Behold then [the] goodness and severity of God upon them who have fallen, severity; upon thee goodness of God, if thou shalt abide in goodness, since [otherwise] *thou* also wilt be cut away.
The verse sets severity and kindness side by side, then adds a condition. Commentators press hard on two questions: who is the "you" here, and what does "continue" mean? (Older translations render the word here as "goodness" where the ESV has "kindness"; the quotes below use "goodness.")
Both halves of the verse come from one unchanging character in God.
Look at both the goodness and the severity of God. He shows us His unchangeable character as the God of judgment, and with it the riches of His kindness. He cut off those who had fallen in order to maintain His own glory as the righteous avenger of His name. That same line of righteousness applies to the professed people of His name — Gentiles who hold the title of Christ as their own. It would condemn, with equal impartiality, whatever failed to meet the one condition of continuance.
The subject of the whole chapter decides who the warning speaks to.
Who is addressed here? It is either one person who professes Christ, or a whole body of people that the apostle pictures as one person and speaks to in that way. The context shows it is not the first, but the second. The grand subject of the chapter is the partial, temporary setting aside of Israel. In their place God brings in the present body that professes His name, mainly Gentile, to carry the responsibilities of God's people on the earth… But what has taken their place? The body that professes His name — Christendom. That is the body the apostle addresses here.
Does the warning mean a believer can lose salvation? The tree in view is not the church, Christ's body.
It is very important not to confuse two things. One is the continuous line of the promised inheritance on earth: the olive tree. The other is the mystery of Christ and the church, where everything is new and above nature. Members are never broken off from the body… No doubt those who make up the church, Christ's body, come in as branches. They stand through faith in the place of the broken-off Jewish ones. But so do others who only profess the name of Christ. They do not value God's goodness. They give it up for forms, or scepticism, or open evil… The question here is not saving grace. It is responsibility on earth, according to the testimony entrusted first to Israel and then to Christendom.
So what is this goodness, and what does continuing in it look like?
The goodness of God now revealed in the gospel is Christ. He is the propitiation for human sin and the display, in grace, of the righteousness of God… Who then continues in the goodness of God? Only those who once received the knowledge of that goodness by faith and have never moved away from Christ, the true and only hope of the gospel. Putting works in the place of grace. Letting justification by faith alone decay into self-righteousness and outward forms. Keeping the name of Christ and the letter of the gospel, while denying or never knowing the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. All of these are departures from the goodness of God, which He expresses and gives in Christ alone.
This passage attacks one assumption: that the present order of things is bound to last.
Romans 11 calls it a fatal presumption to think that the church, as God's present order on earth, cannot fall away. That presumption leads the Gentile Church to its ruin. The Holy Spirit condemns those who think this way as wise in their own eyes. He teaches us instead that God would act toward the present order as He did toward the one before it.
The verse offers no way back for a profession that has already failed.
Scripture says nothing about being restored. That will not do: what is needed is to "continue." It is like a man who has broken the law saying, "I will do right from now on." That does not meet the law's claims.
The cutting off is not the end of the story. It opens the way for the branches removed first.
When the true Church has been caught up to be with the Lord, judgment will fall on unfaithful Christendom. Then God will turn back in grace to Israel, if they do not continue in unbelief, and He will graft them back into their own olive tree, according to the power of God.
- Note. God shows both sides at once. The same righteousness that cut off the fallen branches will judge whatever fails the one condition.
- Goodness. The goodness is Christ Himself, given as the propitiation for sin and as the display of God's righteousness.
- You. The "you" is not one believer. It is the professing body, mainly Gentile, standing where Israel stood. What is at risk is a place on earth, not saving grace.
- Continue. Continuing means never moving away from Christ to works, to outward forms, or to a gospel that keeps the letter and denies the Spirit's power. Thinking this order of things cannot fall is the very presumption that ruins it.
- Otherwise. Scripture promises no repair for a failed profession — only cutting off. That cutting off opens the way for God to graft Israel back into their own olive tree.
And *they* too, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be grafted in; for God is able again to graft them in.
God's warning to the Gentile in the previous verses is not the end of the story for the branches He cut off. Paul now turns to them. He gives one condition for their return, and one reason it can happen at all. Both raise the question of what this tree is, and who stands in it today.
Everything in this verse depends on identifying the tree correctly. Commentators here insist it is not the church. God can break its branches off and graft them back in. Scripture never says that of members of Christ's body.
Some argue that the olive tree is the Church, the natural branches are Jews, and the wild ones Gentiles. But see how such handling of God's word blocks all true understanding of Scripture. Are true members of the body of Christ broken off? And does the position of others depend only on their faithfulness? ... The olive tree is the line of privilege throughout the world's history. It began with Abraham and continued in those who came after him. But they were "broken off" because of their unbelief, and the line has now passed on to Christendom.
One thing put Israel out, and the same thing keeps them out: unbelief. The choice was theirs, not God's.
And note this: unbelief is what broke them off. It was not because God chose to break them off, but because of their own unbelief. And the Gentile stands by faith.
If unbelief is what excludes them, then the end of unbelief is what restores them. Kelly ties that turn to repentance, and places it outside the present gospel age.
The Jews will not continue in unbelief. They will truly repent and bless Him who is coming in the name of Jehovah. Then, in sovereign mercy, God will graft them once more into their own olive tree. This will not happen under the gospel. As far as the gospel goes, they are enemies for our sakes.
Paul does not point to anything in Israel. He points to God's power. One writer traces how that argument builds from this verse into the two that follow. (Older translations read "God is able to graft them in again," where the ESV has "God has the power to graft them in again.")
They were cut out of the olive tree because they turned away, but they will be brought in once again. Verse 23 shows that this is possible: "God is able to graft them in again." Verse 24 shows that it is probable: "How much more will these … be grafted into their own olive tree?" Then the apostle rises higher still and shows it to be certain: "Blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in."
