Series: Romans
Title: Goodness and Severity of God
Text: Rom 11: 22-24
Date: July 28, 2019
Place: SGBC,NJ
Romans 11: 22: Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God:
on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his
goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. 23: And they also, if they
abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them
in again. 24: For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by
nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much
more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their
own olive tree?
“Behold
Therefore”—we behold the goodness
of God upon the elect Jew and Gentile through their faith in Christ. We behold the severity of God in
blinding the majority in Israel and Gentiles due to their unbelief of
Christ.
Subject: The Goodness and Severity of God
Proposition: God’s goodness upon his elect
is always through faith in Christ and God’s severity upon the reprobate is
always due to their unbelief of Christ.
God cut off the physical seed of Abraham, the nation
of Israel, because of their willful unbelief.
And God sent the gospel to the Gentile world that he might save all his
elect, Jew and Gentile, through faith in Christ.
GOODNESS THROUGH FAITH
Romans 11: 22: Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God:
on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his
goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
The
goodness of God falls on God’s elect through faith in Christ. God’s goodness includes God’s gift of faith
to his elect—“if thou continue in his goodness”—means if thou continue
in that faith that God in his goodness gave you, believing on Christ. Our Lord Jesus gave this same admonition.
John 8:31: Then said Jesus
to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my
disciples indeed;
John 15:9: As the Father
hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
The
apostle Paul gives the same admonition in several places in scripture:
Romans 2: 7: To them who by
patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, [God
shall give] eternal life:
Colossians 1: 21: And you,
that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled 22: In the body of his flesh through death, to present you
holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: 23: If ye continue in the
faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel,
which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under
heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;
All
who have truly been regenerated and called by the Spirit of God are preserved
by the Spirit—“sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise”—so that we
cannot fall away.
Hebrews 10: 38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any
man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not of them who draw back unto
perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
If a professing believer continues in the faith, we
prove God truly called us. If a professing
believer does not continue in the faith, he only proves that he believed in
vain—his profession was false from the beginning—God had not truly called him.
1 John 2:19: They went out
from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no
doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made
manifest that they were not all of us.
Hebrews 3:14 For we are made partakers of Christ, [we are
proven to have been made partakers by God’s grace] if we hold the beginning of
our confidence stedfast unto the end;
So
the goodness of God falls on God’s elect through faith in Christ. Every true believer begins in faith by God’s in
his goodness giving us the gift of faith.
And by God’s goodness, every true believer continues in the faith—God preserves
us so that we persevere in faith in Christ.
SEVERITY
DUE TO UNBELIEF
Romans 11: 23
And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in:
for God is able to graff them in again.
God’s
severity upon the reprobate is always due to their willful unbelief. Throughout scripture an individual sinner own
determined, willful unbelief is always the cause for which God’s severity falls
upon him. God himself declares in Ezekiel
18 that he does not reprobate sinners due to our father Adam’s sin nor to our immediate
father’s sins. But God reprobates and
damns sinners due to their own willful unbelief.
Men
hear the doctrine of headship—how we all became guilty and corrupt in Adam—and
they say why am I judged because of my father’s sins that’s not fair? God says, “Oh, you won’t be. If you perish it will be due to your own
wilfull unbelief.
Ezekiel 18: 20: The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not
bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of
the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him…26: When a righteous man
turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in
them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die. 27: Again, when the wicked
man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth
that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. 28: Because he
considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath
committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. 29: Yet saith the house of
Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways
equal? are not your ways unequal? 30: Therefore I will judge you, O house of
Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves
from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
Christ
declared the same in John 3.
John 3: 17: For
God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world
through him might be saved. 18: He that believeth on him is not condemned: but
he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the
name of the only begotten Son of God. 19: And this is the condemnation, that
light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because
their deeds were evil. 20: For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21: But he that
doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God.
John 16:9 [When the
comforter is come he will reprove the world] Of sin, because they believe not
on me;
Paul
declared the same in 2 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
2: 10…because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved. 11 And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12: That they all
might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness.
Adam’s transgression made it so that we need God’s
grace to give us spiritual life and faith so that we can believe on
Christ. So God gets the glory. But the willful
rejection of Christ is our own fault and the cause of condemnation. Men
are not cast into hell for Adam’s sin. They
are not damned for adultery and drunkenness and so on. They are damned because they believe not on
Christ. Therefore, all of these scriptures
have to be done away with if God ever condemned someone who did not willfully
reject Christ, such as people with mental handicaps or unborn infants. The issue is that such cannot willfully
reject Christ which why God says he damns sinners.
So God’s judgment has fallen
upon the Jews as a people because of their determined unbelief, but not upon
all Jews. There
is “a remnant according to the election
of grace” who must and shall be saved. But the great majority of Abraham’s
physical seed is shut up in darkness because of unbelief. Divine judgment is always just.
It is always a matter of just retribution. That is what we read in verse 23.
Romans
11:23: And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in:
for God is able to graff them in again.
CHRIST
BORE THE SEVERITY
Romans 11: 23: And they also, if they
abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them
in again. 24: For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by
nature, [Adam] and
wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: [Christ] how
much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into
their own olive tree?
God is
able to graff his people into Christ because Christ bore the severity of God
for his people. Christ is the Vine into
which all his people must be graffed. Christ
is the good olive tree.
John 15: 1: I
am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2: Every branch in me that
beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3: Now ye are clean through
the word which I have spoken unto you. 4: Abide in me, and I in you. As the
branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can
ye, except ye abide in me. 5: I am the vine, ye are the branches: He
that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for
without me ye can do nothing. 6: If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as
a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the
fire, and they are burned.
By nature, all men—Jew and Gentile—come from
the wild olive tree, Adam—we all died in sin by Adam. But Paul speaks of God’s elect in Israel
being graffed into Christ as their own olive tree. It is because Christ was a Jew according to
the flesh, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the son of David. Christ bore the severity of God in the place
of all God’s elect—Jew and Gentile.
1 Peter 2: 24: Who
his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to
sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
Our substitute bore the shame of the sins of his elect. Then God justly poured out his severity on
Christ. He made him a curse for us in
strict justice. Now "God is able
to graff them in again”—because Christ justified us on the cross.
Therefore, God’s goodness must fall on God’s
elect—he shall draw each of his elect to Christ. He shall give us faith. He shall robe us in Christ’s righteousness
through faith. He shall preserve us and not one shall be lost
Isaiah 54: 7: For
a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.
8: In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting
kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer. 9: For this is
as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters
of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be
wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. 10: For the mountains shall depart, and the
hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the
covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.
I beseech you to believe on Christ
today. God told Ezekiel to tell the dry
bones to live. I say to the dry bones “Live!” At the same time I pray to God for the Holy
Spirit to quicken. Don’t delay. Life is a vapor. Don’t delay.
Isaiah 55: 6: Seek
ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7: Let
the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him
return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he
will abundantly pardon.
Amen!