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Romans 11:11-24 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

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Romans 11, verses 11 through 24.
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Some men like to preach because they enjoy hours of laborious study.
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! Some enjoy the craft of writing and delivering a sermon.
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! Some men like pontificating over complex doctrines.
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Some just like to hear themselves speak.
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I am not one of these men.
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In fact, and it may surprise you, I don't really like preaching.
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I do not like to hear myself speak, and I really don't like being the center of attention.
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So you may ask, then, why do you do it at all?
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I preach because I love things that are good and true and beautiful.
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I preach because I love you.
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I preach because I love the God who saved my soul from deserved damnation,
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and who has revealed himself to us in his word.
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I preach because I believe that the best thing for you, week in and week out,
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is to teach you what God would have you know of himself.
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This is why I love verse-by-verse exposition.
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It forces tough texts upon us.
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And why all I know to do is present text to you honestly.
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I just want to open it, and I want to read it, and I want to explain it.
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We have been wading in the deep waters of difficult texts these past weeks,
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and today is no exception.
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Allow me to issue to you a warning.
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We do not do well when we take up these passages in order that we might judge them,
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but rather we do well when we approach them humbly,
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recognizing that they are difficult,
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and seek to understand them in the light of the grand context in which they sit.
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We do well when we approach these passages with great care.
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In 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 16,
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the apostle there writes in reference to Paul's letters,
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there are some things in them that are hard to understand,
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which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.
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So, let's be careful, not only with the content of these passages,
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but also with our approach to them.
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We also do well when we consider these passages with awe that moves to praise.
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Remember that Paul is writing in these chapters of the saving work of God.
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Beloved, we should be amazed that God saves.
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That he saves at all is an astounding truth.
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It has been a minute since we considered chapter 3.
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So be reminded that Paul has written,
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citing from 10 texts in the Old Testament in Romans chapter 3,
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verses 10 through 18,
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None is righteous, no, not one.
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No one understands, no one seeks for God.
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All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.
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No one does good, not even one.
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Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive.
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The venom of asps is under their lips.
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Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
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Their feet are swift to shed blood.
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In their paths are ruin and misery.
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And the way of peace they have not known.
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There is no fear of God before their eyes.
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Sometimes I think we just need to sit in texts like that.
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And remember, it's either who we currently are or who we once were before God saved us.
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Perhaps in the Southeast, we all need greater measures of law.
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We might rejoice more in our great salvation.
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You see, we are all part of a mob that led a failed insurrection against a good, kind, loving, and just king.
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And when forced at the end of the spear before this king, knowing that we deserve the pronouncement of traitor and our swift execution,
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we receive rather his mercy and forgiveness.
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And some Christians yell the accusation of unfair when other receive the good, kind, loving, just king's judgment.
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Let us not be those people.
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We would gladly leave that courtroom rejoicing for having been shown mercy for our transgression.
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Remember, beloved, in chapter 8, Paul desires to root us in the immovable purpose of God on our behalf.
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We should love this.
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He does this so that when the storms of trial come, and they will come,
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your faith will remain immovable because it is nourished by the immovable purpose of God for you.
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Paul glories in these truths.
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But he also knows the implications that flow from God's elective purpose.
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Which is why Paul tells us of his grief at the beginning of chapter 9.
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There he says,
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And I think he's so emphatic about this because he's just declared this grand truth of God's divine election.
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He wants all of his readers to be sure that he genuinely feels what he says in verse 2.
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That I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
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For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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His fellow Israelites.
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Paul knows that not all Israelites will be saved.
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He has seen the broad rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ by Jewish people in his day.
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And he is working this out theologically across chapter 9 and 10 and into 11.
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But note that he is not judging the scripture of his day.
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He's certainly not judging the God of the scripture.
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Paul writes with all that moves to praise.
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We will look at the conclusion of chapter 11 in detail next week.
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But I want to read you Paul's conclusion before we read today's text.
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This is where his heart is going as he's thinking through all of this.
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Beginning in verse 33, he says,
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Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
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How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
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For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?
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Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
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For from him and through him and to him are all things.
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To him be glory forever.
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Amen.
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And that's the way our study of these texts should move in us.
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So join me with humility and awe and the desire that our hearts will be collectively drawn to praise as we consider today's text.
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Now for some context, I'm going to begin reading in verse 1 of chapter 11.
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Before I do, let me remind you, beloved, that this is God's word to us.
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It was written for his glory and for our good.
