WHAT IS ROMANS 9-11 ALL ABOUT?
Through the pervasive influence of Dispensational theology over the past 150 years, the church has been led to interpret various passages of the Bible in ways not largely seen in days past. This is no more evident than in the interpretation chapters nine through eleven in Romans. As with any Bible verses, good interpretation must never begin with our own theological biases or constructs but must first align themselves with the flow of the passage itself (the author’s intent) and by paying careful attention to the context of the passage both immediate and distant (the logical progression). No one will argue that in Romans chapters one through eight Paul is formulating a winsome treatment of the gospel of grace, of which he repeatedly reminds his readers (mostly Gentile) that it is a gospel for both Jews and also the Greeks (1:16).
Of course the Jew/Gentile tension was the great issue in the first century church when the Apostles wrote. Acts chapter 15, and the books of Galatians and Ephesians contain passages that are crucial in understanding how these two groups could come together under one gospel. The issue was simply this: how could the Gentiles be saved if they were ignorant of and resistant to the Old Covenant instituted by God under Moses AND how could the Jews be part of this great gospel movement if they had long ago rejected God and seemed to have no real interest in His Messiah. Both of these questions would be mulling about in a Gentile church like Rome which had a small Jewish contingence. The Gentiles exulting in their newfound entrance into God’s kingdom might display a bit of superiority over the Jews whom they considered to have given up all their rights to God. So the question on the table was not so much could Gentiles be saved - experience had proved that - but whether or not Jews, given their open rejection of God, could or should be included at all in the New Covenant. Had the day of salvation passed the Jews by?
Paul in these three marvelous chapters wants to deal with both errant attitudes. And to do it he goes back to the freedom and beauty of the gospel which he has adorned for eight chapters. And his conclusion is simple; the gospel is for anyone, Jew or Gentile, who has received it. After all, the gospel is the very power of God to the Jew first and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16). That it alone is the true remedy for all men because, as Paul proves, all men, both Jews and Gentiles, are born in sin (Romans 3:9). So what do chapters nine to eleven add to this glorious message of the gospel? Certainly we cannot consider them superfluous as Paul always writes with great economy and purpose. Nor can we say that these chapters form a parenthesis from what Paul has been arguing in the book all along. That is, we cannot hold to the common interpretation that Paul is now arguing for a kingdom theology regarding Jews that is an exception to salvation by grace alone. That is, if Paul is making the point that God has a special plan for the Jews at the end of time, then he has moved in a very irrelevant and illogical direction. More than that, to think that Paul is arguing about some special divine treatment given to the Jews actually undermines the very gospel that he has labored to prove for eight chapters. No, intellectual honesty demands that these chapters must have something to do with the gospel message as it pertains to both Jews and Gentiles and not about some retro kingdom theology for an ancient people.
With the Westerner’s penchant for dividing things into manageable parts, the three chapters under consideration have often been viewed individually as three separate arguments with three separate themes. We often outline the chapters this way:
Chapter 9 - Election
Chapter 10 - The gospel
Chapter 11 - The restoration of the Jews
But this way of looking at nine through eleven violates the most important hermeneutical principle of context and fails to consider that chapter divisions are products of convenience, nothing more. The fact is, these chapters serve as one unit and once they are seen that way they build one unassailable argument, typical of Paul’s writings. So what is that argument? It is simply this: since the gospel has gone out to the entire world and has included Gentiles who are streaming into the kingdom, what do we make of the Jews who seem to have rejected God both in the Old Covenant (as taught in Jeremiah, etc.) and in the New Covenant proclamation of the gospel (by Paul himself). Shall we write the Jews off as a group having missed their chance? What shall become of the Jews. Is the gospel for them? Certainly this would have been a burning issue in that day. So to answer this, Paul writes the three chapters before us.
Paul begins chapter nine with a deep lament for the Jewish people. He more than anyone knows that the Jews have been hostile to the gospel and have rejected God Himself. This rejection is acute because, as Paul states, they possessed every advantage, being the covenantal people of God in the Old Testament. Paul follows with a long discourse on the sovereign nature of God’s grace, making the point that the Old Testament clearly proved that God chooses those who will be saved and such choosing is not based on ethnicity. To think that Jews are automatically saved would be foolish indeed. His point in verse six should never be forgotten. Not everyone who boasts Jewish genes can claim to be in a covenant relationship with God. In chapter ten Paul will state that the Jews, like everyone else, can be reconciled to God even if they have been hard up to that point. Paul’s heart burns for his countrymen. He wants them to be saved. If Paul believed that the Jews had a guaranteed spot in the kingdom, then why would he yearn for them to be saved? This launches Paul on a mission to describe how the Jews - indeed how anybody - can be saved. It is has nothing to do with ethnic privilege or keeping the law, but receiving the testimony of God in the gospel. Had Paul believed that a Jewish kingdom was to be established at the end of time this would have been a perfect time for him to state such a thing and to alleviate the fears of many who worried about the spiritual state of the Jews. But Paul does not do this. Rather, he prays they would be saved. Two points are made by Paul in this chapter. First, the reason they are not saved is because they have tried to find God in their own strength and in their own righteousness. The Old Covenant law seemed to leave open the possibility that one could be saved by doing works. Paul, however,. makes it clear that this is not how the gospel works. And second, by emphasizing that the gospel is a message that must be believed, not a duty to be performed. Therefore a person, whether Jew or Gentile, is saved not by doing but by receiving (Romans 10:13, 14, 17). Because this gospel is for everyone (remember 1:16), the Jews have not been excluded from salvation even though they have been a disobedient and contrary people (10:21). This is good news, good for Jews who need to know they can be saved and good for Gentiles who tended to fall into arrogance against their Jew neighbors because they so heartily rejected the gospel. The flow of chapters 9 & 10 ought to make chapter 11 rather simple. Unfortunately, the presupposition that God will restore the ethnic nation of Israel has colored the minds of many who interpret this chapter wrongly and make it say something it never was intended to say.