The word "again" matters. They return to the place they once held, not to some new position.
But the tree of promise remains. The Jewish branches will be grafted in again into their own olive tree — the original place of the promise made to Abraham, "for God is able to graft them in again." They will not be grafted into the church. Far from being in it, they were broken off when the church was founded.
Yet they will not come back the way they left. They will come back the way the Gentiles came in — by grace alone.
When God restores Israel, He will lift them from a condition much like the one the Gentiles were in when His grace took them up as His chosen ones. Yet the tree He grafts them into will be their own (verse 24). They will never be removed from it again, but will flourish in everlasting righteousness.
Paul writes this to Gentiles, not to Jews, and it carries a sharp edge. Unbelief cost Israel its place. The same failure will cost Christendom its place.
And I ask, Has the church continued in God's goodness? Is what we now see in Christendom what God set up in His church at the beginning, or anything like it? ... They have not continued in God's goodness. You can see that most plainly. We are conscious of it ourselves. But if they do not continue in God's goodness, the apostle says, the whole of Christendom will be cut off, and the Jews will be grafted in again. ... As soon as the Lord has gathered the real church of God and taken them up to heaven, He sets up the Jews again.
- Tree — the olive tree is the line of privilege on earth that began with Abraham. It is not the church. So this verse is about a place of privilege, not about whether a believer can lose salvation.
- Cause — unbelief broke the branches off. God did not simply decide to remove them. Take away the unbelief, and the removal ends.
- Power — the reason given is not Israel's worth but God's ability. Verse 23 calls it possible, verse 24 probable, verse 25 certain.
- Place — "again" means back into their own tree of promise, not into the church. This time they will never be removed.
- Warning — what cut Israel off now hangs over Christendom. God cuts off the unfaithful Gentile profession, and that makes room for Israel's return.
For if *thou* hast been cut out of the olive tree wild by nature, and, contrary to nature, hast been grafted into the good olive tree, how much rather shall they, who are according to nature be grafted into their own olive tree?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, that ye may not be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the nations be come in;
Has God finished with Israel? Paul answers by letting his Gentile readers in on a secret: the hardening is partial, it has an end point, and the nation is still on God's books.
Paul shares this so that his Gentile readers will not think too highly of themselves. Darby says the professing church made that very mistake.
It is precisely through being wise in its own conceit that the professing church has fallen. It has looked on the Jews as entirely set aside, forgetting that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (older translations: "without repentance") — that He never changes His mind.
Older translations read "blindness in part" where the ESV has "a partial hardening." Hughes explains how strong that word is.
Note carefully that "blindness in part" has happened to Israel. "Blindness" is a very strong word. It means being hardened like a stone. The noun in verse 25 is a medical term, "callus" — the hardening of skin. This then is the moral state of God's earthly people. And it is not limited to Israel. Ephesians 4:18 uses the same word for the state of the Gentiles.
Two words keep this from being a death notice: "in part."
The blindness that has come upon Israel is only blindness in part. The nation is not blinded nevermore to see, nor fallen never to be restored, nor cast off never to be received. The time of their casting off will end when the fulness of the Gentiles has been brought into blessing.
Some readers mix this phrase up with "the times of the Gentiles." Snell says the two are not the same.
"The fulness of the Gentiles" is a very different thing. Israel, as a people, are now set aside, though a remnant is saved by the gospel, according to the election of grace. God is filling up the number of Gentiles He intends to save. The word "fulness" might be rendered "complement." In this way He is calling out of the Gentiles a people for His name. He is gathering to Himself the allotted number out of every nation, tribe, people and tongue. When that number is complete, the fulness of the Gentiles will have come in — come in to God. So "the times of the Gentiles" and "the fulness of the Gentiles" are two very different things.
Some read this verse as a promise that the whole world will turn to Christ first, and Israel later. Kelly says the chapter itself rules that out. He weighs two small words: "in part" and "until."
"In part" strictly means in part. It is not just a softening of a severe statement. And "until" marks the point in time when the great change takes place. Calvin said that "until" does not mark this, and means no more than "that." That shows the strong prejudice of a good man whose knowledge of the language was imperfect… "The fulness of the Gentiles" cannot mean the general conversion of the world to Christ. The apostle's earlier reasoning in this chapter makes that certain. He asks: if the slips of the Jews were the world's riches, how much more their fulness?
The gospel is open to Jewish people right now. So why call the present gathering "Gentile" at all?
It is because the apostle is speaking here of the Church as a stage in God's dealings. It came in through Israel's blindness, and it cannot go together with Israel's national blessing. Seen that way, the Church is Gentile, and it does not stop being Gentile when individual Israelites come into it. When they do, they take the same ground as the Gentiles… and they become detached from the nation as pictured here.
So the count has an end. Gaebelein traces what follows it.
The fulness of the Gentiles means the full number of the saved, gathered out from among the Gentiles. They make up the church, the body of Christ. And when the body is joined to the Head in glory… the Lord will turn again to Israel. All Israel — that is, all Israel living in that day — will be saved, when the Deliverer comes out of Zion.
- Mystery — Paul tells the secret so that no Gentile believer grows proud. Treating Israel as finished for good is the error that ruined the professing church.
- Hardening — the word means a callus, a stone-like hardness, not weak eyesight. The same word describes Gentiles, so no one may boast.
- Partial — the blindness is only "in part." Israel is not blinded never to see, nor cast off never to be received.
- Until — a fixed point, not a vague hope. God is filling up a set number of Gentiles, not converting the whole world first.
- Then — when that number is full, God turns back to Israel. The Deliverer comes out of Zion for a nation He never stopped calling His own.