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So we would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.
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I ask them, has God rejected his people?
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By no means.
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For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
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God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
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Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?
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Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left and they seek my life.
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But what is God's reply to him?
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I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
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So too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace.
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But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.
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Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.
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What then?
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Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking.
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The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.
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As it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.
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And David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them.
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Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and bend their backs forever.
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Let me pause there for a quick second.
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We saw in our study of this text two weeks ago that God has not rejected his people in totality.
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God is faithful to his word.
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God is gracious and merciful.
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And God's judgment justly awaits those who don't flee to him by grace alone, through faith alone, in the personal work of Jesus Christ alone.
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We see in those first ten verses both the remnant and the reprobate.
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So verse 11 and on today's text.
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So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall?
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By no means.
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Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous.
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Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean?
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Now I am speaking to you Gentiles, and as much then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.
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For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
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If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump.
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And if the root is holy, so are the branches.
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But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.
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If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
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Then you will say, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.
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That is true.
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They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith.
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So do not become proud, but fear.
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For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
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Note then the kindness and the severity of God.
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Severity towards those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.
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Otherwise, you too will be cut off.
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And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in.
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For God has the power to graft them in again.
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For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree,
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how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree?
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Okay.
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Okay.
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If your head is spinning at this point, you are in good company.
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Faithful Bible commentators have written broadly on this chapter and often find disagreement.
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I have taught this chapter before, and any digital record of my notes are mysteriously gone.
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There's records of sermons from before chapter 11 and records of sermons after chapter 11.
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No chapter 11, and perhaps this is God's mercy to you because I likely did a poor job the first time through.
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I have now spent many more hours turning it over and over and seeking to write and deliver a clear explanation of its contents.
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And I am not promising that will be the case this morning.
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It is a difficult text.
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These types of texts require us to apply two important hermeneutic principles.
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And hermeneutics are principles of interpretation.
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Number one, we are to set the text in its context.
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It's really important for us to remember the argument that's being made.
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Where have we come from?
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Where are we going?
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Not only immediately, but even more broadly.
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Like, what do we know to be true as is taught in the Bible?
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So setting the text in its context is helpful, especially with difficult texts.
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Secondly, we are to allow more clear texts to help us interpret less clear texts.
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So those things that are not hard to understand, it's that text that are more difficult.
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If you get it the other way around, you're going to find yourself with all kinds of disparate views.
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We're also needing to imply an important doctrine of the Bible.
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The perspicuity, which is the most complicated way to say clarity of the Bible.
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The clarity of the Bible.
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Which means God's word is clear about things that are necessary to be understood and obeyed in order for a person to be saved.
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Any person, any ordinary person, by the power of the Spirit, can take up the word and believe those things that matter most, that they might be saved.
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And so it's helpful for us to remember that as we come to these difficult texts.
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So context, more clear texts to help us interpret less clear texts, and a recognition that difficult texts like today's and our difficulty in understanding them do not obscure the way of salvation.
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Okay.
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So there are four contextualities that we have left.
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You know a text is difficult when I spend a lot of time on the introduction to it.
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Okay.
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Number one.
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We are saved by grace alone.
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It is God's kindness extended to us that saves us.
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Romans chapter 11, verse 5 and 6.
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So too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace.
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God extending something that we do not deserve.
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And then verse 6, Paul says,
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But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.
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Not saved by works.
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Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.
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It would destroy the definition of grace.
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So we are saved by grace and the reformers, and we do well to say by grace alone.
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But we do not stop there.
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Contextual, clear point number two.
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We are saved through faith alone.
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So it is a means, right, extended by grace to us.
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We are saved by grace through faith.
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And we see the Bible again and again and again command us to believe something to be true.
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Romans chapter 1, verse 16 and 17.
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This is the thesis statement of the entirety of the letter.
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Paul there says,
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For I am not ashamed of the gospel.
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For the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
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To the Jew first and also to the Greek or Gentile.
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For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.
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As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
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So when we say we are saved by grace alone, we are not negating that we must believe the gospel in order to be saved.
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By grace through faith.
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Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.
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We are saved by grace.
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Faith is given to us as a gift.
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Our salvation is not based on works because we cannot boast.
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By grace through faith.
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Thirdly, we are saved by grace alone through faith alone.
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And this isn't in anything.
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We can't just believe in whatever we want to believe in.
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That faith must be placed in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.
