THE BOOK OF ROMANS CHAPTER 11:1-21
THE MYSTERY OF THE BLINDNESS OF ISRAEL

Paul has reached the critical point of his Letter. The Mystery of which Paul refers to in verse 25 of this Chapter is that Israel the nation and its people are set aside in judgment as God’s witnesses in the Earth, and the ‘Gentile’ Church would take their place. For Israel, as a people of God, will not be restored during this Age of Mercy and Grace; the timeframe wherein He calls out another people for His Name, out of the ‘Gentiles.’ This had begun shortly after Pentecost with the Gentile Cornelius being saved. (Acts 10) The Jews in general continued their united rejection of Christ their Messiah and claimed they are a people of Moses throughout the 30 plus years associated with the Book of Acts up until 70 AD. This is when God cut them off, by the hand of Titus, and destroyed the Temple, and with it the Jewish means by which they could serve God through observance of the Mosaic Law. 

VERSES 1-6 “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid (using the strongest negative in the Greek, this is expressed as an emphatic ‘No! Not ever!’).  For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the Scripture saith of Elijah? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” Are they to remain forever in that cast off state? NEVER! So says Paul, as he gives example of when God told the prophet Elijah, who thought himself alone in Israel as a man of God, that He had reserved unto Himself 7000 men who had not bowed to other gods. There is now, and has always been a remnant elect, by God’s Grace, which Paul himself could attest to, as one himself in his day. In his Road to Damascus experience, Paul was cast down upon the ground in the Glory of Christ, and was then bidden to arise and he arose. Paul then is a type for the last days remnant Jew! It was election and justification by undeserved grace and not by merit of his or their own when they again will be grafted back in. (Paul’s scales over his eyes being symbolic of their being blinded and his being filled with the Holy Spirit and subsequent ministry as the Apostle to the Gentiles symbolizing the scales of unbelief dropping from the Jews’ eyes at the time of Christ’s Coming and them being used as ministers on Earth as lights unto the Gentiles/nations in the millennial kingdom!) 

VERSES 7-10 “What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.

(According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompense unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back always.” As Paul has already said, Israel was seeking to establish their own righteousness before God, and for that “…the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes…” [Isaiah 29:10] And to add injury to a long-standing insult, in their pride they refused to receive (and still refuse today) the imputed righteousness of Christ outside the Law, which God, by His prophets, had all along promised to provide outside the Law of Moses. “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” [Psalm 69:21] And so in this great display of pride, God judged them unworthy to have the part of the “New Man” heavenly kingdom calling (the heavenly portion of the Abrahamic Covenant) and gave it to another. “Wherefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” [Matthew 21:43] (What was being taken from them was the heavenly portion of the kingdom inheritance that was promised to Israel through Abraham’s faithfulness, of which he is an inheritor of. The inheritors of the heavenly inheritance being the antitype for the type of God’s People not being numbered among the nations of the earth, for the nation of the New Man’s inheritance is a heavenly calling, not an earthly.)

It was Written in Deuteronomy, “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.

And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.” [Acts 3:22-23]  Therefore in the killing of Christ, they greatly increased their transgression against God under the law Moses and remain still today under its curse. “Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times (greater) for your sins.” [Leviticus 26:28] (Note: We should see the severity of how God deals with His Covenant People. The Jews were examples unto us, so we should recognize our own religious stiffnecked-ness. If they were threatened with a judgement 7X worse, how much more will WE be judged? Just as they had a false sense of security in their own righteousness, the Church, in its blind stupor, has developed its own sense of righteousness through ritualistic works and service of its own. The lukewarm Christian will answer for this by having to go through the fires of the Great Tribulation. It is the lack of fear (reverential fear of God) that is the issue which causes believers to not discern between the holy and the profane. The sons of the High Priest Eli being a good example of the lukewarm church that think that because of their bloodline (spiritual), they can violate the laws of God and not have to pay for it. To those under the Law, Moses said that if you reject the prophet he speaks of, you’ll be destroyed. Paul’s warns them of the possibility of being of rejected/cut off, just as Eli’s two wicked sons were cut off/killed in war as part of God’s judgement on them. The priesthood then fell to the Sons of Zadok, a line of righteous priests, not of the physical Levitical priestly bloodline, but rather a spiritual one, as Christ is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.  

