“For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.”
Romans 11:16, KJV
“If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.”
Romans 11:16, ESV
Table of Contents
- Romans 11:16 Meaning – For if the firstfruit be holy
- Romans 11:16 Meaning – the lump is also holy
- Romans 11:16 Meaning – and if the root be holy, so are the branches
Romans 11:16 Meaning – For if the firstfruit be holy
By comparing the dignity of the Jews and gentiles, he deprives the latter of all cause for pride, and allays the indignation of the former to the utmost of his power: for he shows that the gentiles are so far from excelling the Jews in any respect, if they merely allege nothing, save their own prerogative, for securing honour, that they would he left very far behind, should they enter fairly into the contest.
We ought never to forget, that in this comparison nation is contrasted with nation, not man with man.
They will be found equal in this mutual comparison, because they are both the sons of Adam: the only dissimilitude between the two arises from the Jews being separated from the gentiles, that they might become a peculiar people to the Lord.
They were sanctified, therefore, by a holy covenant, and honoured by a peculiar nobility, which God did not at that time deign to bestow upon the gentiles; and, because the powerful character of the covenant appeared to be much diminished at that period, he orders us to direct our attention to Abraham and the patriarchs, with whom the blessing of God was neither vain nor inefficacious.
He infers, therefore, that an hereditary holiness had passed over from the patriarchs to all their posterity; nor would this conclusion have been valid, had the apostle treated only of persons, without paying regard, in an especial manner, to the promise: for a father, because he is just, does not immediately transfer his integrity to his son; but the Lord sanctified the father of the faithful to himself on this very condition, that his seed should likewise be holy; and the God of love therefore bestowed holiness, not only upon the person of Abraham, but the whole of his kindred and offspring; and on this account the argument of the apostle is conclusive, that all the Jews are sanctified in their father.
He also confirms this by adducing two comparisons; the former he takes from the ceremonies of the law, and nature supplies him with the other: for the first fruits that were offered sanctified the whole lump, and in the same manner the goodness of the juice is diffused from the root to the branches, and the same relationship exists between the posterity and their original parents, as between the first fruits of the whole mass which is sanctified, and between the branches and the root.
It is not surprising, therefore, if the Jews are sanctified in their father.
All difficulty is removed by understanding holiness to mean nothing else but the spiritual nobility of the race of Abraham, which was not indeed peculiar to their nature, but flowed to them from the covenant.
The hereditary adoption of the Jews, I confess, justly entitles them to be regarded as naturally holy; but I am now speaking of our first nature from Adam, and according to this acceptation of the term, we are all cursed in our original parent.
The dignity, therefore, of an elect people, in the proper acceptation of the term, is a supernatural privilege.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
Argument 6. The nation of the Jews, by virtue of the covenant with their Fathers, is consecrated unto God, and is honored with the dignity of federal holiness, descending from their fathers that were in covenant.
As the lump and harvest is sanctified in the first fruits, and the branches in the consecrating of the root: Therefore the Jews are not to be contemned as wholly cast away.
Dickson, David – An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles (1659)
The words that follow do not give the reason for the fact, that the conversion of the Jews shall be a great blessing to the Gentile churches; but they give a reason for a statement which that fact supposes, namely, that there is to be a general conversion of the Jews; and it is with the evidence of this that the apostle is chiefly engaged to the end of the chapter. It is as if the apostle had said, ‘And we have reason to expect that, as they have been cast away, they shall be again received.’
In order to apprehend the force of the apostle’s argument, it is necessary, in the first place, that we understand the meaning of the figurative language in which it is expressed. The appellation, “first-fruits,” is used in the Old Testament in four difterent ways. First, and principally, of a sheaf of barley, cut, before the harvest commenced, on the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, and solemnly devoted by the priest to Jehovah, in the name of the congregation of Israel.
Secondly, of two loaves of fine flour offered at the end of harvest on the day of Pentecost, also in the name of the congregation.
Thirdly of a portion of the first produce of the harvest, the exact measure of which is not fixed, which private individuals presented in the tabernacle or the temple.
And Fourthly, of the first part of their dough, which individuals were required to give to the Levites, or, if none of these lived near them, to burn in the fire as a devoted thing.
