ROMANS, CHAPTER ELEVEN I say then: Did God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
God did not cast away his people which he foreknew. Know you not what the Scripture says of Elijah? How he calls on God against Israel: Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have dug down thy altars; and I am left alone and they seek my life. (Rom. 11:1-3.)
The apostle establishes something less important in order to prove the validity of something more important; i.e., he argues from the lesser to the larger. For if God had cast away his people, then above all he would have cast away the apostle Paul who fought against him with all his strength. But in order to show that he does not reject his people, God accepted even him who was hopelessly lost, proving thereby how firm his predestination and election are.
It cannot be obstructed even by such hopeless desperation. Hence, he adds quite rightly: God has not cast away his people which he foreknew. In other words: he has proved this in my own case, for he did not cast me away; much less he cast away the others who did not depart from him as far as I did.
But what says the answer of God to him? I have left me seven thousand men who have not bowed their knees to Baal. (Rom.
They are called a "remnant" in the sense of being left over, for God left them for himself. This word implies a wonderful commendation of his grace and election. The apostle does not say
"they remained,'* although this would be quite true; but this "remaining" was not the decision of them that remained but of God who kept them back so that "it was not of him that runs, but of God that has mercy" (Rom. 9:16).
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Indeed, he indicates by the same word indirectly that he is the author of the reprobation of the others, just as it was he who then and there drove Israel into the Babylonian exile (II Kings, ch. 25).
Now by saying, "I have left me," he means to say this: When I myself cast them all away, I left for myself seven thousand men.
He does not say: When they were all cast away, seven thousand men were left over, or: When Nebuchadnezzar or the devil took them away, he left me seven thousand men, but: I myself kept them back, I who took them, i.e., the others, away. This is said in order definitely to establish what was stated before: "Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" (Rom. 9:21). And also this: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." (Rom.
Baal was an idol. I do not know by what rites he was worshiped.
I know only what the book of Kings tells about this (I Kings 18:26,28), namely, that he was worshiped by kissing the hands, by dancing around altars, and by cutting the skin with knives and lances. Yet the same passage shows plainly that all this was done from devoutness and under the pretext and with the zeal to render true worship to the God of Israel. It was for this reason that Ahab called Elijah one who troubled Israel (I Kings 18:17). He seemed to oppose the worship of God when he hindered the people from following Baal. But, also, in Hos. 2:16, the Lord says that they called him Baalim: "She shall call me: My husband, and she shall call me no more Baalim,"
So then, they were worshiping the true God, but under a superstitious rite and name; and this was forbidden to them. They were not to make themselves any graven image or picture. But, misled by a foolish zeal, they thought that a graven image was forbidden only if it was the picture of a strange God, but that if they attributed it to the true God and worshiped it in his name, they were doing right. Out of this same zeal they killed the prophets as if they were godless, because they said that any kind of picture was forbidden. And this was done from the intention of being devout and out of a zeal for God.
Now, Baal represented a dreadful righteousness and a superstitious religion. Both have prevailed widely until today. They are to be found among the Jews, the heretics, and the nonconformists,1 i.e., those conceited individualists who worship the true God according to their own mind. In their exceedingly foolish zeal and ROMANS, CHAPTER ELEVEN eccentric religiousness,2 they are worse than the ungodly: for the sake of God, they are enemies of God; because of the fear of God, they despise him; for the sake of religion, they become ungodly; for the sake of peace, they disturb the peace; because of love and saintliness, they become jealous and profane; and because of their humility, they are proud.
Now "Baal" means "man" or "lord." Hence, "Beelzebub" means "lord of the flies," and "Beelphegor" "lord of the corpse."3 "Man" here stands for hero, leader, head, prince, commander, a person of power. We are dealing here with the fancied piety of a willful mind and with fanatical religiousness;4 it worships what it has itself established as worshipful; it follows its own leading on God's way; it is its own teacher toward God, toward righteous salvation and every good. It refuses to perform true obedience, does not heed the word of true teaching, and despises God and all who speak, act, and rule in his name. It ridicules them as mistaken fools; indeed, it treats them as if they were crazy.
