[[6]] Both in this passage and in Acts i. 20.
DIVISION IV. § 5[[1]]. CHAPTER XI. 13-36.
God's present purpose for the Jews through the
Gentiles: and so for all humanity.
St. Paul would not have it supposed that, in his zeal for the recovery of Israel, he was proving faithless to his vocation as the apostle of the Gentiles. On the contrary, he explains (assuming the Roman Christians to be Gentiles in the mass) that he is, by this very zeal, fulfilling that vocation. The conversion of the Gentiles was meant to react as a stimulus on the Jews. When St. Paul magnifies his Gentile ministry, he does so always with the motive of stinging the jealousy of his own people, and so bringing some of them to salvation. How can such a consummation be too eagerly desired? For if even so pitiable an event as their rejection has yet, in God's providence, been overruled for a good end—the bringing back of the outside world into the fellowship of God[[2]]: can we doubt that so happy an event as their recovery would be indeed (what Ezekiel saw in vision in the valley of the dry bones) a veritable resurrection? For the consecration of God is still upon them. The holy (i.e. consecrated) people they still remain. As the 'heave offering' of the 'first of the dough'[[3]] consecrates the whole lump, so the first of the nation offered to God—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—have consecrated the whole nation. The holiness of the root of God's olive tree[[4]] has passed to the latest branches. It is quite true that some of these branches of the Jewish olive tree were broken off, and that the Gentiles were introduced in their place; like a wild olive grafted upon the root of a cultivated plant, and so sharing its rich sap. But that—to let the metaphor continue—gives the wild olive no ground for an insolent contempt of the branches which naturally belonged to the tree. What advantage it now has it wholly derives from that which it is affecting to despise. It is the root that supports it, not it the root. And are the Gentiles disposed to argue that these rejected Jewish branches were broken off in order that they might take their place; and that they, the Gentiles, are thus plainly preferred by God to the Jews? The answer is plain. Why were they broken off? Because they would not maintain the correspondence of faith with the purpose of God; and it is simply by maintaining this attitude that the newly introduced Gentiles can hope to retain their place. They had better exhibit, not a groundless pride, but a reasonable fear. Is God likely to be more sparing towards them than towards His first chosen? God has displayed before their eyes both His attributes of severity and goodness, and they must take note of both. At the present moment it is severity towards Jews, goodness towards Gentiles. Yes, goodness towards Gentiles; but so long only as they abide faithfully in His goodness, no longer. When they fail of faithfulness, they too, like their Jewish predecessors, shall be cut off. And, on the other hand, when those Jews change their attitude, and their hardness melts and faith returns, they shall be recovered and reingrafted into the old olive tree. If God could graft into it branches cut out of an alien and inferior stock, how much more easily can He reingraft into it what is really part of its very self?
Here then we have a real disclosure of a divine secret[[5]], to which the Gentiles would do well to keep their eyes open, lest (like the Jews before them) they mistake for wisdom their own self-conceit. The hardening of the Jews has been used by God as an opportunity for the gathering in of the full number of the nations of the earth; and that with the further purpose that, when the nations are gathered in, Israel in all its completeness should be recovered too. And so shall be fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy of a redeemer from Zion, who should restore Israel, and of a new covenant with them, based on a fresh forgiveness of their sins[[6]]. Thus if we think of the actual relation of the Jews to the present preaching of the Gospel, we must think of them as God's enemies, and as having by their very enmity secured the Gentiles their opportunity; but if we think of them in relation to God's eternal choice, they still must appear as sharing the divine love which rests on the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God's gifts and vocation do not admit of being repented of and recalled. Thus we know what to expect. As the Gentiles passed out from disobedience under the divine compassion through the opportunity afforded by the disobedience of the Jews; so now the divine compassion which rests on the Gentiles is intended (by stimulating the Jews to recover their lost privileges) to prove the means of recovering them too out of their disobedience into the shelter of the divine compassion which is the common heritage of all. We see, in fact, all men in turn shut up in disobedience to God, as in a prison house: it is God who has so shut them up; but it is done in view of the largest and most compassionate purpose which can be even conceived. It is done that (when men have become wearied of their own wilfulness, and have experienced their own need) the divine mercy may welcome and embrace all alike at last.
And if this is the purpose of God disclosed to us, how can we fail to adore the fathomless resourcefulness of His wisdom in determining how to act, and His skill in executing what He has determined? How can we fail to recognize our utter incompetence to explore His judgement, or track out His ways? Like inspired men of old[[7]] we must recognize that the absolute initiative is His, and our only reasonable attitude the humblest correspondence. Truly in counsel and operation we have contributed to God nothing of our own: we have no claim with which to approach Him. He is the unique source of whatever is, and the sole executor of whatever takes place, and the only end to which all things tend: and to Him, therefore, alone all praise is due, and shall be given.
But I speak to you that are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I glorify my ministry: if by any means I may provoke to jealousy them that are my flesh, and may save some of them. For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? And if the firstfruit is holy, so is the lump: and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, and didst become partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree; glory not over the branches: but if thou gloriest, it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; by their unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by thy faith. Be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee. Behold then the goodness and severity of God: toward them that fell, severity; but toward thee, God's goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they continue not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou wast cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and wast grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written,