111 So I say, Has God put his people on one side? Let there be no such thought. For I am of Israel, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not put away the people of his selection. Or have you no knowledge of what is said about Elijah in the holy Writings? how he says words to God against Israel, 3 Lord, they have put your prophets to death, and made waste your altars, and now I am the last, and they are searching for me to take away my life. 4 But what answer does God make to him? I have still seven thousand men whose knees have not been bent to Baal. 5 In the same way, there are at this present time some who are marked out by the selection of grace. 6 But if it is of grace, then it is no longer of works: or grace would not be grace. 7 What then? That which Israel was searching for he did not get, but those of the selection got it and the rest were made hard. 8 As it was said in the holy Writings, God gave them a spirit of sleep, eyes which might not see, and ears which have no hearing, to this day. 9 And David says, Let their table be made a net for taking them, and a stone in their way, and a punishment: 10 Let their eyes be made dark so that they may not see, and let their back be bent down at all times.
11 So I say, Were their steps made hard in order that they might have a fall? In no way: but by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, so that they might be moved to envy. 12 Now, if their fall is the wealth of the world, and their loss the wealth of the Gentiles, how much greater will be the glory when they are made full? 13 But I say to you, Gentiles, in so far as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles, I make much of my position: 14 If in any way those who are of my flesh may be moved to envy, so that some of them may get salvation by me. 15 For, if by their putting away, the rest of men have been made friends with God, what will their coming back again be, but life from the dead? 16 And if the first-fruit is holy, so is the mass: and if the root is holy, so are the branches. 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, an olive-tree of the fields, were put in among them, and were given a part with them in the root by which the olive-tree is made fertile, 18 Do not be uplifted in pride over the branches: because it is not you who are the support of the root, but it is by the root that you are supported.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Romans 11:1-18
Commentary on Romans 11:1-10
(Read Romans 11:1-10)
There was a chosen remnant of believing Jews, who had righteousness and life by faith in Jesus Christ. These were kept according to the election of grace. If then this election was of grace, it could not be of works, either performed or foreseen. Every truly good disposition in a fallen creature must be the effect, therefore it cannot be the cause, of the grace of God bestowed on him. Salvation from the first to the last must be either of grace or of debt. These things are so directly contrary to each other that they cannot be blended together. God glorifies his grace by changing the hearts and tempers of the rebellious. How then should they wonder and praise him! The Jewish nation were as in a deep sleep, without knowledge of their danger, or concern about it; having no sense of their need of the Saviour, or of their being upon the borders of eternal ruin. David, having by the Spirit foretold the sufferings of Christ from his own people, the Jews, foretells the dreadful judgments of God upon them for it, Psalm 69. This teaches us how to understand other prayers of David against his enemies; they are prophecies of the judgments of God, not expressions of his own anger. Divine curses will work long; and we have our eyes darkened, if we are bowed down in worldly-mindedness.
Commentary on Romans 11:11-21
(Read Romans 11:11-21)
The gospel is the greatest riches of every place where it is. As therefore the righteous rejection of the unbelieving Jews, was the occasion of so large a multitude of the Gentiles being reconciled to God, and at peace with him; the future receiving of the Jews into the church would be such a change, as would resemble a general resurrection of the dead in sin to a life of righteousness. Abraham was as the root of the church. The Jews continued branches of this tree till, as a nation, they rejected the Messiah; after that, their relation to Abraham and to God was, as it were, cut off. The Gentiles were grafted into this tree in their room; being admitted into the church of God. Multitudes were made heirs of Abraham's faith, holiness and blessedness. It is the natural state of every one of us, to be wild by nature. Conversion is as the grafting in of wild branches into the good olive. The wild olive was often ingrafted into the fruitful one when it began to decay, and this not only brought forth fruit, but caused the decaying olive to revive and flourish. The Gentiles, of free grace, had been grafted in to share advantages. They ought therefore to beware of self-confidence, and every kind of pride or ambition; lest, having only a dead faith, and an empty profession, they should turn from God, and forfeit their privileges. If we stand at all, it is by faith; we are guilty and helpless in ourselves, and are to be humble, watchful, afraid of self-deception, or of being overcome by temptation. Not only are we at first justified by faith, but kept to the end in that justified state by faith only; yet, by a faith which is not alone, but which worketh by love to God and man.