What is the fullness of the Gentiles (Romans 11:25)?

"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 intended number of Gentiles to be saved (the word fulness might be rendered "complement"), and thus calling out of the Gentiles a people for His name. (Acts 15:14.) When God shall have fully gathered out of every nation, kindred, people, and tongue, the allotted number unto Himself, then shall the fulness of the Gentiles be come in — come in to God; and Israel, now as a nation altogether under judicial blindness, except those to whom Christ is revealed, will then be the object of God's peculiar care and blessing. Paul calls this a mystery, and he would not have saints be ignorant of it. He says "that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so [that is, in this order] all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." (Rom. 11:25-27.) The Deliverer, Christ, must come to effect this. Thus we see that "the times of the Gentiles" and "the fulness of the Gentiles" are two very different things.

Rom. 11:25-32. But there is another reason more express: blindness in part is happened to Israel, but this is until the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in; and so all Israel, instead of being rejected, shall be saved. It is the future national restoration and salvation of Israel. They shall be restored to their own olive, to their place in the line of God's testimony and promises on earth: for heavenly hopes do not enter into view here. Instead of being cast off, Israel, as such, are destined to enjoy all that was promised them. The Deliverer shall come out of Sion; and God will take away their sins. Plainly it is the Jews, the literal Jews, who are here meant; for they are distinguished from, and contrasted with, the Gentiles all through the chapter from verse 11, and very clearly in this verse 26. "The fullness of the Gentiles" means the complete number of such Gentiles as believe — all the Gentiles who share in the blessing during Israel's practical obdurateness. Israel are enemies on account of the Gentiles now as regards the gospel, but as regards election, beloved on account of the fathers. This is in no wise applicable to what people call the spiritual Israel, for they are friends as regards the gospel, and beloved of God the Father, not on account of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand Israel after the flesh, and all is simple: they have made good their enmity as regards the Gospel, and God will not fail to prove in due time that they are beloved on the fathers' account. For the gifts and calling of God are not subject to repentance: they are indefeasible. The election mentioned in Rom. 11:28 is that of the beloved people Israel. It must not be confounded with the election according to grace, whereby, in the interval of Israel's rejection, the called Jews and Gentiles are taken for heaven. The first is a national election, the second an individual election, which sets us in far superior blessing, since its object and result are to introduce us into heaven. In fact, the believing Jews, who abode on the olive-tree, share in these two elections.

With verse 25 we drop the figure of the olive tree and resume the main theme of the chapter. The apostle very plainly predicts Israel's blindness is only going to last until the fulness of the Gentiles is come in. Then their eyes will be opened, and Israel as a whole will be saved. This will happen when once more the Lord Jesus returns. The blindness is only "in part," since all along God has been calling out an election from amongst them. When Jesus comes again "all Israel" will be saved: that is, Israel as a whole, or nationally. It does not mean that every individual Israelite will be, for the Scriptures show that many amongst them will worship anti-christ and perish.

"The fulness of the Gentiles" refers to God's present work of calling out an election from amongst the Gentile nations also. When that work is complete and the whole "fulness" or "complement" secured, the end will come. God's present purposes of grace to the nations will be secured, and then He will proceed to secure His purposes in regard to Israel; for He never repents, or changes His mind, regarding His gifts or His calling. Only He will secure those purposes, not on the ground of man's merit but of His mercy.

But, it may be asked, are not Jews now brought in also? Is not the Gospel as free to them as to others? Why, then, is it said that Israel is blinded in part "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in?" It is because the apostle is here speaking of the Church dispensationally, as the thing which came in through Israel's blindness, and is incompatible with her national blessing. In this dispensational sense, the Church is Gentile, and does not cease to be so because individual Israelites enter. In doing so, they take the same ground as the Gentiles; as Peter says — "We (the Jews) shall be saved, even as they" (Acts 15:11); and become detached from the nation as here represented. Christianity, thus viewed, is the bringing in of the fulness of the Gentiles in contrast with God's still future work of restoring and blessing Israel. This is the "mystery," as seen in the Epistle to the Romans.

A mystery is made known. Blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. The fulness of the Gentiles means, the full number of the saved, gathered out from among the Gentiles, who constitute the church, the body of Christ. And when the body is joined to the Head in glory, the time of the coming of the Lord for His Saints (1 Thessalonians 4:17), the Lord will turn again to Israel. All Israel, that is, the all Israel living in the day will be saved, when the Deliverer comes out of Zion (Isaiah 59:20; Psalm 14:7). It is the second, visible, personal and glorious coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob and take away their sins. Between the coming of the Lord for the Saints, who will meet Him in the air, and His coming in great power and glory, are the days of Jacob's trouble, when the nation will have to pass through the fires of tribulation and the wicked among Israel will be cut off. And after He has come and has taken away their sins, all the great prophecies of Israel 's earthly glory will be fulfilled. Verses 33-36.--A doxology closes this dispensational section of the epistle. What depths of riches, both of wisdom and knowledge of God, in His merciful dealings with the Gentiles and the Jews! How unsearchable His judgments! How untraceable His ways! For of Him, and through Him and to Him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen.