Thus they worship this idol of the heart as if it represented God himself and as if it were the very truth and righteousness. How?
They kiss the hands, i.e., they take complacent satisfaction in their own works and entertain a high opinion of their own righteousness.5 Then they dance with wild excitement and rejoicing around their own striving and accomplishments; and, finally they cut themselves with knives and lances, i.e., each of them accuses himself with words of humility and penitence, saying: O most miserable sinner that I am! I am not worthy to go to heaven! Have mercy on me, O God, etc. And so he busies himself with grand efforts in pursuit of righteousness and he makes them the more fervently, the more he hopes that they will be highly esteemed before God and men. For if he knew that they might be ignored, he would not trouble himself about them in any way whatsoever. So great are his pride and his vain imagination! It does not occur to him that his religious efforts might be as unclean "as a polluted garment" (Isa. 64:6), for then he would be compelled to identify himself with the sinners. But just this he tries to avoid by all means.
Even so, then, at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace. (Rom. 11:5.) 3 Cf. Reuchlin, Lex. heb. Erasmus (Annot., ad loc.) translates "Beelphogor" and "Beelzebub" "cadaveris" and "muscarum idolum"
4 "Hie est enim obstinatae mentis opiniosa pietas et induratae cervicis re~ ligiosa sapientia."
6 "Magniputatione iustittae suae."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS The Greek text reads: "Even so, then, at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace." This means:
Just as there could be found then a remnant, while others perished, so also there can be found today a remnant according to the election of grace. Thus the word "there is" must be related to the phrase "at the present time." In other words: just as there was then a remnant, so there is one now. At both times, God left for himself some according to the election of grace. For he explains the phrase "I have left for myself" by reference to the expression
"according to the election of grace." As I have said above, this "I have left" implies, indeed explains, the election and it commends grace.
But if by grace, it is not now by works, otherwise grace is no more grace. What then? That which Israel sought, he has not obtained, but the election has obtained it and the rest have been blinded. (Rom. 11:6-7.)
"Election" must here be taken in the passive sense and as a collective term, i.e., meaning "the elect" in a way that corresponds to that which Abraham is told in Gen. 12:2: "I will bless you and you shall be a benediction." And Isa. 19:24-25: "In that day Israel shall be a benediction in the midst of the land, which the Lord of hosts has blessed." And Isa. 65:8: "As if a grain be found in a cluster and it be said: Destroy it not, because it is a benediction."
According as it is written: God gave them a spirit of compunction, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, unto this very day. (Rom. 11:8.)
"Compunction" is of two kinds.6 One is salutary. About it, it says in Ps. 4:4: "On your beds you will be sorry."7 It causes man to be displeased with himself and to be pleased with everything else, in accordance with the word of Titus 1:15: "All things are clean to the clean." The other kind is detestable. It causes man to be pleased with himself and to be displeased with everything else, in accordance with the same word: "But to the unclean, nothing is clean; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled."
The cause of both is the light of the Spirit. If it is not there, it causes the second kind of compunction; if it is there, the first kind. For man knows himself only if God is his light. Apart from him, he cannot know himself at all; apart from him, he, therefore, is also not displeased with himself,
7 Translated from the Vulgate, the verse reads: "The things you say in your hearts, be sorry for them [compungimini] upon your beds."
ROMANS, CHAPTER ELEVEN "Spirit" must here not be taken to mean some created or infused spirit, but the soul or will of man, as it says in I Cor. 2:11: "No one knows the things of a man but the spirit of a man that is in him." And at another place (Matt. 27:50): "and yielded up his spirit," i.e., his soul, and "the spirit must return to God who gave it" (Eccl. 12:7). Psalm 104:29: "Thou shalt take away thy spirit and they shall fail." Genesis 6:17:8 "Wherein is the spirit of life."
The apostle is quoting Isaiah but makes additions of his own at the beginning and at the end. Moreover, as I have said in the Gloss,9 he quotes the sentence in between according to its meaning but not literally: "God gave them a spirit of compunction, eyes that they should not see} ears that they should not hear, unto this very day."