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Believing that Jesus is who he said that he is and he accomplished what needed to be accomplished on our behalf.
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Again, from the book of Romans.
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Romans chapter 5.
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This is verses 6 through 9.
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For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
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For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.
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But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
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So God, as perfect, expects of us perfection.
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We have failed at that.
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We have an eternal deficit because of our sin.
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It deserves God's eternal wrath.
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And so we need forgiveness from that sin.
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We need somebody to die in our place.
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And this is what Jesus does.
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His redemptive work on the cross.
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He takes away our punishment.
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And he bears that reproach in himself for us.
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Which brings us up to neutral.
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But we also need righteousness.
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We also need to be law keepers.
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We need to be perfect.
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And so Christ grants us that as well.
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He keeps the law and he gives to us his righteousness.
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So we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.
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And this comes to us.
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This message, this good news of Jesus Christ comes to us.
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So this is number four.
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Context and clear.
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We are saved when the gospel is preached and believed.
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Let's back up a chapter to Romans chapter 10 and verse 14.
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How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
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And how are they to believe in him whom they have never heard?
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And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
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And verse 15 says, how do they preach unless they are sent?
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And so God's eternal, sovereign, elective purposes are not separated from the means by which that gospel is carried and believed.
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And so now, the stage is set.
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Context, more clear.
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We have to bring those things with us to look at this text and get any bearing at all on what it means.
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So let's look at verses 11 through 24.
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I'm just going to divide it into two simple points.
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Number one, an anticipated objection.
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That's verses 11 through 15.
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And then number two, analogies to explain.
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Verses 12 through 24.
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So firstly, an anticipated objection.
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All throughout the letter, Paul has been doing this.
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Anticipating objections all along.
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And then he gives these strong responses to those objections.
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This is the last one in the book of Romans.
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I believe it's the 11th, if I'm remembering correctly, from two weeks ago.
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He anticipates this objection.
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So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall?
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From what he has said of the reprobate that we observed in the previous text,
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from the end of verse 11 through verse 10.
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We saw a number of Israelites who were judicially hardened because of their rejection of Christ.
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And in Paul's use of Psalm 69, verse 22 and 23, cited in verses 9 and 10.
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Right there it says,
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And David says,
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Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution for them.
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So Paul asks,
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Was the purpose of their stumbling their fall?
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And he gives the emphatic answer.
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By no means.
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Again, this is the strongest response that he could give to any question at all.
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May it never be.
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It's strong, strong Greek language.
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The divine purpose of the reprobate was not and is not their destruction.
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That is not the point of their fall.
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Their divine purpose is the salvation of the elect.
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Note the rest of verse 11.
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So I ask,
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Did they stumble in order that, so that they might fall?
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Was that the reason for the stumbling?
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No.
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No.
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By no means.
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Rather,
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Through their trespass,
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Salvation has come to the Gentiles.
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No, they stumbled in order that
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Salvation would come to the Gentiles.
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So as to make Israel jealous.
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God is employing a gospel-rejecting strategy
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For the sake of Gentiles,
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And a jealousy-provoking strategy
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For the sake of Jews.
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I think that you could fairly reword verse 11.
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So this is my translative work.
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This is not.
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This is idea for idea, to be very clear.
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Did the Jews stumble so that they would fall?
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No.
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They stumbled so that salvation would come to the Gentiles,
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So that they would become jealous,
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So that some of them would be saved.
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Has God rejected his people?
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The question Paul asks in verse 1.
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No.
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God has broadened and multiplied
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His grace and mercy.
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Verse 12, Paul says,
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Now if their broad Jewish trespass means riches for the world,
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And if their failure means riches for the Gentiles,
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How much more would their full inclusion mean?
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The Jewish trespass is used of God to send the riches of his justifying,
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Redeeming, adopting, sanctifying, and glorifying work across the world.
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It's still happening in our day.
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The gospel still goes to the ends of the earth.
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And he has not stopped saving Jewish people.
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Note that there are riches abundant for their full inclusion,
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Which is a phrase I will revisit next week for further explanation.
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We're going to pull some of this earlier stuff in chapter 11
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Into a key phrase in our next text.
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And we'll talk about it at greater length.
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But for now, notice how Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles,
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Has made God's jealousy-provoking strategy part of his ministry.
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Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, magnifies that ministry.
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Now he says, I'm speaking to you Gentiles.
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Inasmuch then, I'm apostle to the Gentiles.
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I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous,
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And thus, save some of them.