God opened the eyes of His elected Jews in that 1^st Century to see their true state of unrighteousness in the light of Christ’s righteousness, unto His saving grace. And how were they softened? But by the Holy Sprit’s divine influence upon their hearts and minds. “…and the rest were hardened.” [Romans 11:7] And how were the rest of ‘Moses’ followers hardened? By the simple matter of the withdrawing of His merciful grace and leaving them to their own determined devices. (Psalms 81:11-12, Isaiah 29:10, John 9:39) 

Wherein neither case; in the softening nor in the hardening, can there be found any injustice on God’s part as the opened eye comes by God’s choice in grace; the closed eye from man’s own persistence of choice. As in the imprecations of the Old Testament, Israel the called down curses upon their own selves… “His blood be on us, and on our children!” [Matthew 27:25] 

VERSE 11 “I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall (transgression) salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy… (Greek… “But by their transgression…”) This, Israel’s one great transgression, was the putting to death the Son of God. (Acts 3:14-15, 2:22-23) This transgression opened the door to then preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. But it was not God’s design or intent to replace Israel on whom He had shown great mercies, but by them to promote His mercies towards the Gentiles. And when this (their just loss of the heavenly kingdom calling, and the Gentiles great gain and blessing) is rightly perceived, jealousy and motivation is the result upon the enlightened Jew. 

VERSES 12-14 “Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness? For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.” In verse 14, Paul logically concludes that if the death/cutting off of the Jews brought a blessing to the Gentiles, that is to say not in the positive way God has designed for them to be, but nevertheless a blessing, though it be from the most severe of negatives… “…how much more (of the blessings of God will be manifest to the Gentiles and all Creation and Creatures shall come with) their fullness” (that is, in the full abundant and greater blessings of God’s gospel salvation purposes which are to be fully realized in their restoration fullness, both Millennial and Eternal being in view). It is this understanding and wise counsel that Paul addresses to the Gentile New Man believers of Rome ‘…that therefore it is not to theirs, or anyone’s benefit, to think or teach that God has finished His great work with the temporarily hardened Jews.’

Peter chastened them in Acts 2& 3, in the beginning of this latest and greatest of “…diminishing of them…” (seen in Romans 11:12) that they could now no longer be called the people of God while they persisted in unbelief, and resisting the Truth. Peter admonished that they were the ones who rejected Him who Moses prophesied would take his place in Israel, and warned of their continued rejection of Him. Peter called on them to repent that they might be forgiven and enjoy the Millennial day at Christ’s return. At the cross, Jesus had said, “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” [Matthew 23:34] By this, the Holy Spirit declared their ignorance and God’s willingness, to forgive them, even as He began extending His mercy to the Gentiles. Thousands of Jews were converted in those few days following Pentecost (which is typed by Joseph’s spiritual insight and willingness for reconciliation to his brothers who had rejected Him). “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.” [Genesis 50:20-21] 

How did Paul arouse some Jews to Jealousy? He reasoned with them through the Scriptures. “And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.” No doubt unto this purpose also Paul was given the fullness of the meaning of the kingdom of heavens’ glorious inheritance; that which Christ first began to reveal. “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heavens.” [Matthew 13:11a]  In that Paul should now be able to preach that Abrahamic promise of inheritance of a better type, of a heavenly type, as a part of the Gospel of faith in Jesus Christ now being set apart and granted to the Gentiles. Paul would make Israel jealous by showing them what they could lose. That being the heavenly calling which Hebrews 11:12-16 speaks of… “Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”  This better country promised to Abraham (and additionally offered to those of the New Man) being a heavenly City, the New Jerusalem. God’s original intent being to have His people in authority in both realms. As it was from “in the beginning” when God created the heavens and the earth, and as it is in the future, when He creates a new heavens and new earth, His authority, through man, would be in both spheres. But as we stated in the opening, alas, after decades of continued resistance in choosing Moses and the Law over Christ, in 70 AD, God brought judgment destruction upon the Temple and completely cut off the Old Covenant laws of worship, and thus casting them off as His witnesses in the Earth. But the sure word of prophecy is that they will one day repent.

VERSE 15 “For if the casting away of them (the loss of the heavenly calling being as a nation, not as individuals) be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” To what does this resurrection speak? It speaks to the theocratic nation of Israel, ‘raised up from the dead’ figuratively and literally (some rising out of Hades), and established in the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus the Messiah. They being a Nation of priests and a light of the righteousness of God to the Gentiles, thus fulfilling their calling. 

