“I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.”
Romans 11:11, KJV
“So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.”
Romans 11:11, ESV
Table of Contents
- Romans 11:11 Meaning – Introduction
- Romans 11:11 Meaning – I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall?
- Romans 11:11 Meaning – God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles
- Romans 11:11 Meaning – for to provoke them to jealousy
- Romans 11:11 Meaning – Conclusion
Romans 11:11 Meaning – Introduction
Having proved that God had not cast away His people, by referring to the fact that even then a remnant, according to the election of grace, was preserved, Paul supports his denial of their rejection by the consideration that in process of time the whole nation shall be restored. This restoration, as has been already remarked, forms the subject of nearly the whole remainder of the chapter.
Haldane, Robert – Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (1874)
Romans 11:11 Meaning – I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall?
You will be much entangled in this dispute, unless you attentively consider that the apostle is speaking at one time concerning the whole nation of the Jews, and at another concerning individuals.
Hence arises the great difference of his statements, and the reason why he sometimes says the Jews have been exterminated from the kingdom of God, cut off from the tree, and hurried to destruction by God’s judgment; and again, on other occasions, he denies that they have fallen from grace, nay, asserts, they rather remain in possession of the covenant, and have a place in the church of God.
Paul now speaks with this distinction in his view; for since a great number of the Jews were opposed to Christ, so that the whole nation was almost seized with this perverse feeling, and very few among them exhibited any marks of sound understanding, Paul proposes the question, — Whether the Jewish nation had so stumbled against the Rock Christ, that its complete ruin was inevitable, and no hope remained of repentance? He here justly asserts that there was no cause to despair of the salvation of the Israelites, or that they were so rejected by God that their restoration was impossible, or that the covenant of grace, which God had once entered into with them, was completely extinguished, since the seed of blessing still remained in the nation.
It is evident this sense must be annexed to the language of the apostle, because in a former passage he joined certain ruin with the blindness of the Jews, while he here gives them hopes of their rising again, and these two propositions are directly opposed to each other.
Such as have obstinately stumbled against Christ have fallen, and sunk down into perdition; but the nation itself hath not so fallen, as necessarily to involve the ruin or estrangement from God of every descendant of the father of the faithful.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
Future relations — The great body of both Jews and Gentiles are to embrace the Gospel and enjoy the benefits of the Divine Method of Justification.
Such was the state of things when the apostle wrote, and, after eighteen centuries, this substantially remains the state of things still. But it shall not be always so. The actual relation of the manifested Divine method of justification to mankind shall yet better correspond to the wants of the race, on the one hand, and the capabilities and tendencies of the Divine economy, on the other. The general rejection of the Gospel by the Jews was to be subordinate to its more speedy and extensive reception by the Gentiles; the advantages enjoyed by the Gentiles, in consequence of their receiving the Gospel, were to operate in exciting a jealousy on the part of the Jews which would lead to their conversion, which, in its turn, would be, as it were, life from the dead to the Gentiles, and ultimately “the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in,” and “all Israel shall be saved.” The great body of mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, after being alternately shut up in unbelief, shall become the objects of Divine mercy, and together enjoy the blessings of the Christian salvation, to the praise of the depth of the riches of the wisdom and power and grace of Him of whom are all things, and to whom are all things. Such is an outline of the train of thought to the end of the chapter.
The greater part of what is more fully developed in the sequel of the chapter is presented in a very condensed form in the 11th verse. Israel’s “stumbling” is plainly the rejection of the Messiah by the great body of the Jewish people, and their consequent exclusion from the Messianic blessings: the stumbling includes both the sin and its punishment. The reference seems not to the unbelieving Jews as individuals; for without question they, continuing in unbelief, had stumbled so as to fall. The finally impenitent individual, be he Jew or Gentile, so falls as never to rise again.
The question of the apostle is (and it naturally rose out of what he had said respecting a portion of the Jews — the election, who through believing had obtained the righteousness which is by faith) — ‘What is to become of the rest — the great body of the nation?’ The question admits of two senses, according as you understand the particle translated “that,” as meaning ‘so that,’ or ‘in order that.’
In the first case, the meaning is, ‘Have the Jews, by rejecting the Messiah, brought themselves into such a state, that they shall never more form a part of the Church of God? In their case, has the harvest come? has the wheat been gathered in, and are “the rest” to be consigned as tares to the fire?’
In the second case, the meaning is, ‘What was the design of God in permitting this sin, and visiting it with this judgment; was it that the people should be utterly destroyed — that, having fallen, they never might rise?’
From the answer given, it would appear that the last is the meaning — a meaning which will be found to include the first.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
This is the Apostle’s own question, and does not, as Dr. Macknight and Mr. Stuart allege, proceed from an imaginary objector.
