Core Doctrine · Covenant
Why God Is Not Finished With Israel
Paul asks the question straight out — has God thrown away His own people?— answers it in two words, and then spends three chapters showing why the answer had to be no. This page walks his argument, and the covenant texts underneath it, and names the readings Christians have held.
THE ARTWORKVan Gogh painted these olives from a hospital garden, and he painted the roots as hard as the branches — the trunks twist, the ground heaves, and the whole grove is clearly older than anybody looking at it. Paul reaches for exactly this tree in Romans 11, and for exactly this reason: an olive can be cut back hard and go on living, because the life is in the root.
Paul Asks It Straight Out
— Romans 9, 10 and 11 are one argument — and his most personal writingHe opens by saying he would take a curse on himself if it would save his own people. Two chapters of hard reasoning later he asks the question every reader was already asking, and answers it before the sentence has finished.
I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Holy Spirit. I have deep sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my own flesh and blood, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory and the covenants; theirs the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them proceeds the human descent of Christ, who is God over all, forever worthy of praise! Amen.the grief first — and the list of everything that belongs to his people.
I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject His people, whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah, how he appealed to God against Israel:the question, and the two-word answer, and then his own body as the first proof.
He gives three reasons, and none of them is complicated.
1 · He is one himself
For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. The proof that God has not finished with Israel is sitting there writing the letter.
2 · There has always been a remnant
Elijah thought he was the last believer alive. God told him there were seven thousand he had never met. What looks like the end has never once been the end.
3 · God does not take back what He gives
The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. That old phrase does not mean without sorrow for sin. It means God does not change His mind about it.
In the same way, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.the remnant is not a leftover — it is chosen by grace, and it is present tense.
I ask then, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Certainly not! However, because of their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous.the second time he uses his strongest no, and against the same idea.
Regarding the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but regarding election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs. For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.the hinge verse: enemies for your sake, and beloved for the fathers' sake, in one sentence.
Have they stumbled so as to fall - Totally and finally? No But by their fall - Or slip: it is a very soft word in the original. Salvation is come to the gentiles - See an instance of this, Acts xiii, 46.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Romans 11:11
As concerning the Gospel - The unbelieving Jews, with regard to the Gospel which they have rejected, are at present enemies to God, and aliens from his kingdom, under his Son Jesus Christ, on account of that extensive grace which has overturned their peculiarity, by admitting the Gentiles into his Church and family: but with regard to the original purpose of election, whereby they were chosen and separated from all the people of the earth to be the peculiar people of God, they are beloved for the fathers sake; he has still favor in store for them on account of their forefathers the patriarchs.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Romans 11:28
The third-century church reading Romans 11:28-29 exactly as it standsOrigen, 253
Origen is quoting Paul’s own words back at length, which is its own kind of commentary: he does not soften the sentence, and he does not explain the two halves of it away.
According to the Gospel indeed they are enemies for your sake: but according to the election they are most dear for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. For as you also once did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy because of their unbelief: so these also have now not believed, that through the mercy shown to you they too may obtain mercy.
Origen of Alexandria· Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 253Church Father
Romans 11:28-31
ONE LINE, FROM ABRAM TO PAUL
four places God says it, and never once takes it back
THE HINGE · ROMANS 11:1
“God forbid”
Paul’s strongest possible no. He uses it twice in three chapters, both times against the same idea.
THE COVENANT CUT
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—
Genesis 15:17-18→Abram is asleep. Only God passes between the pieces.
TIED TO THE SUN
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, who sets in order the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of Hosts is His name: “Only if this fixed order departed from My presence, declares the LORD, would Israel’s descendants ever cease to be a nation before Me.” This is what the LORD says: “Only if the heavens above could be measured and the foundations of the earth below searched out would I reject all of Israel’s descendants because of all they have done,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:35-37→Sooner the fixed order of sun, moon and sea gives way.
THEY LOOK ON HIM
Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
Zechariah 12:10→The covenant thread and the cross meet in one line.
HE DOES NOT TAKE IT BACK
For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.
Romans 11:29→The gifts and the calling of God — He does not change His mind.
