Romans 11:26-35

Romans 11:26-35 (WEB) and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.” Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?”

🔑 Key Points

1. The Deliverer from Zion

Paul’s quotation is a compilation of Old Testament texts, and it gets to the heart of his teaching: the Deliverer does not come from the gentile lands — He comes out of Zion. Sproul does not dodge the hard question about Luther’s later writings against the Jews: ‘It’s hard to defend Luther for those things.’ But he points to Luther’s earlier words — no Christian ever has the spiritual right to despise the Jews, because Jesus was a Jew and salvation is of the Jews. We are the wild branch; we have no intrinsic claim.

2. God’s Ordination of the Future

How does God know the future? Not by peering down the corridors of time like a psychic — that is not how it works, Sproul says. God knows what will happen because He has *ordained* it. His foreknowledge rests on His ordination. That is why open theism — the teaching that God cannot know future human choices — ‘denies the orthodox and biblical doctrine of God.’ And it is why Paul is certain God is not finished with Israel: whatever God says will happen must necessarily come to pass.

3. Had God Waited, He’d Be Waiting Still

One of Sproul’s sharpest lines: ‘Had God waited in heaven for you to turn from your sins and come to the cross, He would still be waiting.’ God does not wait for the sinner to incline himself — He brings us away from our disobedience to respond to Him. The future of Paul’s kinsmen is in the hands of God, not in the hands of the Pharisees.

4. For the Sake of the Fathers — Mephibosheth

‘Concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.’ Sproul’s illustration is the story of Mephibosheth — lame, hiding, expecting execution — whom David brought to his own table and treated as a son, not for Mephibosheth’s sake but for the love David had for Jonathan. That is the history of redemption: the only reason you and I are included is God’s love for His Son. Our election and adoption are always in Christ Jesus.

5. God Is Not an ‘Indian Giver’

Verse 29 — ‘the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’ — Sproul calls one of the most comforting verses in all of Scripture for us as we struggle with our sins. When God gives a gift, He never takes it back. Even your disobedience, which may displease Him and provoke His corrective wrath, will not cause Him to revoke the gift of grace. The sovereign election of God is always final, no matter what.

6. Mercy Through Disobedience

The mercy chain closes: God has committed all — Jew and Gentile alike — to disobedience, ‘that He might have mercy on all.’ Going back to Romans 2–3 in our minds: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Nobody stands before God on their record. Every branch in the tree is there by mercy, and mercy is the only door.

7. Paul’s Doxology — the Holy Groan

How does Paul respond to all this? Not with another rhetorical question, but with a sigh — ‘Oh, the depth of the riches!’ Sproul’s professor in Holland said: ‘All sound theology begins and ends with doxology.’ Calvin’s axiom governs: *finitum non capax infinitum* — the finite cannot contain the infinite. Even in heaven we will never have exhaustive knowledge of the Creator; we are creatures still. Sproul’s ocean image: in the shallows a glass-bottomed boat shows you the fish; in the deep, the sunlight never reaches — and God’s depths are not the shallows.

💬 Discussion Questions

Sproul says God’s foreknowledge rests on His ordination — He knows the future because He authored it. How does that answer the open-theist challenge, and what does it mean for the specific promises you are leaning on right now?
Mephibosheth was received for the sake of the father. Sproul says that is the shape of your own election — you are at the King’s table because of God’s love for His Son. How does that reframe where your assurance actually rests?
‘The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable’ — even disobedience does not revoke the gift. Where in your own struggle with sin do you most need to hear that? And how does that comfort differ from presumption?

Praise God for the deepest comfort in this text: He does not take back what He gives. You are not at the table this morning because of your record — your record is disobedience, folded into the all — you are there because of the Father’s love for His Son. When theology drives you to the point where your mind runs out, do what Paul did: groan ‘Oh,’ and let it become worship. The depth is unsearchable, but the Deliverer has come out of Zion, and the covenant stands. Rest in that.

📖 The Passage