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In his anguish to see Jews come to faith in Christ,
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He's going to go far and wide to the Gentiles
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In order that they would see the salvation of God come to people,
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And that they would be jealous.
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And also, how that means, bring them to Christ.
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For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world,
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What will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
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He's just saying, I want the Jews to be saved.
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I want as many of them as possible,
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As God purposes to be saved,
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To come from death to life.
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Paul's primary ministry was to non-Jewish peoples.
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However, Paul had not given up on the Jewish people.
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In fact, the driving exhortation of chapter 11,
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The summary of Paul's explanation of God's elective work,
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Is that Gentile believers ought not become arrogant.
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Beloved, we can interchange the characters at this point.
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As people justified by grace alone,
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Through faith alone,
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And the personal work of Jesus Christ alone,
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We have no grounds for arrogance.
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There's no reason to think that anyone else is outside of God's saving grace.
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It is possible to believe the right things wrongly.
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Sovereign election, rightly understood,
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Is held humbly.
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People who believe in divine election should be the most humble of all people,
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Because it gives God all the glory for his mercy and his grace.
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So, there's the anticipated objection,
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And his answer to it,
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Was the purpose of the retrograde their fall?
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No, no.
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The purpose was the salvation of the elect.
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God is being merciful,
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Even in that work.
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And then he gives us analogies to explain,
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Beginning in verse 12.
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And there are two,
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Very briefly,
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One.
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And then another that he expands quite a bit to the end of our text.
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It says in verse 16,
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If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy,
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So is the whole lump.
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And if the root is holy,
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So are the branches.
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And we see in verse 16,
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Right here are those two analogies.
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And we must be especially careful,
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Not to extrapolate too much from analogies,
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But to place them carefully in their context.
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You hear me say all the time,
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All analogies fall short at some point.
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So Paul's trying to communicate something very specific and clear here.
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And we need to set it in its context to understand.
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Paul is explaining his affirmation point.
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Has God rejected his people?
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No.
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God has not done saving Israelites.
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Therefore, Gentiles, don't be proud.
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In fact, he has a strategy for doing so.
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He is employing means to bring about their salvation.
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This phrase,
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If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy,
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Is a reference to the first piece of dough
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From the annual harvest of grain,
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Which was commanded to be offered to God in Numbers chapter 15.
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Paul most likely is referring to himself,
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Back in verse 1, chapter 11,
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And the remnant at the present time,
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We see in verse 5.
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These Jewish people who are in fact turning to faith in Christ.
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As a pledge of all the bullying Jews that would come after them.
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Saying, look, look, look, we can already see God's saving work amongst Jewish people.
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It is most probable that the phrase,
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And if the root is holy,
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Is speaking of the patriarchs who were saved by faith.
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We don't see in the scripture two ways of salvation.
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People were always in the Bible saved by faith.
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More on that next week.
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But this idea of the root being holy is likely about the patriarchs.
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My mind goes to Hebrews 11,
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And the grand list of those who persevered and preserved their souls through faith.
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Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and so forth.
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If the doe offered as first roots is holy, so is the whole lump.
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And if the root is holy, so are the branches.
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The apostles' point is that we can expect to see a remnant chosen by grace.
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Verse 6.
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At the present time and into the future by virtue of the origins of the plant.
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God has been merciful and will not cease being merciful to the Jewish people.
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He will keep his promises the way his promises were always meant to be kept.
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It is this olive tree analogy that Paul continues to the end of today's text.
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Recall from the beginning of verse 13 that he is speaking directly to his Gentile hearers.
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And here we see clearly the exhortation that Gentile believers ought not become arrogant.
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Verse 17.
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But if some of the branches were broken off and you, that's Gentile believers,
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although a wild olive shoot were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,
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do not be arrogant toward the branches.
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If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
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And grafting is a horticultural technique where the tissue of one plant is joined to another
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so that the two continue their growth together.
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If you have no concept of grafting, YouTube will teach you more than you want to know about grafting trees together.
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Right?
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Common horticultural practice.
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And certainly these hearers would have fully understood what it meant to take attributes of different plants
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and put them together in this grafting process.
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The point here is that the branches grafted in are not the beginning of the plant.
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They are part of it, but they do not have their being without the beginning of the plant.
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God has always had a people, and he's been saving a people all throughout redemptive history.
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Paul then continues his exhortation by anticipating what the Gentiles might say.
