some of them might still be saved this way. The Spirit of God was bearing witness among the Gentiles, backed by signs and mighty wonders of apostolic power. That witness might work on the conscience and the heart of an individual Israelite.
Paul's hope here is limited: some saved out of the nation, not the whole nation at once. A far greater day still lies ahead.
Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, and he magnified his office as such. But he would not have the Gentiles think for a moment that he had lost his interest in Israel. He wanted to see them stirred to jealousy, so that many of them might be saved as they watched the grace of God go out to the Gentiles… Think what that means. They wander among all the nations, a disappointed and weary people, under the judgment of the God of their fathers. Meanwhile the message of grace goes out to the Gentiles, and a chosen number of them receive it. What will it mean for the whole world when Israel as a nation turns back to the Lord?
Paul aims these words at Gentile readers, and they carry a caution.
Peter may have had a Gentile danger in view here, the very danger Paul warns Gentiles against in Romans 11:13 to 29. If Gentiles misunderstand and misuse God's truth, and so become wise in their own eyes, they are very near destruction.
- Office — Paul magnifies his work among the nations because it aims at Israel. It proves he thought much of them, not little.
- Method — Jealousy is God's own plan. Moses announced it in Deuteronomy 32:21, and Paul now works it out.
- Motive — "My flesh" means his own countrymen. His heart still longs for them, and he finds comfort in the very work that marked their rejection.
- Measure — His hope now is "some," saved out of the nation. The greater day comes when Israel as a nation turns back to the Lord.
- Caution — Paul speaks to Gentiles. The mercy they enjoy warns them not to grow wise in their own eyes.
For if their casting away [be the] world's reconciliation, what [their] reception but life from among [the] dead?
Paul has just said that Israel's stumbling brought salvation to the Gentiles. Now he presses further. If the loss of one nation enriched the world, what will their return bring? Two phrases carry the verse: "the reconciliation of the world" and "life from the dead."
God once dealt with one nation while the rest of the world stood outside. Setting Israel aside changed who God now addresses.
"World" here clearly means the Gentile world as distinct from Israel. God brought this reconciling about by changing His dealings. That change led Him to set Israel aside from their special place of national favour. It also led Him to bring the Gentile world before Him for blessing. Before, the Gentiles had turned their faces away from God on purpose, and He had turned His face from them. Now He has turned toward them; and as Paul said elsewhere, "this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen" (Acts 28:28). This change in God's dealings has taken place. Paul was the chosen servant sent to offer salvation to the Gentile world.
Some read this verse to mean that God Himself was reconciled to the world. One writer rejects that and gives the phrase a different sense.
There is no such idea in the Bible as "God being reconciled to the world." The Church, or the saints, are said to be reconciled to God — never the world... The true meaning of the phrase in Romans 11 I take to be that God is now turning the fall of Israel into blessing for the Gentiles, and instead of overlooking the times of heathen ignorance, He is now dealing with the world by the word of reconciliation.
The change is one of position before God. He now speaks to a world that once stood outside every relationship with Him.
The Jews had been in an ordered relationship with God, though unfaithful to it; the world was out of all relationship. Men were completely without God in the world. They were shut out from the community of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, with no hope and without God in the world. When Israel fell, this state of things ended. God now called everyone everywhere to repent. God took up the world again, no longer overlooking the ignorance.
The phrase pictures Israel as a nation now dead and waiting to rise. Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones, and God Himself explained what the vision meant.
Ezekiel saw the bones live, and the men stand on their feet. But then God gives us the real meaning and proper use of it... Here the same God uses resurrection as a picture of the blessing He is going to give the people of Israel. Luke 15 uses the picture in the same way for the conversion of the prodigal son: "this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." Paul uses the same picture for the blessing that will come to the world one day through the restoration of Israel.
Some read the phrase as the literal resurrection of believers at that same moment. One writer expects both risings in that period, yet keeps them apart.
When God receives Israel back into His favour, it will be an event of a resurrection character, as Ezekiel 37 has shown us. We fully believe that in the short "end of the age" period there will be both the literal resurrection of saints and the figurative resurrection of Israel.
The verse rests on a comparison. That comparison rules out the idea that all nations are won before Israel returns.
The coming in of the fullness of the Gentiles cannot mean the conversion of all the Gentiles. The earlier part of the chapter itself speaks of fuller blessing to the Gentiles — to the world — through the reception of Israel than through its fall.
The blessing now reaching the world is not the last word.
If the casting away of the nation leads to the gospel of reconciliation going out to the world, then indeed, when they are received back into blessing as a nation, it will be life for the world. All the prophecies of millennial blessing for a world under the curse await the restoration of Israel as the centre of blessing for the earth.
- Cause — God set Israel aside from their place of national favour, and that opened His dealings to the wider world.
- Gift — the reconciling of the world is a change in God's dealings, not the world's conversion. Scripture never says God was reconciled to the world.
- Reach — God now calls a world once outside all relationship with Him to repent, and the gospel goes out to all.
- Result — "life from the dead" is the language of Ezekiel's dry bones: Israel raised as a nation, told in picture form.
- Reversal — today one nation's fall enriches the many. Later, that nation's restoration will bring blessing to the whole earth.