The Covenant Only One Party Swore
— Genesis 15 · Jeremiah 31 · Ezekiel 37 · Zechariah 12Genesis 12 and 15 — the promise, and the strange ceremony
God tells Abram to leave, and promises him a nation, a name, and a blessing that will reach every family on earth. In Genesis 15 the promise becomes a covenant, and the way it is cut is the whole point.
Normally both parties walked between the divided animals, each one saying in effect: let this happen to me if I break faith.In Genesis 15 Abram is asleep. Only God walks through. A covenant one party swore is a covenant one party can break — and He did not.
Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”the promise, and the last line of it reaches everybody who has ever lived.
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—a smoking firepot and a burning torch pass between the pieces. Abram does not.
The Lord made a covenant - כרת ברית carath berith signifies to cut a covenant, or rather the covenant sacrifice; for as no covenant was made without one, and the creature was cut in two that the contracting parties might pass between the pieces, hence cutting the covenant signified making the covenant.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Genesis 15:18
He had said before, To thy seed will I give this land, ch. xii. But here he says, I have given it; that is, (1.) I have given the promise of it, the charter is sealed and delivered, and cannot be disannulled. Note, God's promises are God's gifts, and are so to be accounted.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Reformed
Genesis 15:18
In thee - In thy posterity, in the Messiah, who shall spring from thee, shall all families of the earth be blessed; for as he shall take on him human nature from the posterity of Abraham, he shall taste death for every man, his Gospel shall be preached throughout the world, and innumerable blessings be derived on all mankind through his death and intercession.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Genesis 12:3
Jeremiah 31 — the oath God fastened to the sky
Right after the promise of a new covenant, Jeremiah says something startling. If the fixed order of sun, moon and sea ever fails, then the seed of Israel will stop being a nation. If the heavens can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out, then He will cast them off. The continuance of a people was tied to the machinery of the universe.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt— a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”the new covenant promised — law written inside, and sins remembered no more.
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, who sets in order the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of Hosts is His name: “Only if this fixed order departed from My presence, declares the LORD, would Israel’s descendants ever cease to be a nation before Me.” This is what the LORD says: “Only if the heavens above could be measured and the foundations of the earth below searched out would I reject all of Israel’s descendants because of all they have done,” declares the LORD.and the condition attached: sooner the sun stops.
If those ordinances - As sure as the sun shall give light to the day, and the moon to the night, so surely shall the Jews continue to be a distinct people. The same thing is expressed in other words in the next verse. Hitherto this prophecy has been literally fulfilled; the Jews are still a distinct people from all the dwellers upon earth. Every attempt that has been made in any country to naturalize and unite them with the people of that country, has proved abortive.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Jeremiah 31:36
(Compare Jer 33:22). for all that they have done--namely, all the sins. God will regard His own covenant promise, rather than their merits.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Jeremiah 31:37
Ezekiel 37 — the two sticks
Everyone knows the dry bones. Fewer people read to the end of the chapter. In the second half Ezekiel takes two sticks, writes Judah on one and Joseph on the other, and holds them in his hand as one piece of wood. Matthew Henry reads that union toward Christ, and says so beautifully.
you are to tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will take the Israelites out of the nations to which they have gone, and I will gather them from all around and bring them into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king will rule over all of them. Then they will no longer be two nations and will never again be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols or detestable images, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all their apostasies by which they sinned, and I will cleanse them. Then they will be My people, and I will be their God.one nation, one king — and notice the phrase God keeps using: my people.
And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be My people.an everlasting covenant, and God's own dwelling place in the middle of them.
All believers unite in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. And the uniting of Jews and Gentiles in the gospel church, their becoming one fold under Christ the one great Shepherd, is doubtless the union that is chiefly looked at in this prophecy. By Christ and partition-wall between them was taken down, and the enmity slain, and of them twain was made one new man, Eph. ii.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Reformed
Ezekiel 37:21
They shall be one in his hand, for his glory shall be the centre of their unity and his grace the cement of it. In him, in a regard to him and in his service and worship, they shall unite, and so shall become one.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Reformed
Ezekiel 37:22
Zechariah 12:10 — where the covenant thread meets the cross
They shall look upon me whom they have pierced. John quotes this line at the crucifixion. Jerome, working with the Hebrew manuscripts in front of him, also records honestly why the Greek tradition read the verse differently: two Hebrew letters that look almost identical.
Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.a spirit of grace and supplication poured out — and then a look, and then mourning.
(Vers. 10.) And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as one grieves over a firstborn. LXX: And they shall look upon me, because they have insulted me; and they shall mourn over him with mourning, as over a dearest one; and they shall grieve with sorrow, as over a firstborn. The Hebrew letters Daleth and Res, that is, D and R, are similar and are distinguished only by a small mark.
Jerome· Commentary on Zechariah, 420Church Father
Zechariah 12:10
I will pour - This was fulfilled on Christ's exaltation, when he sent the Comforter to his disciples, it is daily performed to the children of God, and will be continually, 'till we are brought to be with Christ forever. The house of David - The whole family of Christ, his house who was the seed of David, and who is called David, Ezek. xxxvii, 24.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Zechariah 12:10
Two more places God says whose they areDeuteronomy 7 · Isaiah 49
The choosing is never presented in Scripture as a reward for size or merit, and the keeping is never presented as conditional on their performance. Isaiah’s image for it is a mother and a nursing child — and then something stronger than that.
For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.not because you were many — the fewest of all peoples — but because He loved you.
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; the Lord has forgotten me!” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you! Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me.Zion says the LORD has forgotten her, and He answers with the palms of His hands.
Election, choosing — Paul's word for the thing God did and did not undo. Seven occurrences in the New Testament, and three of them are in this one chapter. At 11:28 it is the hinge of the sentence.
Casting away, loss — and there are only two occurrences in the whole Bible. One is Romans 11:15. The other is Paul on a sinking ship, telling the crew there will be no loss of any man's life. The same word: a throwing-away that does not happen.
Covenant — 284 occurrences, and you can follow it across this page's three anchors: cut with Abram in Genesis 15, made new in Jeremiah 31, and called everlasting in Ezekiel 37.
To pierce through — eleven occurrences in the Bible, and this is the one at Zechariah 12:10 that John reaches for at the cross.
One Tree, Not Two
— Paul's own image — stated here, worked through next doorThere is one tree. Some natural branches were broken off. Wild branches were grafted in contrary to nature— which, as Wesley points out, is backwards from how anybody actually grafts a tree. And then Paul turns and speaks directly to the grafted-in branch.
Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, remember this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.do not boast against the branches — you do not carry the root; the root carries you.
That is correct: They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will certainly not spare you either. Take notice, therefore, of the kindness and severity of God: severity to those who fell, but kindness to you, if you continue in His kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.the warning that follows it, aimed squarely at the reader who felt safe.
It is worth saying plainly who set that guardrail. It is not a modern correction bolted onto Paul. It is Paul.
Being a wild olive tree - Had the graft been nobler than the stock, yet its dependance on it for life and nourishment would leave it no room to boast against it. How much less, when, contrary to what is practiced among men, the wild olive tree is engrafted on the good!
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Romans 11:17
Boast not against the branches - While you are ready to acknowledge that you were included in the covenant made with Abraham, and are now partakers of the same blessings with him, do not exult over, much less insult, the branches, his present descendants, whose place you now fill up, according to the election of grace: for remember, ye are not the root, nor do ye bear the root, but the root bears you.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Romans 11:18
And in the fourth century a Latin father, no friend of theological compromise, took that warning personally enough to say this about his own walk down an ordinary street:
Believe me: as often as I see synagogues, I always have in my mind that which is said by the apostle, that we ought not to exult over the olive tree whose branches were broken, but to fear; since if the natural branches were cut off, how much more should we, who are grafted in from the wild olive, fear lest we become like our fathers, "a generation crooked and provoking, a generation which did not direct its heart, and whose spirit was not held faithful with God."
Jerome· Homily 11, on Psalm 77, 420Church Father
Romans 11:18
Four Readings, and Who Holds Each
— each named honestly, each given its real weight — and no verdict stamped on the readerChristians have read Romans 9–11 in four broad ways. Three of them refuse replacement theology and still disagree with each other about how. That is difference among brothers, and this page presents it as difference.
