“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
Romans 11:25, KJV
“Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”
Romans 11:25, ESV
Table of Contents
- Romans 11:25 Meaning – For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant
- Romans 11:25 Meaning – lest ye should be wise in your own conceits
- Romans 11:25 Meaning – this mystery
- Romans 11:25 Meaning – that blindness in part
- Romans 11:25 Meaning – until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in
Romans 11:25 Meaning – For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant
[Paul] is desirous to arrest more fully the attention of his readers, by professing that he would make them acquainted with a subject still hid in mystery.
Paul has sufficient reason for adopting this plan, for he is desirous, by a concise and plain sentence, to bring this very difficult subject to a conclusion, and would have expected to read the declaration he makes on this occasion.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
Romans 11:25 Meaning – lest ye should be wise in your own conceits
The clause, lest you should be wise in your own conceits, points out the apostle’s scope and intention to be the restraining of the insolence of the gentiles, lest they be elated in pride against the Jews.
This exhortation was very necessary, lest the revolt of the Jews from God should produce an immoderate effect upon the feelings of men of weak minds, as if a perpetual conclusion was put to the salvation of any of the children of men.
This is equally useful for us at the present period, that we may know the salvation of the remaining number, which the Lord will at last gather to himself, lies concealed, being sealed, as it were, with a ring.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
Romans 11:25 Meaning – this mystery
Should the long-continued delay ever induce us to despair, let us not forget the word mystery, by which Paul instructs us, that the manner of the conversion of the Jews will be neither common nor usual; and he thus points out the extreme rashness and folly of those who shall endeavour to measure it by their own sense and judgment.
For what is more ridiculous, than to consider that to be incredible, which is removed from our sense? since it is therefore called a mystery, because we cannot comprehend it before the time of its being revealed.
It has been disclosed to us, as it was to the Romans, that our faith, satisfied with the word of truth, may keep us waiting in hope, until the event itself shall bring it to light.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
But the apostle goes further: he represents the restoration of the Jews as not only possible and probable, but as certain.
“For” introduces the ground of the apostle’s assured hope. The word “mystery,” signifies something that has been kept secret. The “Gospel” — “the preaching of Jesus Christ,” was “the revelation of a mystery, kept secret since the world began.”
The restoration of the Jews is termed a mystery, because, concealed under the symbolical and figurative language in which prophecy is generally clothed, it was not commonly known and understood among Gentile Christians.
The “mystery” refers not only to the fact generally, but to its circumstances, that, after a defined period of spiritual blindness, the Jews, as a body, were to be restored to the Church of God.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
Romans 11:25 Meaning – that blindness in part
The apostle was desirous to diminish the harshness of his language by the words in part, which relate, in my opinion, neither to time nor multitude, but convey the idea, in some measure.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
Argument 14. I open a mystery unto you, and out of special Revelation declare, that this hardning of the Jews, was not universal, nor of all, but in part, or of some only, and that but for a certain time, viz. till the fulness of the Gentiles was brought in. Therefore ought you not to lift up your selves, or contemn the Jews.
Dickson, David – An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles (1659)
“Blindness has happened unto Israel.” Israel, here, can mean nothing but the Israelitish people — not the mystical Israel, consisting of all believers — not the converted part of literal Israel. The Jewish people have come under the influence of a spiritual blindness or obstinacy.
“In part” does not modify the word blindness, as if the expression were equivalent to a partial blindness: it modifies the term Israel; and “Israel in part,” in the 25th verse, contrasts with “all Israel” in the 26th.
A part of Israel — as we learn, a great part — is, according to the scheme of Divine providence, as unfolded in prophecy, to remain in a state of spiritual blindness and obduracy in reference to the Divine method of justification, during, or down to a period described as “the coming in of the Gentiles.”
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
Romans 11:25 Meaning – until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in
The particle, until, does not imply either the order or progress of time, but merely, so that the fulness of the gentiles.
The meaning, therefore, of the passage is the following: “God has in some measure so blinded Israel, that the gospel may be transferred to the gentiles, while the Jews reject its light, and the former seize, as it were, upon the vacant possession.”
This blindness of the Jews, therefore, is subservient to the providence of God for the purpose of accomplishing the ordained salvation of the gentiles.
The fulness of the gentiles means a large concourse, for they did not, as formerly, unite themselves to the Jews, as a few rare and scattered proselytes; but the change was such, that the heathens formed almost the entire body of the church.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
By the fulness of the Gentiles, he means, that great multitude of the Gentiles, such as was not before the conversion of the Jews; with the coming in of which multitude to the true religion, Israel shall be provoked to return unto the Lord Jesus Christ, or to true faith in the Messiah, from whom they had departed through unbelief; and so all Israel, i.e. the multitude of the Jews, the body of that dispersed people, shall be converted.
Dickson, David – An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles (1659)
There is some difficulty in satisfactorily ascertaining the meaning of that expression, as well as of the whole phrase, “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
The word rendered “fulness,” has various significations, and is used with various references. It seems to me to signify here, the totality of Gentile nations — every nation under heaven. Gentiles have been entering into the Church since the primitive age, in part; but there is a period coming when they shall enter “in fulness,” — when “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations worship before Him.” That is the period here referred to.
Some suppose the apostle to refer to a period during which the blindness of Israel in part shall continue, rendering the words, ‘While the fulness of the Gentiles shall enter;’ others, with our translators, to the period when that blindness is to terminate. The latter appears, on various accounts, the preferable view. The notion, that the Gentiles must be generally or universally converted to Christianity before the conversion of the Jews can be looked for, does not seem fairly deducible from the words. They seem to mean that the two great events shall go forward together. The words may be rendered, ‘Till the fulness of the Gentiles may have entered,’ — i.e., till the universal conversion of the Gentile nations shall have commenced.
For ages, Christianity was in a great degree stationary. But, almost within our own memory, a movement has begun, which looks like the entering in of the fulness of the Gentiles — the commencement of what is to end in the universal Christianization of mankind. Whenever such a commencement really takes place, the conversion of the Jews is at hand; and, from the ancient predictions, it seems equally plain that the Gentiles are to be active in the restoration of the Jews, and the converted Jews, in the bringing in completely of the fulness of the Gentile nations. In the prediction more immediately in the apostle’s view, the general conversion of the world is represented as begun before “the Redeemer came to Zion,” but the principal part of that glorious work is represented as following that event.
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