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There's this warning, do not be arrogant toward the branches.
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Then you will say, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.
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He says, that is true.
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They were broken off because of their unbelief.
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But you stand fast through faith.
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So do not become proud, but fear.
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Now, you have to see in the text, every time we're talking about divine election,
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these writers are not dismissing human responsibility.
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And here you see it.
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Why were they broken off?
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Their unbelief.
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It's right there in the text.
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But you are grafted in, and you stand through faith.
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And what is the response?
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Do not become proud.
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Do not become arrogant.
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But fear, because that's a faith that's been gifted to you.
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Persevere to the end in your faith.
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Persevere to the end in your faith.
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Pursue love of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Obedience to His word through faith.
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And see it out to the very end.
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Paul goes on.
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For if God did not spare the natural branches,
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neither will He spare you.
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If you show yourself to be unbelieving,
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be careful.
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If you show yourself to be unbelieving,
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God didn't spare the natural branches,
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neither will He spare you.
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Note then the kindness and the severity of God.
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Severity toward those who have fallen.
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God's justice will be, must be upheld.
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And we want this to be true of our God.
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We want justice done.
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We want things in this world to be set right.
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But God's kindness to you,
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if you have placed faith in Jesus Christ,
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provided you continue in His kindness.
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Otherwise you too will be cut off.
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And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief,
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will be grafted in.
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For God has the power to graft them in again.
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I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
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For it's the power of God for salvation
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to all who will believe.
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And He continues the horticultural example, right?
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For if you were cut from what is by nature
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a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature
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into a cultivated olive tree,
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how much more will these,
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the natural branches,
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be grafted back into their own olive tree?
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He's just saying,
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God has a purpose of grace and mercy for a people
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and it includes Jewish people.
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So application.
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For those of us who are in Christ this morning,
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who have turned from our sin and placed believing faith in Him,
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we should be amazed at God's sovereign plan of salvation.
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It is a grand and broad plan of salvation.
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My heart is so stirred when I go to the book of Revelation
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and see the great multitudes praising our God.
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It sometimes feels as if, right,
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the reprobate vastly outnumber the saints.
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I just like to think the opposite is true.
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I don't have any biblical evidence of that.
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But there's a multitude,
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a countless multitude,
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praising God at the end of all things.
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And we should just be astounded
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that there are people saved.
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Secondly, we should be humble
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because our salvation is by grace alone,
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through faith alone,
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in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.
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Oh, beloved,
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we sing so many good songs
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that speak to these great truths.
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We deserve severity
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but have been given God's kindness.
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Thirdly, we should plead God's saving grace
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for all peoples.
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We, along with Paul,
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should be out there
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sharing the good news of Jesus Christ
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that people will come to faith in Him
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and perhaps become jealous.
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We should not give up on Jewish people.
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Direct application of the text.
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We should not think
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that God's saving purpose
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is beyond Israelites.
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And there's nothing in here
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about the nation-state of Israel
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and what we should think about war right now.
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So I just want to be clear about that.
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But the saving work of God
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still extends.
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Let's go and preach the gospel
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to anyone who will hear,
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even people of Jewish descent.
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Charles Spurgeon once said,
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you may be familiar with the quotes
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on your bulletin this morning,
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if sinners be damned,
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at least let them leap to hell
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over our dead bodies.
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Charles Spurgeon believed in divine election.
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Charles Spurgeon once wrote,
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Calvinism is the gospel.
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And he also said this,
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if sinners be damned,
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at least let them leap to hell
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over our dead bodies.
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And if they perish,
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let them perish with our arms
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wrapped about their knees,
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imploring them to stay.
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If hell must be filled,
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let it be filled in the teeth
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of our exertions.
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That means like in our faces,
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like as we exert ourselves
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for their sake,
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and let no one go
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unwarned and unprayed for.
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So we should be amazed
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at God's sovereign plan of salvation.
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We should be humbled by it.
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And we should plead God's saving grace
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for all peoples.
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For those of you this morning
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who are not in Christ,
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your rejection of the saving work
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of Jesus Christ
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is keeping you
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from the kindness,
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from the goodness
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of God.
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Repent of your sin
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and put your faith in him
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for the salvation
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of your soul.
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He lived the life
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God requires of you
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and died the death
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that you deserve.
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Jesus will grant you
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his perfection
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and he took your punishment
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if you would just believe
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that his work
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was effectual
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for you.
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So let's pray
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to that end.