READING ONE
The church has taken Israel’s place
The promises made to Israel pass to the church, and there is no distinct future for the Jewish people as a people. This reading has a long history and it should be named as what it is, not as a caricature. Where it appears:in the second century in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho(c. 160), where he argues that Christians are the true Israelite race; in Melito of Sardis’s Peri Pascha(c. 170); and then across much of the Latin and Greek church in the fourth and fifth centuries. Augustine’s version, in City of God, is milder and more influential than most: he argues that the Jewish people are preserved by God as witnesses to the Scriptures they carry. In the modern period a form of it survives wherever “all Israel” in Romans 11:26 is read as the whole believing church.
None of these writers is quoted here, because none of them appears in this page’s verified quote pool on this question. They are named, and their works are named, so a reader can go and check.
READING TWO
Israel and the church are two distinct peoples of God
Israel’s promises are Israel’s; the church is a distinct body; the promises made to Israel are fulfilled literally and to that people. This is the dispensational reading, and it is the frame much of this site’s own heritage stands in. Held bythe Scofield–Chafer–Ryrie line in the twentieth century, and among teachers on MannaFest’s roster by Chuck Missler, who teaches the Israel-and-church distinction as part of his overview course Learn the Bible in 24 Hours (2002). Derek Prince also treats Old Testament Israel and the Jewish people as continuous beneficiaries of the covenant promises, and rejects replacement theology sharply (Prophetic Guide to the End Times, 2008).
READING THREE
One people, and a real future turning to Christ
Not dispensational, but holding firmly that Romans 11 promises a genuine future turning of the Jewish people to Christ. This is the reading that refuses replacement theology without adopting a two-peoples framework, and it has a long pedigree. Charles Spurgeon preached it repeatedly, most directly in his sermon The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews (1864); J.C. Ryle argued it in Coming Events and Present Duties; and Horatius and Andrew Bonarcarried it through the Scottish evangelical revival of the 1840s. Those three are named here and not quoted: their words are not in this page’s verified pool, and the house rule is that nothing is put in a preacher’s mouth.
Two voices who arein the pool state the same principle in their own words. John Calvin — the most-cited Reformed authority in the world — says plainly that the covenant made with Abraham is not abrogated. And Wesley, reading Romans 11:25, puts it in six words.
This objection is what he anticipates in this passage, and he so modifies what he had previously said respecting the repudiation of the Jews, that no one might think that the covenant formerly made with Abraham is now abrogated, or that God had so forgotten it that the Jews were now so entirely alienated from his kingdom, as the Gentiles were before the coming of Christ.
John Calvin· Commentaries, 1554Reformed
Romans 11:1
Such had been the calling of the gentiles: such was now the conversion of the Jews. Lest ye should be wise in your own conceits - Puffed up with your present advantages; dreaming that ye are the only church; or that the church of Rome cannot fail. Hardness in part is happened to Israel, till - Israel therefore is neither totally nor finally rejected.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Romans 11:25
READING FOUR
Paul’s own image — one tree with a history
Read Romans 11 as its own answer: neither replacement nor two separate peoples, but one olive tree that has been cut back and grafted and is still the same tree. Held in this page’s sources by Matthew Henry, reading Ezekiel 37 toward one flock under one Shepherd, and by John Wesley on the grafting itself, both quoted above. Among Messianic Jewish teachers today, Rabbi Jason Sobel works from the same Romans 11 frame (Mysteries of the Messiah, 2021).
It is presented last because it is the reading the text itself supplies, and the one the other three are all arguing about.
Where Marcus Lands
What This Page Does Not Do
— the boundary, stated rather than quietly keptThis page stays in the text.Israel’s present-day political situation, and the reading of current events as prophecy, are not treated here. What is here is what Scripture says, and what the church has made of it over two thousand years.
One Man, and One Way to the Father
— Ephesians 2 — the wall taken down, the two made onePaul’s argument does not end in a standoff. It ends at a cross. The middle wall of partition is broken down; the two are made one new man; both are reconciled to God in one body. Not Israel absorbed and erased, and not two separate roads to the Father — one Man, in whom the two become one, and one way to the Father through Him.
Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision (that done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross, by which He extinguished their hostility.the dividing wall pulled down, and the hostility killed in His own body.
O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” “Who has first given to God, that God should repay him?” For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.Paul finishes three chapters of hard argument by giving up and worshipping.
The covenant God swore alone in Genesis 15, while Abram slept, He kept alone at Calvary. That is the answer to Paul’s question, and it is why he could give it in two words.