85 But neither parts of this song are as yet fulfilled; nay, when we compare it with Isaiah 49, we shall see, I think, that this glory must be after, and indeed yet to come. He is not as yet salvation to the ends of the earth, neither does Israel yet know, except the Remnant, as their glory; compare Paul, Romans 9-11, particularly the latter, where I would note that though "the fulness" (pleroma) of the Gentiles is spoken of as to come in before the removal of the blindness of Israel, it by no means follows, nor does it mean, that the earth shall be universally a redeemed people, but until the complete Gentile Church had been gathered. The thorough understanding of Isaiah 49 seems to be necessary for this, which see; and compare the language with this.

With regard to the expression "fulness of the Gentiles," it stands in contrast with the diminishing of the nation. It seems to be used here. in reference to the advancement of the Gentile at the expense of the national diminishing of Israel. But it may, and probably does, refer also to the measure of Christ's harvest of Gentile election to be reaped at His appearing. It is in the former sense, however, that the word seems to exert its chief force in the present verse. The world is now the object of God's testimony. The Son of God has given His flesh for the life of the world. The Spirit of grace thus declares the title of the crucified and risen Jesus as Lord of all (Rom. 14:9). The acceptance of the Gospel as the truth of God places its professors dispensationally under the direct government of God as His people (2 Peter 2:1). The professing Gentile world now holds that place. It is this which is the very ground of the judgment which is to act against that which has a name to live, but is dead.

(Vv. 22-25). Thus, in God's dealings with Israel and the Gentiles, we see the goodness and the severity of God. God has acted in severity towards unbelieving Israel, and in goodness toward the Gentile. But His "goodness" will cease towards the Gentiles if they fall into unbelief; and God's severity can cease toward Israel if they repent of their unbelief. In this case the fall of the Gentiles will become the occasion for the restoration of Israel. If wild olive branches can be grafted into the olive tree so can the natural branches. This, indeed is what will happen, for 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.

There are fuller, and deeper, because heavenly, blessings to be had now, through the rejection of the Lord Jesus, than ever Israel will know, in the day of their revived glory, and their restored kingdom, under the King, of whom I will speak a little further on. Therefore, if there be a soul in this hall, that has not yet been saved, pause, think, and ask these questions, Why has God sent the Gospel to me? Why has God not yet sent back His Son, the Lord Jesus, to reestablish Israel in their land? Why is He tarrying? He is tarrying because "blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (ver. 25). What does He mean? This. He delays till the last Gentile has been brought into the Church of God, till the last member of the body of Christ has been called, reached, converted, and baptized, by the Holy Ghost, into that body. Were you ever struck with the expression, "the fulness of the Gentiles"? We saw, on a previous evening, what was meant by "the times of the Gentiles," the time when the Gentiles rule, and the Jews are nowhere. "Blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in," has, however, a different significance, viz., that Israel will not be blessed until the Gospel has reached the last soul, that will listen to the testimony of this heavenly Saviour, and thus the body of Christ completed, the Bride of Christ is also complete, and the Bridegroom comes into the air and catches up His own people, to meet Him there.

Much more correctly have Beza on the Protestant side, and Estius on the Catholic expounded the verse and shown the opposition of πᾶς Ἰσραήλ in the future hardening ἀπὸ μέρους, which strictly means "in part," not a mere qualifying of a severe declaration, "until" also specifying the point of time at which the great change takes place. To say with Calvin that "until" (ἄχρις οὗ) does not mark this but only equivalent to "that" shows the strong prejudice of a good man whose knowledge of the language was imperfect and who missed to a great extent the point of the chapter before him, through that wisdom in one's own conceit against which the apostle is warning the Gentiles. That "the fulness of the Gentiles" cannot mean the general conversion of the world to Christ, is perfectly certain if it were only from the previous reasoning of the apostle in the central portion of the chapter, where he asks if the slips of the Jews were the world's riches, how much more their fulness? and shows how he was provoking them to jealousy to save some; for if their rejection be the world's reconciling, what their reception but life from among the dead? And this, as already shown, harmonizes with the constant testimony of the Law, and the Psalms, and the Prophets, which invariably make the blessing of Israel as a creation the condition and under God the means of the blessing of all the earth — a new state of things, not the gospel or the church as now known, both of which are inconsistent with it, but the kingdom in its manifestation of glory when in the broadest sense all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Here the commentators are, I must say, painfully defective. The effort of some ancients, and of moderns like Grotius and Hammond, to find the accomplishment in the apostolic times is of all schemes the grossest absurdity, and the most directly opposed to the text commented on.