Chapter # 11 Paragraph # 2 Study # 1
December 30, 2018
Humble, Texas

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1769 Translation:
11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but [rather] through their fall salvation [is come] unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
12 Now if the fall of them [be] the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?

1901 ASV Translation:
11 I say then, Did they stumble that they might fall? God forbid: but by their fall salvation [is come] unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy.
12 Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?

• I. Paul's Conclusion.
  • A. Therefore... .
    • 1. On the heels of the twin theses of "the Elect obtained" and "the rest were hardened", Paul declares his "therefore".
    • 2. The entire issue is the reality of two eternal realities: Grace (extended to The Elect) and Justice (visited upon The Hardened).
  • B. I am saying (lego).
    • 1. This is Paul's term for "settled doctrinal declaration".
    • 2. In this context, it serves as a conclusion to earlier statements that form the details of the content of the doctrine.
  • C. Did not they stumble in order to fall?
    • 1. This is another example of the use of "me" in an interrogative sentence when the expected answer is "No". [This is why the translators omit this negative particle ("Have they stumbled that they should fall?"), or some such equivalent.] It seems to me, however, that the declared "absolutely not" that follows is more potent if the particle is actually translated in some form such as "Does this not mean that they stumbled so as to fall? Absolutely not."
    • 2. This question is on the heels of Paul's quote from David about his desire for God's potent, Just, reaction to those who are "hardened" -- excluding "the elect".
    • 3. This is not the word for "stumble" found in 9:32 where the visual is of someone tripping over an unnoticed obstacle at his/her feet.
    • 4. The word used here is only used four times in the entire New Testament and carries more the idea of creating an offense (doing some evil) than of tripping over something. In other words, this word trades on the idea of "creating a stumblingblock" rather than of stumbling over one (Note James 2:10 and 3:2.) Therefore, a legitimate translation would be something like: "Did they not create such a great stumblingblock that they should fall [under divine condemnation]?".
    • 5. The question Paul is raising is not whether those who "stumble" as individuals end up "falling" (because he acknowledges that they do in the very next sentence in the verse). At issue is whether "Israel" as a group (of both "the children of Jacob by physical descent" as The Hardened and "the children of Jacob and of God by faith" as God's "Elect Remnant") has "fallen" out of God's favor so that His plans and promises to Abraham et. al. have been nullified. This is much the same question as that recorded in 11:1 where the "group" is in view.
      • a. The problem is the fault of the translators who chose to use the English "fall" to translate both pipto in the first half of 11:11 and then to also translate ptaio in the second half of the same verse.
      • b. The question is whether Israel, as "Israel" as a mixed group, "stumbled" so as to "fall out of divine favor once and for all" so that He is done with all of them. The answer to that is an emphatic "NO". But the acknowledgement that they "created a large offense" (mistranslated as "their fall") is recognized by Paul but without his contemporaries' outlook that such a great offense should have caused God to absolutely reject them. Paul's outlook is one of "grace" whereas his contemporaries' outlook is one of "law". The contemporaries think of God as a Just Judge Who can do no other than reject those who create such great offenses; Paul thinks of God as "the God of all Grace" Who, because of Christ's atonement, is free to not "reject" if He chooses and of "the God of all Integrity" Who does not reject because of promises He made.
  • D. Absolutely not.
    • 1. The denial is potent in the language of the Greeks.
    • 2. There is a potent antithesis to God's "Just" reaction: God's "Gracious" reaction.
      • a. Earlier, in explaining the fact that Moses had already made known to Israel that God has a plan for Israel's redemption through "jealousy" (Romans 10:19), Paul had inserted this "Grace-based" plan of God to keep His promises to Abraham, et. al. and is now returning to that thesis.
      • b. It is the "great offense" of Israel-as-a-group that created the setting for God's turn to the Gentiles with an offer of salvation. Because God was seriously antagonized by "Israel's" response to Jesus of Nazareth, He did determine significant judgment upon the nation (as clearly seen by Rome's destruction of both the city and the temple, which was, in turn, prophesied by Daniel in his vision of the seventy weeks), but His antagonism also resulted in a deliberate turn to non-Jews to offer them the "salvation" that had its original roots in promises to "Jews" (John 4:22 and Acts 28:28) so that "by their offense" that salvation was offered to them and that the "jealousy" of "Israel" might be stoked. And, according to the earlier text regarding God's use of "jealousy", there is an "Israel" of which "all" will be saved (11:26). This means that the "group" that is called "Israel" will be winnowed down by the harrowing disasters of Daniel's seventieth week (Daniel 12:1; compare Paul's application of this theology to his own experience in 2 Corinthians 1:9) until The Hardened have all been eliminated as chaff in the wind and "all" that are left are God's Elect Remnant (9:27; comp. Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17).

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This is article #097.
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