Romans 11.25-Paul Reveals The Mystery Of Israel's Partial Hardening Until The Full Number Of Gentiles Have Been Saved
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday August 20, 2009
Romans: Romans 11:25-Paul Reveals The Mystery Of Israel’s Partial Hardening Until The Full Number Of Gentiles Have Been Saved
Lesson # 380
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 11:25.
This evening we will note Romans 11:25 and in this passage, to protect his Gentile Christian readers from arrogance, Paul informs them of a mystery, namely that a partial hardening has occurred in Israel until the full number of Gentiles who will be saved has come to pass.
Romans 11:25, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery -- so that you will not be wise in your own estimation -- that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”
This passage summarizes, confirms and advances upon Paul’s statements in Romans 11:11-24 and intensifies them meaning it goes beyond that which he has said in these statements.
“For I do not want you…to be uninformed” expresses Paul’s desire that the Roman believers would not be ignorant of the mystery of Israel’s partial hardening in order that the fullness of the Gentiles might take place.
“For I do not want you…to be uninformed” is a standard formula that Paul used in his letters to the churches when he wanted to emphasize that what he was about to say was especially important and it is always followed by the vocative adelphoi (a)delfoiv), “brethren.”
“Brethren” is the vocative masculine plural form of the noun adelphos (a)delfov$), which refers to members of the royal family of God who are related to each other and the Lord Jesus Christ through spiritual birth, i.e., regeneration, thus, the word refers to a “fellow-believer, fellow-Christian, spiritual brother or sister.”
This word emphasizes the fact that the Roman Christians and all believers in the church age are sons of God (cf. Jn. 1:12-13; Gal. 3:26-28).
Therefore, if church age believers are all sons of God, then they must all be spiritual brothers and sisters and members of the royal family of God.
“Mystery” is the noun musterion (musthvrion) (moos-tay-ree-on), which refers to the will of God concerning Israel and the Gentiles being revealed during the church age by the Spirit through the apostles to the church and which will was not previously known to the Old Testament prophets of Israel.
The noun musterion was used by the Greeks of the content of the doctrines and the actual principles and points that had to be learned by the initiated and was used in the ancient fraternities of Athens, Greece.
These ancient fraternities had secret doctrines, which they called mystery doctrines and only those initiated into those fraternities knew the mystery doctrines or the secrets.
Paul took the noun musterion away from the secrets of the ancient mystery cults and used it in technical theological language.
He did this to indicate that the doctrine that he was teaching was totally unknown in Old Testament times.
In relation to the Greek New Testament, the noun musterion referred to Bible doctrine that was never revealed to Old Testament saints but was revealed through the Spirit to the church (Matthew 13:10-11; Romans 16:25-27; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; Ephesians 3:1-12; 5:22-33; Colossians 1:24-2:3; 1 Timothy 3:16).
In Romans 11:25, the content of this mystery is that a partial hardening of Israel has taken place and will continue to take place until the full number of Gentiles who will be saved have been saved.
The partial hardening of Israel is manifested in that only a remnant of Jews have believed in Christ since the First Advent of Christ up to the time Paul wrote Romans and this will continue to be the case up to the Second Advent of Christ.
Paul taught the remnant doctrine in Romans 9:27-29 and 11:2-6.
This partial hardening Paul says in Romans 11:25 is “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,” which means that this partial hardening will continue to take place until all the Gentiles who God knows in His foreknowledge will believe in His Son Jesus Christ as Savior have in fact made the decision to trust in Christ.
In other words, the partial hardening in Israel will continue until all the Gentiles who God knows from eternity past will trust in His Son in time have in fact been saved through faith in His Son.
Romans 11:25, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery -- so that you will not be wise in your own estimation -- that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”
“So that you will not be wise in your own estimation” presents the purpose for Paul not wanting his readers to be ignorant of the mystery of Israel’s partial hardening until the full number of Gentiles who are to be saved are in fact saved.
The purpose of revealing this mystery of Israel’s partial hardening until the full number of Gentiles have been saved is so that his Gentile Christian readers will not become arrogant and think more highly of themselves than they ought to think by assuming arrogant superiority over the Jews as Paul warned previously in chapter 11.
This echoes Paul’s statements in Romans 11:16-18.
“That a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” is an appositional clause presenting the content of the mystery.
“A partial hardening” is composed of the nominative feminine singular form of the noun porosis (pwvrwsi$) (po-ro-sis), “hardening” and the preposition apo (a)pov) and the genitive neuter singular form of the noun meros (mevro$) (mer-os), “a partial.”
In Romans 11:25, the noun porosis is used with reference to the majority of Jews who have refused to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and describes their hearts as being in a state of stubborn insensitivity to the Spirit’s witness concerning the person and works of Jesus of Nazareth who is the incarnate Son of God and Christ.
It describes the hearts of those Jews who rejected Christ as Savior as becoming “calloused” thus making them insensitive to spiritual phenomenon, i.e. God’s truth and the Spirit who communicates truth and testifies as to the person and works of Jesus Christ that He is the incarnate Son of God.
This description of unsaved Jews echoes Paul’s statements concerning unsaved Israel in Romans 11:7-10.
The word is directly related to the verb poroo that appears in Romans 11:7 where it was also used of unregenerate Israel in Paul’s day and means “harden” and refers to the Father’s judicial decision of rejecting unsaved Israel for their unwillingness to accept the gospel so as to be declared justified.
It refers to God giving Israel over to the consequences of their rejection of Christ, namely eternal condemnation.
Therefore, the noun porosis refers to the Father’s judicial decision to reject unsaved Israel for their stubborn unwillingness to accept by faith the Spirit’s testimony concerning the person and works of Jesus Christ so as to be declared justified through faith in Christ resulting in a state of spiritual insensitivity.
Romans 11:25, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery -- so that you will not be wise in your own estimation -- that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”
“Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” indicates that this partial hardening taking place in Israel in Paul’s day will continue up to a specific point of time when those Gentiles who were elected in eternity past by God will exercise faith in Christ in time so as to be saved.
“Fullness” is the noun pleroma, which means “full number” and is used with reference to the number of Gentiles who will saved during the period between Christ’s first and second advents.
This is indicated by Paul’s statement in Romans 11:26 where he teaches that all Israel will be saved meaning all those Jews, who were known by God in His foreknowledge in eternity past as believing in His Son Jesus Christ, will have exercised faith in Christ in time.
So the expression “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” that appears in Romans 11:25 parallels “all Israel will be saved” that appears in Romans 11:26.
Therefore, from our study of Romans 11:25, we have noted that this verse confirms and advances upon Paul’s statements in Romans 11:11-24 and intensifies them.
It not only summarizes what he has taught in Romans 11:11-24 but also advances upon these statements and goes beyond that which he has said in these statements.
In this passage, Paul is attempting to protect his Gentile Christian readers from arrogance by revealing to them a mystery, namely that a partial hardening has taken place in Israel until the full number of Gentiles who will be saved has into existence.
The expression “the fullness of the Gentiles” or “the full number of Gentiles” is not the same as the expression used by our Lord in Luke 21:24, namely, “the times of the Gentiles.”
“The fullness of the Gentiles” in Romans 11:25 and the “times of the Gentiles” in Luke 21:24 both end with the Second Advent of Christ.
However, the former deals with the number of Gentiles who will be saved whereas as the latter is political dealing with the political control of Jerusalem.