And David says: "Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling block, and a recompense to them. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see and bow down their back always/' (Rom. 11:9-10.)
This "snare" is the divine Scripture itself, in so far as it is understood and handed down in a deceitful manner, so that under the semblance of pious instruction the souls of the deceived and the simple are ensnared. Psalm 91:3 speaks of this: "He delivered me from the snare of the hunters," i.e., from the treacherous teaching of the learned who are on the hunt for unstable and fickle souls. In this sense, Blessed Augustine in the Confessions10 calls the Manichee Faustus the snare of the devil. "Trap" can, in this place, be taken to mean "deception,"11 or, better yet, "hunt."12
For on a hunt, one makes catches with a trap. Although, in the Greek text, the apostle does not add the words "unto them," in the psalm this addition is made most appropriately in order that one should understand that from the same table, from the same
Holy Scripture,13 one takes death, and another life; one honey, * Luther writes "Gen. 1."
9 Luther's marginal gloss reads as follows (WA 56, 108, 20 ff.): "Isa. 6:9: 'Go, and thou shalt say to this people: Hearing hear and understand not, and see the vision and know it not/ The apostle, however, quotes only the meaning of these words. For 'hearing hear* means 'to hear those that have ears' and 'not to understand' means 'not to hear/ And 'to see a vision' means 'to have eyes'; 'not to know' means 'not to see/ Thus he expresses the way by which they became blind, namely, by seeing and hearing what they hated and by not seeing what they liked/'
10 Cf. Augustine, Conf., V, 3.
11 "Dccipula" = "dcceptio" Cf. Erasmus, Annot.
13 This is the common medieval exegesis.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS another poison, just as from one and the same rose or flower the spider gathers poison, and the bee, honey.
The "stumbling block" consists in this, that the trapped continually take offense. For they are trapped in that which they understand wrongly. They cling to this wrong understanding because they find pleasure in it, and thus they let themselves be trapped without realizing it.
Now, what they take offense at is the truth that is held up before them. But they turn away from it, and if they cannot escape from it, they distort it and deny that it must be understood as they are told. The *'snare/' therefore, means that they do not know the truth; the "trap," that they want to accept as true only what they regard as true; the "stumbling block" that they turn away from what is held up before them as true and from everything that goes counter to their own conceit. As it says in another psalm (35:8):
"Let the snare, which he knows not, come upon him, and let the trap, which he has hidden, catch him."
Thus, every proud heretic is caught first in his ignorance of the truth; as soon as he despises it, he is already ensnared. Then he accepts what appears to him to be true; and again he is trapped, because he thinks that everything is in order, as if he had the truth and were in no danger of being ensnared and entrapped.
Finally, he takes offense at everything that goes against him and he refuses to listen to anyone. And, at last, growing indignant, he fanatically defends the figments of his mind, all the while heaping persecution, detraction, and harm upon his opponents. And then he gets the "recompense" he deserves.
Then finally their eyes are darkened, so that, whereas everybody else is able to see, they do not even move to open their eyes, and while all others stand erect, they remain bent down upon their own understanding.14
/ say then: Have they so stumbled that they should fall? God forbid. But by their offense salvation is come to the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy. Now if their offense is the riches of the world and their diminution the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! (Rom. 11:11-12.)
This means: salvation has come to the Gentiles by the fall of the Jews in order that their fall might not be entirely fruitless and 14 Luther's marginal gloss on Rom. 11:10 (Ps. 69:23) reads as follows (WA 56,
110, 23 ff.): "This is to be understood metaphorically: When one bends his back, he cannot look up. Therefore he does not see the righteousness that shines from heaven but only his own earthly one. On it he depends and relies/1
ROMANS, CHAPTER ELEVEN 31 1 this evil not without good: inasmuch as all things work together for good to the saints (Rom. 8:28), how much more must evil serve Christ and God for good! Indeed, evil serves the good in an abundantly rich measure when God is at work, for then it brings forth not only the good of others but also of him whose evil it is.
In this sense, their fall is the salvation of the Gentiles; yet this was not its final purpose, but the fact that they fell was to induce them to emulate the good of those who rose up.
