I gotta have my orange juice.

I listened to Wilson’s American Milk and Honey recently. Parts of it are great, but parts of it not so great. Following are some thoughts on Romans 11, in no particular order.

Wilson’s strongest point, I think, is to wonder how the fullness of the Gentiles could possibly be said to have arrived in the first century. I don’t think his concern holds up on reflection; it seems that the semantic scope of “come in” readily includes “entered” or “come into life,” or inaugurated. This inauguration is completed and sealed in AD 70, when the old man and the new man are fully united in the church. Gentiles are now a part of the priestly people, fully initiated as heirs to every single promise as those promises are magnified and transfigured in Jesus.

James Jordan makes an interesting point about the promises attached to the covenant name of Yahweh:

For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Exodus 20)

Jordan’s point is that the visitation of iniquity is simultaneously both a threat and an act of mercy. Ever since the garden, and in spite of outward appearances from time to time, God has not allowed wickedness to outgrow and outpace his kingdom, but rather brings it to an end. The fourth generation is a limit on his vengeance and a means of bringing wickedness to a complete end. If it were the case that Romans 11 was still waiting for a future fulfillment, then we would have to deny that God’s mercy outran his judgment in this way. We would have to say that God was, strangely, preserving wickedness just as scrupulously and carefully as he preserves righteousness.

Imagine the prophet Nathan writing the following in David’s day. Israel converted from king Saul to king David in seven years. I believe that it is no strange thing to say that they converted to king Jesus in forty:

I say then, have Benjamin and Israel stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to Judah. Now if their fall is riches for the land, and their failure riches for Judah, how much more their fullness!

For I speak to you Judah; inasmuch as I am an apostle to Judah, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the land, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.

You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Benjamin and Israel until the fullness of Judah has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
​​For this is My covenant with them,
​​When I take away their sins.”

Concerning David they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.

The latter Saul of the tribe of Benjamin understood this principle so well because he had lived all his life in the good of this great conversion to king David.