Read Isaiah 49:1-6. It gives a perfect example in prophetic form of God establishing this unique unperceived relation between “Israel” (referring to the Lord) and “Jacob”. Beginning in verse 1… “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother (Mary) hath he made mention of my name. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; And said unto me, Thou art my servant,O Israel (the name figuratively here given to Jesus the Christ) in whom I (the Father) will be glorified…Then I said (Jesus) I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment (trusting nevertheless) is with the LORD (the Father), and my work (3 ½ years of seemingly fruitless work) with my God (Father). And now, saith the LORD (the Father) that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob (negative name for the wayward nation of Israel) again to him, though Israel (literal) be not gathered, (that fruitless result of Jesus First Coming) yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord (His Father), and my God shall be my strength. And he said (the Father), It is a light thing (in reward for your faithfulness in) that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”  

Isaiah 49:7-13 has to do with God fulfilling the gifting of the Gentiles to Christ His faithful Servant. (See Psalm 2:8… “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen (Gentile nations) for thine inheritance…”) The rest of Chapter 49 deals with God’s faithfulness to Israel through Jacob’s Trouble to the grafting back into the Olive Tree Millennial restoration. These are special verses for an understanding of the resurrection into life of the restored Israelites further typified from the Valley of dry bones. (Ezekiel 37:12) Their death and the resurrection is yet future. Fulfillment is awaiting that place of death; and the acknowledgement of Last Days’ Israel to consider themselves totally hopeless and void of any innate ability to establish any righteousness in themselves towards God. Israel today is not there yet. Present Israel has no desire to be a nation chosen out from among other nations to be their spiritual and moral light. Their game is Commerce. Buying and selling and, financing and making money and getting wealthy and being militarily powerful among the nations. What they currently want and insist upon is to play on the same field as all the rest of the Nations. To tell them they are the chosen people of God is an idea they resist. ‘Enough already, to be just another Nation like any other is what we want.’ 

But God’s callings and Covenant with Abraham are irrevocable as God will not change His mind towards them. That they are in the Land without God’s warrant, answers to the ongoing tumult in the Middle East, as the Land prepares again to vomit them out. Nevertheless, Scripture clearly details there will be this revitalization, climaxing in rebuilding of a Temple. This Zionist movement is foreseen by the Prophets…and in Daniel 11:14… “And in those times thee shall many stand up against the king of the south: the violent among thy people shall lift themselves up to establish the vision; but they shall fall.”  (This answers to the Zionist movement of today, which was a man-made restoration of Israel.)

VERSE 16 “Now if the firstfruit is holy, the lump also is holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.” This verse is a reference to the festivals of Leviticus 23 and typically looks on to the rapture and resurrection faithful from among the dead into the Millennial kingdom of Christ. It is the Biblical principle that if the first-fruits of the harvest are accepted and deemed holy, then the rest of the field is also deemed holy. The 2 loaves (though leavened) are deemed holy because they are tied to the Passover First Fruits; Jesus Christ, Who is holy. There are two first-fruits represented in the Feasts; the Passover which represents Christ as holy, and the First-Fruits resurrected from among the dead unto God. (1st Corinthians 15:20) And then the feast and first-fruits of Pentecost, with its offering of the 2 (leavened) loaves, that represent the 2 groups of witnesses of God that are uniquely co-enjoined with the holy First-Fruit of the Passover in the Pentecostal power of the Holy Spirit. The 2 loaves typically picture the resurrected and living faithful nation of Jews, the physical linage of Abraham in the one hand and the faithful caught up and resurrected from among the dead of the nation of the New Man, the spiritual linage of Abraham in the other hand. (1st Corinthians 15:23) This dynamic duo is realized at the 2^nd Coming of Christ. We may consider the ‘Olive Tree’ being representative of Abraham; a ‘First-Fruit’ accepted of God and the true specimen of the First-Fruits and Harvest coming, represented in the 2 groups’ branches; God’s witnesses in the Earth.

VERSES 17-18 “Now if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches But if thou boastest, thou bearest not the root, but the root bears thee.” The branches broken off were those dry and hardened of Israel, and this fully materialized after the Jewish Apostles with their apostolic authority had all nearly past from the scene. Then Israel was no longer at all God’s witness in the earth, as the Age of the Gospel of Grace and Mercy with Gentile leadership set in. 

Believing Gentiles are taken out of the dry tree of the first Adam, being his seed, to be made, by faith in Jesus, the spiritual seed of Abraham in the power of the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 3:14) They are now to be instructed and matured (in the wilderness of instruction) to be the bearers of the Gospel of God as God’s true witnesses of Jesus Christ in the World. They are the spiritual seed of Abraham to be representative of the God of Israel in the World today. Seeing then the one ‘New Man’… brought out from the idolatrous Gentiles, by God’s greater extended Mercy, they are thereby grafted into the holy tree and are now partakers of the fatness of the Abrahamic Promises. Specifically those promises that have to do with the heavenly realm, and that by reason of the severe judgment upon stubborn wayward Jews who had once the sole rights of being witnesses of God unto the World. That is to say, we were the 2^nd born, 2^nd fiddle, not the primary but secondary. The Hebrews did all the heavy lifting and with them rest the Covenants and from whose flesh Christ came, into which Gentiles are mercifully incorporated. On what ground then could Gentiles boast or be proud, or exalt themselves above the estranged Jews, as if they were beloved above them? God has granted the Gentile a place of calling equal to that of a Jew to be His witnesses in the Earth, while God is accepting the spiritual seed in lieu of the physical seed of Abraham.