For the most drastic remedy of a good and loving father is this: if he has given his son admonitions, commandments, prohibitions, and even punishment, but without results, he proceeds to give his inheritance to someone else before the eyes of his son, so that he, the son, being greatly grieved at this sight, eagerly rushes upon it in order to obtain it. In this same way, God wanted the fall of the Jews to be to their own advantage. He let the Gentiles reap the advantage of it, in order to provoke the Jews to jealousy by the realization that, by their fall, they had lost the grace with which the Gentiles were now provided before their eyes.
Exactly the same happens (and this is the moral interpretation) when God lets a man fall into grave sin in order that fallen he may recognize his loathsomeness, whereas, before his fall, he regarded himself as excelling others in purity.
For I say to you, Gentiles: as long, indeed, as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will glorify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy them who are my flesh and may save some of them. For if the casting away of them is the reconciliation of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead.
How does he glorify his ministry? By glorying in the fact that, after the fall of the Jews, he is proclaiming the riches of Christ to the Gentiles. For he seems to reprove the Jews because they refused the gift and because they were made poor, small, and sinful, while the Gentiles were made rich and this by his ministry. If, then, such a great good came to the Gentiles by his ministry, whereas it was taken away from the Jews, then he certainly proves thereby the glory of his ministry in an impressive way. But he does not glorify it for the sake of personal satisfaction but for the sake of the salvation of others: on hearing that, by their fall, the Gentiles had been made rich, the Jews should be stimulated to seek the riches of his ministry. But they would not let themselves be so stimulated if he said that he had given the Gentiles something worthless or that the Jews had not lost anything.
Here one can see that glorying is allowed if it is done for the LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS benefit of others, i.e., from brotherly love, out of a concern for the salvation of others and not for the sake of one's own vain satistaction.
But, secondly, he says this chiefly in order to explain why he, himself one of the Jews, says only bad and damaging things about them and why, inasmuch as he is not a Gentile, he speaks only of their excellence and riches, indeed, why he exalts these and magnifies their gifts, and why he disparages the Jews, deploring, so to speak, the evil that befell them. His answer is that he does this because his office requires it of him, since as the apostle to the Gentiles he cannot say that he proclaimed something insignificant and worthless to them, lest none of them receive him and his ministry bear too little fruit among them. For who appreciates a gift which the giver himself does not think is worth giving? But, apart from this, the Jews shall also be provoked to jealousy by this, so that he may obtain a twin result from his ministry: the Gentiles multiply on account of the excellence of the good offered to them by his ministry, and the Jews, seeing how the Gentiles increase and how eagerly they receive these goods, are stimulated thereby to pursue the same goods.
Hence, he says: 'Tor I say to you, Gentiles/' i.e., to your glory that you have received riches. But he would not dare speak to the Jews in this way lest they be even worse offended.
For if the first fruit is holy, so is the lump also, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches be broken off and you, being a wild olive, are ingrafted in them, and not made partaker of the root and of the fullness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches, but if you boast, it is not you that bear the root but the root you. You will say then: the branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. (Rom. 11:16—19.)
The word "delibatio," which the Vulgate here uses, means in Greek "aparche," i.e., first fruit or that which is offered from the first and best fruits. And this reflects much more fittingly what the apostle has in mind than "delibatio." In other words: if the apostles are holy who have been taken from Israel as the first fruit, so to speak, and as the best part, then also the whole people to which they belong is holy. Hence, one must not despise them on account of their unbelief.
Well, by their unbelief they were broken off, but you stand by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear, for if God has not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps he also spare you not. (Rom.
ROMANS, CHAPTER ELEVEN This translator15 displays a strange inconstancy in rendering this word "sapere" (to be of a mind to), of which the Greek equivalent is phronein. For, above, in ch. 8:5 ft., of the letter he gave the translations: "they are of a mind" as well as "they feel." In the same connection, he uses "wisdom of the flesh" as well as "prudence of the flesh" and "prudence of the spirit." In this chapter, he again uses "sapere" in the sense of "to be wise" (Rom. 11:25) and likewise in the following chapter: "I say, by the grace that is given me, to everyone that is among you, not to be more wise
(sapere) than it behooves to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety"
Now this word means something else than what is commonly called "wisdom" (sapientia, in Greek, sophia) and "prudence"
(prudentia), which in Greek is called euboulia or prometheia.