Chapter 11 begins with Paul’s assertion that Jews are invited to enter into the kingdom of God through faith. They have not been rejected. The proof of this is autobiographical. Paul, himself a Jew, was saved (11:1). And if Paul a Christian-hating Pharisee could be saved, then any Jew could be saved. But as Paul said previously, their salvation comes by sovereign decree not by ethnic identification. If God preserved seven thousand in Elijah’s day, certainly he could preserve a number of Jews in the first century A.D. The Jews, therefore, could not assume that they were part of God’s kingdom simply because they were Jews. Only the elect could have such confidence as Paul will say in verse seven. The rest of the chapter is devoted to answering the question ‘in what manner will God bring the Jews back to Himself?’ The careful reader will recall that at the end of chapter 10 Paul makes the point that Jews will be provoked to faith by witnessing the salvation of Gentiles, a nation that was not even seeking God (10:19-20). Paul now marvels at God’s marvelous and mysterious plan of salvation, a plan that included both Jews and Gentiles. The plan was twofold. The Gentiles are saved because the Jews rejected their Messiah and put Him to death thus opening up the way for all men to be saved. The Jews on the other hand will be saved as they become exceedingly jealous at seeing the Gentiles being saved. Both groups, Jews and Gentiles, are saved as a result of this inscrutable, marvelous, sovereign plan of God. Thus when we come to verse 26, ‘and so all Israel shall be saved,’ we dare not interpret it in a way that has nothing to do with Paul’s purpose. His point was to explain how the Jews would be saved by the gospel through their jealousy of the Gentiles. Verse 26 now set in its context can be interpreted not as some carte blanche salvation of ethnic Jews, but as describing how the Jews will be saved (οὕτως - Greek ‘in this way’). That is to say the verse is saying ‘in this way the Jews will be saved as they grow jealous of the Gentiles.’ The term ‘all Israel’ simply means every ethnic Jew who is a part of God’s sovereign plan. Unfortunately many in the modern church have tweaked this verse to say that Paul is hinting at a nationwide restoration of the Jews in the latter days. Such an interpretation has done much damage among evangelicals and profoundly alters the way they look at both the present and the future. Several of these unfortunate consequences are as follows.
Such an interpretation keeps the focus of salvation history on the Jewish nation and on Jerusalem in particular and distracts the church from the gospel. Many evangelicals look more to current events in the Middle East rather than reaching all the nations with this glorious gospel message.
Such an interpretation renders evangelism to the Jews an option rather than a compelling mandate. If Jews will ultimately be restored to a long promised earthly kingdom and if Jews will be given a chance to repent in the earthly Millennial Kingdom (as many Dispensationalists say) then evangelizing Jews is not so crucial.
Such an interpretation takes away from the imminency of Christ’s Second Coming, an event Jesus spoke of often with the idea that it could come at any time. But can Jesus come back at any time if a large segment of the Jewish population is not yet saved? For the Dispensationalist the answer must be no.
Such an interpretation contradicts the rest of the book of Romans at its deepest level. Paul has labored for eight chapters to prove that that men are saved not by anything in them but by the sovereign work of God. And now are we to say ‘but wait a moment, there is one exception, the Jews, because of the covenant given to them through Abraham, will be saved simply because they are Jews.’ Such a belief is a borderline denial of the gospel of sovereign grace.
Romans chapters nine, ten and eleven are a confirmation of and a consummation to the first eight chapters of the book. If the Old Covenant was law-based and exclusivistic, the New Covenant comes with all the freedom and grace that God alone can bestow. Men are not saved for who they are but by the sovereign electing grace of God. Gentiles are saved as freely as Jews, and Jews as freely as Gentiles. This is shocking on both counts. Gentiles who were excluded throughout the Old Testament and were considered no more than dogs are now invited to the great gospel feast. And Jews, who willfully and wantonly rejected the overtures of God’s mercy are yet invited to come to Him through that same gospel message which alone is the power of God unto salvation. All men therefore come to God through one doorway as equals, and that doorway is the Lord Jesus Christ, open to all who put their trust in His name.