It naturally springs out of the declaration made in the four preceding verses concerning the blindness of those called ‘the rest,’ in contradistinction to the remnant comprehended in the election.
The question is, ‘Has the great body of the Jewish nation stumbled, that they should fall for ever, and is this the purpose of their fall?’
Paul replies by a strong negative.
Nothing was further from the purpose of God with respect to His ancient people.
They had stumbled, as was said, Romans 9:32, ‘at that stumbling-stone,’ according to the predictions of the Prophets respecting Christ; but still it was but a temporary stumbling, from which the nation will finally recover.
God had a double purpose in this.
His design in their stumbling was not that they should fall for ever, but rather that through their fall salvation should come to the Gentiles, and that, through this, the nation of Israel might ultimately receive the Messiah.
Haldane, Robert – Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (1874)
Romans 11:11 Meaning – God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles
The apostle distinctly states, in this passage, that the fall of the Jews had contributed to promote the salvation of the gentiles, for the purpose of exciting the Israelites to jealousy, and thus leading them to think of repentance.
Paul evidently directed his attention to the above-cited testimony of Moses, when the Lord threatens Israel that as [they] had provoked him to emulation by false gods, so by the law of retaliation he will provoke the Jews by a foolish nation.
The word here used implies the affection of emulation and jealousy, when we are roused in our feelings on seeing another preferred to us.
If therefore the design of the Lord is to provoke Israel to emulation, she did not fall for the purpose of being plunged into eternal ruin, but that the divine blessing, which was despised by the Jews, might be bestowed upon the Gentiles, and thus Abraham’s posterity might at last be roused to seek the Lord from whom it had revolted.
Our readers need not very much perplex themselves in making any application of the testimony adduced by Paul, for he does not urge the peculiar sense of the word, but uses it only in a vulgar and usual manner.
For as emulation rouses a wife, who has been rejected by her husband on account of her own fault, to display an earnest zeal to be reconciled to him, so it is possible, according to the apostle, that the Jews, on seeing the Gentiles adopted in their place, may be touched with a feeling of their rejection, and aspire to regain reconciliation with the God of Israel.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
He repeats the first Argument, to prove that the Jews were not to be despised, and he adds a second: The Jews are not cast off, that all, and every one of them should perish, that are of this nation; but that salvation through Christ refused by the Jews, might come to the Gentiles, that the Gentiles being converted unto God, might provoke the Jews to jealousy, and by consequence to repentance. Therefore the Jews are not to be despised.
The Jews are provoked to jealousy, when they see themselves shut out from God, and scattered, that they might not be a Church: But the Gentiles in their room to be taken of God into his bossom, wherein before the Church of the Jews had been cherished.
Dickson, David – An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles (1659)
To the question, Is the final cause of what has happened to Israel that they may be destroyed? — to this question, the apostle replies, “God forbid!” The destruction of the Jewish people is not the final cause of what has taken place as a Divine arrangement, nor is it that in which, as a Divine dispensation, it will issue. The final end is twofold: first, that “through their fall salvation might come unto the Gentiles;” and secondly, “to provoke them, that is the Jews, to jealousy.”
Let us inquire what the two ends thus described are, and endeavour to show how the stumbling of the Jews — their rejection of the Messiah, and the punishment they thus brought down upon themselves — was fitted to serve, and has served, or will serve, these ends.
The first purpose intended to be served by the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, and their rejection in consequence of this, is, “that through their fall salvation should come unto the Gentiles.”
The general unbelief of the Jews, and their punishment for it, were the means of the Gentiles becoming more speedily and extensively acquainted with the Gospel, and thus interested in the salvation which it at once reveals and conveys, than otherwise they could have been. Though the Jews had universally embraced Christianity, we have no reason to think that the Gentiles would have been permanently excluded from its benefits: but it seems evident, that such an event, however desirable in itself, would have at once prevented the Gentiles from hearing the Gospel so soon, and would have thrown difficulties in the way of their receiving it when they did hear it.
The command of our Lord was to “preach the Gospel to all nations,” but to begin at Jerusalem. “The blessings of the Gospel were to be offered to the Jews first.” It every way suited the genius of the economy, whose leading character is sovereign grace, that the murderers of the Son of God should have the first offer of pardon — that they who had struck the rock should be invited to take the first draught of the waters of salvation which flowed from it; that they who had shed the blood of atonement should be urged to become the living proof that it indeed cleanseth from all sin. Accordingly, the primitive teachers of Christianity, for a considerable time, confined their evangelical labours to their countrymen, the Jews; and even when they went beyond the boundaries of the Holy Land, the conversion of Jews was the primary object of their exertions. Had the Jews generally discovered a teachable disposition, there would have been opened a wide field to the apostles and evangelists, which would have employed them for a considerable period. But when the Jews, as they generally did, opposed and blasphemed, nothing remained for the propagators of Christianity, but to turn themselves to the Gentiles. The best commentary on this view of the subject is to be found in the facts recorded respecting the conduct of the primitive evangelists, of which we have a specimen, Acts 13:14-48; 28:17-28.