Its correct significance is "to be mindful of something with a certain self-complacency";16 hence, it means in Greek sometimes "to be minded," sometimes "to glory in," and sometimes "to exalt."
It has reference to an inward disposition rather than to the intellect.17 It is commonly applied to persons "who think themselves to be something they are not" (Gal. 2:6; 6:3). Hence, phronesis means a complacency of this sort; phronema, the sense and actualization of this phronesis; and phronimos means one who feels complacent. Hence, if one wants to translate "sapere" in a uniform way, it would be better to use the translation of "to feel" (sentire) and this would have to be understood as describing an attitude of mind.18 We have the common expression "to do as one likes"19 or in German: gutduncken. This is commonly said of the proud.
But sometimes it is taken in a good sense, as when we say: "This is how I feel, this is what I have a mind to do."20 But this does not fully express the forcefulness of the Greek word, as is shown in the passage before us: "Do not be wise in your own conceit," i.e., do not be self-complacent in your thinking, do not feel yourselves superior.
Behold, then, the goodness and severity of God: to them that fall, severity, but toward you, God's goodness, if you continue in his goodness, otherwise you also shall be cut off. (Rom. 11:22.)
The lesson of this passage is this: when we see the fall of the 15 I.e., the Vulgate.
Cum quadam sui complacentia sapi 17 Cf. Erasmus, Annot. ad Rom, 11:25.
18 "De sensu mentis intelligendo."
20 "Ego sentioj sic sapio."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Jews or the heretics or others, we should not concentrate our attention on the person that fell but on the work that God performs in them, so that we may learn to fear God by the example of the misfortune of someone else and not entertain any presumptuous pride with respect to ourselves. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the apostle teaches us here that we give consideration to the one who performs this work rather than that we make a comparison between others and ourselves.
In opposition to this, many display an amazing stupidity when they are so presumptuous as to call the Jews "dogs" or accursed or whatever they choose to name them, though they themselves do not know who or of what sort they themselves are before God.
They should feel compassion for them fearing that they themselves may have to take similar punishment, but instead they rashly heap blasphemous insults upon them. Indeed, as if they could be certain about their own destiny as well as that of these others they are so bold as to call themselves blessed and them accursed. Today the theologians of Cologne are this kind of people: They are so utterly stupid in their zeal that, in their articles or, rather, in their inarticulate21 and inept literary products, they unblushingly call the Jews accursed.22 Why? Because they have forgotten what is said in the following chapter: "Bless and curse not" (Rom. 12:14) and at another place: "Being reviled, we bless; being defamed, we entreat" (I Cor. 4:12-13). They want to convert the Jews with force and invective. May God be against them!
And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, shall be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of that which by nature is a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their oiun olive tree! For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, and so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written:
"There shall come out of Zion the deliverer; he shall turn ungodliness from Jacob; and this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." (Rom. 11:23-27.)
22 The reference is to such writings as Arnold von Tungern, Articuli she propositiones de iudaico favore nimis suspecto ex libello theutonico domini
Ioannis Reuchlin, 1512. The occasion that called forth books of this sort was the controversy between Reuchlin and the Theological Faculty of Cologne about the anti-Semitic writings of Pfefferkorn. (Cf. Ficker, p. 436, n. 18.)
ROMANS, CHAPTER ELEVEN This text is the basis of the common opinion that, at the end of the world, the Jews will return to the faith. However, it is so obscure that, unless one is willing to accept the judgment of the fathers who expound the apostle in this way,23 no one can, so it would seem, obtain a clear conviction from this text. Yet also our
Lord agrees with the saying of the apostle, for he says in Luke 21:23-24: "There shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled." This is exactly what he says here: until the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in. And Moses says in Deut. 4:30, after he has prophesied that they must be led through all nations: "In the latter days, you shall return to the Lord your God and harken unto his voice, for the Lord your God is a merciful God." Likewise,
Hos. 3:4 f.: "The Children of Israel shall sit many days without kings, and without princes, and without altar, and without ephod, and without teraphim. And after this, the Children of Israel shall return to the Lord their God and David their king; and they shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the last days." The same prophet says in Hos. 5:12: "I will be like a moth to Ephraim and like rottenness to the house of Judah." And farther on: "I will go and return to my place until you are consumed and seek my face." (Hos.