The “firstfruits,” in all these forms, were “holy” — devoted to God — separated to a sacred use. To which of these forms the apostle refers, will appear in the course of our explication. Leviticus 23:10-21; 2:14-16; Exodus 22:29, 23:19; Numbers 15:19,20; Deuternomy 26:1-15.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
Romans 11:16 Meaning – the lump is also holy
The word “lump” has very generally been understood of the rest of the grain or meal, after the first-fruits have been separated. This mode of interpretation is untenable; for
(1.) the original word rendered “lump” conveys no such idea. It signifies merely a kneaded mass of any material, such as clay or dough. It has not the meaning of our word mass, in the sense of the greater part of a thing.
(2.) Supposing that that were its meaning, there would be no truth in the apostle’s illustration. The rest of the grain or dough was not holy in the sense in which the first-fruits were holy; on the contrary, the consecrating the first-fruits made it lawful to use the rest for common purposes. No such idea is anywhere to be met with in the law of Moses, as that the offering of the first-fruits sanctified the whole produce.
(3.) This view of the meaning of the phrase leads to an interpretation of the apostle’s reasoning which renders it destitute of all force. The first-fruits are supposed to signify the converts from among the Jews in the primitive age; and the lump, the great body of the nation, now in a state of unbelief, but ultimately to be converted to the faith of Christ. But could anything in the shape of argument be conceived more completely destitute of force than this? ‘Because those converted from among the Jews are holy, they who have not been converted are holy also.’
The truth is, the two clauses of the verse are merely two different figurative expressions of the same truth.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
Romans 11:16 Meaning – and if the root be holy, so are the branches
The sanctity of the branches, arising from the sanctity of the root, and the sanctity of the lump, arising from the sanctity of the first-fruits, are figures of the sanctity which, according to the apostle, belongs to the Israelites as a body, in consequence of the sanctity which belonged to the patriarchs from whom they were descended.
The “lump,” then, is something that stands in the same relation to the first-fruits that the branches do to the root — something that proceeds from it.
The “first-fruits,” by way of eminence, refers to the sheaf of barley cut on the second day of unleavened bread. This sheaf was to be stript of its grain; the grain was to be reduced to flour by being beaten in a mortar; the flour thus produced was to be made into a lump, by means of oil, mixed with frankincense, and presented by the priest to Jehovah. This is the lump the apostle refers to.
And the appropriateness of the figure, and the force of the argument, thus become apparent: If the first-fruits be holy, the lump made of them must be holy also.
The force of the second illustration is evident: If the root be holy, so are the branches. A holy root makes a holy tree: the branches take their character from the root.
The sentiment which the apostle means to establish by this figurative proof is this: Abraham, who stands to the Israelitish nation in a relation similar to that of first-fruits to the lump made of them, and of the root to the branches springing out of it, was permanently set apart as the head of a family separated from the rest of mankind to serve certain important purposes; and if so, his descendants are to be viewed as a sacred people, to whom, sooner or later, all the promises made to Abraham and his seed are to be performed — by whom, sooner or later, all the purposes contemplated by their separation are to be gained.
If you allow the first part of the proposition, you cannot deny the last; and that cannot be done without giving the lie to a large portion of Old Testament history and prophecy. The sentiment conveyed is the same, though not so clearly expressed, as that contained in the 28th and 29th verses, where the Israelites are said, even in their state of unbelief and rejection, to be “beloved for the fathers’ sakes, for the gifts and the callings of God,” i.e., in reference to them, “are without repentance.”
It scarcely requires to be noticed, that the “holiness” here mentioned, is not moral excellence. The moral holiness of men does not necessarily follow from that, either of their immediate or more remote progenitors.
The holiness here spoken is merely their separation by God to serve particular purposes — as the Babylonian armies were God’s “holy ones.”
The argument is this, ‘If Abraham, not as an individual merely, but as the head of a family destined to become a nation, was separated to serve a purpose, his descendants share in this separation. If this be the true view of the Israelitish people, then must it be utterly wrong to consider them as a people whom, though God once acknowledged, He has now completely cast off. Whatever faults they may commit, whatever judgments they may incur, the nation still retains its sacred character, and will do so, till all that prophecy speaks of them shall be fulfilled.’
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