But this is not the only, nor perhaps the principal, way in which the general rejection of Christianity by the Jews conduced to the speedier and more extensive conversion of the Gentiles.
Christianity, if it had been universally embraced by the Jews, would have been much less likely to be embraced by the Gentiles. This may seem strange; but it is true, and it is not difficult to make its truth evident.
There existed, as is well known, an inveterate antipathy between the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews regarded the Gentiles, and the Gentiles the Jews, with equal contempt and hatred. Had the Jews, as a body, received Christianity, that religion would have worn to the Gentiles the repugnant aspect of the religion of the Jews.
In this case, too, it is highly probable that the converted Jewish nation would have continued, as so many of the individual converts from among them did, “zealous for the law of Moses,” and not at all unlikely that they would have insisted on proselytes from among the Gentiles submitting to its ritual institutions. It is easy to see what obstacles such a state of things would have placed in the way of the general Christianization of the Gentiles. All the difficulties which lay in the way of a heathen becoming a Jew, would have lain in the way of his becoming a Christian.
But when Christianity was embraced only by a small minority of Jews, it became evident that Judaism and Christianity were two very different things; and when it was understood that one great cause why the majority of the Jews rejected Christianity was its liberal character — its placing Jews and Gentiles on a level as to religious privilege, it is easy to see how its rejection by the former would be a powerful recommendation of it to the latter.
Thus, in consequence of an event in itself deeply to be deplored, Christianity assumed at once that liberal unencumbered form which fitted it to be the religion of “men of every kindred, and people, and tongue, and nation.”
This was the direct primary design of the casting away of the Jews; but it was intended, through the gaining of this end, to gain another one, namely, the restoration of the great body of the Jews to the enjoyment of the blessings only to be found among the people of God.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
Romans 11:11 Meaning – for to provoke them to jealousy
Salvation came to the Gentiles, through the fall of the Jews, “for to provoke them” i.e. the Jews, “to jealousy,” or emulation.
The advantages possessed by the Gentiles, in consequence of their having embraced Christianity — especially viewed in connection, both with the wretched circ*mstances in which they were in their previous state of heathenism, and with the degraded and wretched state into which the Jews have fallen since their rejection of Christ — are obviously fitted to lead the Jews to serious reflection, and to excite in them emulation, envy, jealousy of the Gentiles, which may produce inquiry leading to faith. Who can tell in how many individual cases this has happened since the apostle wrote these words?
And when converted Gentiles, both as individuals and as churches, more fully develop the direct and indirect advantages which the reception of Christianity is fitted to communicate than they have ever yet done, which they easily might do, which we doubt not they shall do, then an influence shall go forth which Jewish obstinacy shall not be able to resist, and the glorious event more fully unfolded in the sequel — the general conversion of the Israelitish people, shall take place.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
It is probable from this, that the Jews will be excited, by seeing God’s favour to the Gentiles to reflect on their own fallen condition, and to desire to possess the same advantages.
When the Jews can no longer hide from themselves that the God of their fathers is with the nations whom they abhor, they will be led to consider their ways, and brought again into the fold of Israel.
This is according to the prophecy already quoted by the Apostle in the 19th verse of the preceding chapter.
Haldane, Robert – Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (1874)
Romans 11:11 Meaning – Conclusion
It was in this manner, then, that God purposed to bring the Jewish nation finally to submit to Him, in order that they might receive His blessing; and thus in His sovereignty He overrules the fall and ruin of some for the salvation of others.
His awful judgments against the audacious transgressors of His laws, warn the beholders to flee from the wrath to come; and, on the other hand, the conversion of men who have been notorious sinners, excites others to seek the salvation of Christ.
Who can calculate what extensive, permanent, and glorious effects may result throughout the whole creation, and in eternal ages, from the fall of angels and men — from the redemption of God’s people in Christ — from His dispensations towards the Church and the world? Ephesians 3:9-11.
We ought to remember that the Lord may have infinitely wise and gracious motives for His most severe and terrible judgments.
Thus did the fall of the Jews become the occasion of the Gentiles being enriched with the inexhaustible treasures that are in Christ, so that the justice, the wisdom, and the faithfulness of God were glorified in this awful visitation.
Haldane, Robert – Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (1874)