5:14.) And again, the Lord says in Matt. 23:38-39: "Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate. Verily, I say to you, you shall not see me henceforth till you say: Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord."
Accordingly then, the apostle means to say this: I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, i.e., Be not proud! It is a holy secret why the Jews fell, a secret that no man knows, namely, this: The Jews who are now fallen will return and be saved, after the Gentiles are come in, according to the fullness of the election. They will not stay outside forever, but they will return in their own time.
This is very clearly represented by Joseph, the figure of Christ: he was sold by his brethren to Egypt (Gen. 37:28), and there he was elevated to be a ruler, but, in the end, he was unexpectedly recognized by his father and his brothers, as the book of Genesis so beautifully tells in its last part (Gen. 45:3; 46:29).24 In the same way, it will happen that the Jews who expelled Christ to the Gentiles, where he now reigns, will come to him in the end.
23 Chrysostom, Horn, in ep. ad Rom., 19, 7. Ambrosiaster, ad loc.
24 Cf. Gen. 45:3; 46:29. The parallel between Joseph and Christ is to be found in the Gl. ord.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Hunger for the word will force them to do so, and in the midst of the Gentiles they will receive him.
This is what the apostle indicates when he quotes Isaiah in connection with his statement: And so all Israel shall be saved.
In our translation25 the passage of Isa. 59:20 reads as follows:
"There shall come a redeemer to Zion and to them that turn back from iniquity in Jacob." But only those who are in iniquity, as the Jews now are, will turn back from it. Now "ungodliness" or "iniquity" (in Greek: "asebeia") do not signify any kind of sin, but the sin against the service of God, i.e., against faith, through selfrighteousness.26 In Hebrew it is called "rdsha'." Ecclesiastes 8:8:
"Ungodliness shall not save the ungodly," i.e., self-righteousness will not save a man (as he might think), for it is not righteousness but ungodliness.
The additional part of the sentence: when I shall take away their sins is not a part of the passage of Isaiah; it is either an addition of the apostle or a quotation from other prophets.27 But he indicates thereby the difference between the two testaments.
Where we increased sin, there was the earlier testament. But where God has taken sin away, there is the new testament. Hence, he intends to say: This is the testament of the remission of sins, in which "he will turn ungodliness away from Jacob," just as the other one is the testament of the commission of sins in which one is turned to ungodliness.
Christ, therefore, has not yet come to the Jews, but he will come to them, namely, in the Last Day, in accordance with the Scripture passages we have quoted. It is in this sense that one must interpret the apostle: he speaks about Christ's mystical adVent to the Jews. Otherwise, this word of Isaiah was clearly fulfilled by the physical advent of Christ. This is why I said earlier that the apostle speaks obscurely and that we should not be able to elicit this meaning from the text unless we accept the interpretation of the fathers. So then, now "blindness in part has befallen
Israel," but then Israel will be saved not in part but in its entirety.
Now only part of them are saved, but then all will be saved.
The word "mystery" in this passage must be understood without qualification as something that is unknown. It must not be understood according to common usage in terms of its figurative and literal meaning, as we speak, for example, of a "mystical meaning"
25 I.e., the Vulgate.
26 Both Faber and Erasmus use the term impietas.
2 7 The words were perhaps suggested by Isa. 27:9.