VERSES 19-21 “Thou wilt say therefore, ‘The branches were broken off, in order that I might be grafted in.’ Well; through unbelief they were broken off’ but thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He spare not thee also.” The solemn lesson to us as Gentile believers is God broke the stubborn of Israel off His fruitful tree of witness, and called another to bring forth the testimony that was theirs by first-born right. (Matthew 21:43) That the Jews would be cut off in unbelief and the Gentiles would then be God’s witnesses in the Earth was a great Mystery concealed. They were not true representatives of their father Abraham, contrite and humble and a man faithful to God. Abraham, by grace and not by perfect character or behavior, received initially justification/righteousness imputed from God. That initial faith then led unto God’s testing and trial wherein he was faithful and progressed in faith refined. Abraham had willingly suffered in obedient faithfulness unto an ultimate kind that resulted in a irrevocable Covenant with God. In which he procured for all mankind the promises of blessing through his seed/Seed. That Gospel Covenant of witness to the World was exclusive to the Jews. That in which they were unfaithful, as they presumptuously and arrogantly held to their own righteousness that was based first; on being the seed of Abraham and secondly a righteousness obtained solely in the observance of the Mosaic Law. Therefore God broke them off the Tree and grafted in Gentile believers in Christ to be His witnesses in the World. Who now, being frighteningly warned by Paul, that they could only expect to continue to stand as God’s witnesses as they faithfully exercised themselves in the God-liked obedient faith to faith of Abraham. (Romans 1:17)

It’s in this warning statement and allusion to the leaven that will, within less than a century, be mixed into the Gospel Church. It will fully pervade and rise to the last days Laodicean high-minded presumption of being; ‘once and forever the spiritual seed of Jesus, God’s anointed Savior for Gentiles through faith unto imputed righteousness… and thereby redeemed from the curse of the law, therefore having no need of that fear of being cut off as His witnesses in the Earth’. That to which the ancient solemn warning of Paul speaks here to the Gentiles has happened; they have been cut off, which appears so evident to those who can see and follow from the example set before us of ancient stubborn Israel. That cutting off of the Gentile Church as His witness, has already long since occurred. And like Israel before, what is left is but a religious shell of itself, a religious ritualistic perfunctory body of lukewarm Christians, who scratch each others’ ears with “Christian” messages of comfort, peace and safety, and promised future glory. (2nd Timothy 4:3) They think they see but are religiously blind, just like hardened Israel before them. Vainglorious of whom they are in Christ without true hearts of service. The salt has long since lost its savor; the light is but flickering, if not extinguished, in modern-day Christendom in general. 

All of which answers to, not the threat of eternal damnation, but to severe judgment and loss of glory in inheritance. Christendom in general is  ‘Ichabod’ but unaware of it…. “And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel…” [1st Samuel 4:21] The Church of the Gospel of Christ has not reached this point overnight, like the Church of Israel before, who continued over centuries in steady hardening resistance, in spite of God raising up many standards, unto both His groups of called out ones, of rebuke and chastening. He has now, as Israel then and now, but a remnant of faithful New Man witnesses as the closing days of its appointed time of exclusive ministry in the Earth is fast approaching. (Luke 2:25-28, with Luke 18:8, Matthew 24:12, Revelation 3:15-17) (The warning to Gentile believers has a three-fold application; first to the individual being broke off, second to Christian community or church being broken off from the fatness of the Olive Tree (as in when Christ speaks to the 7 churches in the Book of Revelation where He warns of removing their lamp stand from them), and thirdly to Nations being broke off (sheep and goat nations). 

First, Elijah serves as an example of an individual in a Nation. Second, the Most Holy took away the ministerial standing and its certain inheritance from the community in the Nation “…the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” And thirdly, the warning of unbelief extends to the Gentile Nations under Christ’s Second Coming judgment. That is, as to how they treated God’s people and witnesses…(see Matthew 25:31-45)…in that if they did not own God’s people as a Nation, He shall cease to own them as one of His Nations. “…and these shall go away into everlasting (age-lasting in the Greek; that is to say the Millennial Kingdom Age) punishment…”  verse 46. And as according to Numbers 23:9…  “…lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.” Israel cannot be reckoned among these Nations of Matthew 25. Nor shall they, for that matter be reckoned with the Nation of the New Man either. Nor shall the Nation of the New Man be reckoned among the Gentile Nations. (Acts15:14-17)