ROMANS, CHAPTER ELEVEN and then distinguish between a meaning of the surface and another of depth. But what has been concealed from all is a mystery in the abolute sense, namely, that the fullness of the Gentiles would enter in by the fall of a certain number of Jews. The apostle says the same elsewhere, as, for example, farther on in ch. 16:25 of this letter: "according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret from eternity." And also in Col. K26.28
Throughout the whole passage, it is his purpose to persuade this people to turn back. To understand the apostle rightly, we must know that what he says extends over the lump of the Jewish people and has reference to the good ones among them of the past as well as of the present and the future. Even if some among them are rejected, the whole lump must be honored because of the elect, just as any community must be honored because of the good ones among its members, even though the wicked outnumber them.
Hence, there applies here one certain rule about the understanding of Scripture, namely, that it speaks at one and the same time of the good and the wicked that exist in the same mystical body. In this sense, the Jewish people is a "holy lump" because of the elect but "cut off branches" because of the rejected. Thus the Jews are "fullness" and "diminution," and, likewise, they are "enemies for the sake of the Gentiles" and "yet greatly beloved for the sake of their fathers." Again and again, the Scripture says diverse things about them on account of the diversity that prevails among them. This sounds as if the apostle wanted to regard them one and all personally as enemies and beloved friends, inasmuch as, though he distinguishes between individual persons, he emphasizes that they belong to the same lump. The reason why he calls them
"lump" is that he wants to indicate that he does not speak of particular persons but of the whole race in which there may be many who are not holy.
As touching the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sake.
The word enemies must here be taken in a passive sense, i.e., they deserve to be hated; God hates them, and, therefore, also the apostles and all who belong to God hate them. This is clearly indicated by the opposite: but beloved; in other words: they are hated and yet loved, i.e., the whole lump of them is loved and hated "according to the gospel for your sakes," i.e., because you
28 "The mystery which has been hidden from ages and generations, but now is manifested to his saints."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS are beloved according to the gospel, they are hated according to the gospel; and yet they are beloved for the sake of the fathers as touching election, i.e., because the election adopts some of them to this day. Hence, they are beloved for the fathers' sake, because they, too, are friends.
For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.
For as you in times past were disobedient to God but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, even so have these also now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they also may now obtain mercy. For God has shut up all unto disobedience that he might have mercy on all. (Rom. 11:29-32.)
This is an excellent statement. For God's counsel cannot be changed by anyone's merit or lack of merit. God does not repent of his gift and of the calling he has promised, because the Jews are now unworthy of them and you worthy. He does not change when you are changed. Hence, the Jews will turn back and they will at last be led to the truth of faith. (This is why the Greek text reads: "God's gifts are . . . ametameleta, i.e., "impoenitibilia,"29 irreversible. The reference, then, is not to our repentance but to God as he lets it repent him concerning what he changes and destroys.
O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!30 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Of the wisdom and of the knowledge! According to Blessed Augustine,31 this is the correct distinction. The contemplation of eternal things pertains to wisdom, but the acquaintance with tem29 Cf. Erasmus, Annot., ad loc.
30 Luther's marginal gloss reads as follows (WA 56, 115, 19 ff.): "This word of the apostle is to make us aware of the fact that, in the conclusions stated above, there is something hidden that is too deep for us to understand. For he had said: 'Until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in' [v.25], 'That they also may obtain mercy' [v.31], 'That he might have mercy upon all'
[v. 32]. All of this suggests that God wanted evil to happen in order to make something good from it. But why he does this in this special way or why he lets it happen in them and why he does not at the same time do good and evil to the same people, this is 'incomprehensible.' The following propositions are strange indeed: 'They fell in order that they might be saved'; 'they do not believe in order that they may believe.'"
8 1 Augustine, De trin., XII, 15, 25.
ROMANS, CHAPTER ELEVEN poral things to knowledge. Created wisdom thus deals with what we cannot see or understand except by faith alone or by being translated into heaven.32 And knowledge deals with what is outside
God and created. Hence, the wisdom of God is that wisdom by which he contemplates in himself all things before and above and within their happening,33 and his knowledge is the knowledge by which he knows them as they happen; hence, it is called the "knowledge of sight/'34
32 Luther says, "raptu anagogico."
33 "Antequam fiant et supra quam fiant et intra quam fiant."
34 On scientia visionis, cf. Gabriel Biel, I Sent., d. 39, a. 1, corolL 3.