God’s Salvation Plan for Israel

Romans 11:25-32
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, July 24, 2011
Copyright © 2011, P. G. Mathew
Language [Japanese]

Romans 11:25-32 concludes the question of God’s plan for the salvation of Israel. In Romans 9-11, Paul deals with the issue of why the vast majority of his Jewish countrymen rejected their Messiah and why only a remnant of them believed in Christ. Because of this rejection, he says, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart” (Rom. 9:2). Elsewhere he states, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they be saved” (Rom. 10:1).

In Romans 11 he begins, “Did God reject his people? By no means!” Then he discloses God’s future plan for Israel, which God revealed to him. God showed Paul that in the future, he will pour out his Spirit upon national Israel and they will be regenerated. They will as a nation repent of their sins, believe in Jesus their Messiah, and be saved.

Paul spoke about the probability of this in Romans 11:11-24. He asked, “If [the Jews’] transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness [plêroma] bring!” (v. 12). Again he says, “For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” (v. 15). He also affirms that if God grafted branches from a wild olive tree [the Gentiles] into a cultivated olive tree, “how much more readily will these, the natural branches [the Jews], be grafted into their own olive tree!” (v. 24). God is mighty to graft the Jews in again on the basis of faith.

God Is the Master and Lord of History

In Romans 11:25-32, Paul is speaking not about the probability but the absolute certainty of God’s future plan for the conversion of national Israel. In this passage, Paul rehearses the drama of salvation history. There is only one real philosophy of history; it is the one found in the Bible. The Bible writers understood this, as did the prophets and apostles. Stephen speaks about it in Acts 7, as does Paul in Acts 13. Our God governs all actions of all his creatures for his purpose of election (see Isaiah and Daniel). The history of the world is the background for the history of redemption. Both histories-world history and the history of the church-are under God’s complete control.

Paul tells us in this text that there was a time when God let the nations go in their own ways of ignorance and disobedience. Then God chose Abraham and, through him, the nation Israel. God was faithful to his covenant of grace with Abraham. But the nation Israel became disobedient, rebellious, and unfaithful. So we read, “Jeshurun grew fat and kicked [God]” (Deut. 32:15). Israel rejected the true and living God for idolatry. Israel rejected salvation by grace in favor of a salvation scheme of their own-salvation by their own perceived good works. They failed to understand that all man’s righteous acts are like filthy rags (Isa. 64:6). They refused to humble themselves and pray, like the publican, who cried, “God, show mercy to me, the sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

So the nation Israel crucified their Messiah with the help of the Gentiles. But man’s sin can only promote God’s eternal plan of salvation. This Jewish national disobedience meant the gospel now went to the Gentiles, who welcomed the gospel of their salvation and responded to it by saving faith. In turn, this Gentile reception of the gospel is a plan of God to make the Jews jealous in a good sense, so that in the future they also may welcome the gospel and their Messiah, and so the nation Israel may be saved. Thus all the elect of the Jews and Gentiles will be redeemed.

God is not mourning because of the rebellion of his creatures. He knows how to handle us. God is not frustrated because of the fall of angels or the fall of Adam. God is not the author of sin, but sin and all sinners are under his sovereign control as he guides history. Man’s rebellion cannot stop God’s saving program. In the end, God’s will alone be done, as stated in Romans 11:32: “For God has bound all men over to disobedience, so that he may have mercy on them all.”

Our Minds Need Expansion

Our minds need to be expanded, not by reading The New York Times, but by reading the Bible. Paul says, “I do not want you to be ignorant” (v. 25). Some Christians revel in the fact that they are ignorant of the word of God. Such people give pastors trouble. It is only when we understand and believe the word that we will stand firm and strong in all circumstances.

Paul gives this warning at least six times in his epistles: “I do not want you to be ignorant.” That is a litotes. Paul is saying, “I want you to thoroughly understand the word of God.” We are living at a time of great ignorance of God and his word. Paul exhorts us positively to study the Scriptures to know God in all his transcendence and immanence. Knowledge of the Scriptures helps us to humble ourselves. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. When we do not know the word of God, we remain stupid, arrogant, wicked, and sinful.

Those who are ignorant of Scriptures have a high estimation of themselves. But Isaiah says, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight” (Is. 5:21). Elsewhere we read, “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil” (Prov. 3:7). Paul himself writes, “We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise” (2 Cor. 10:12).

The antidote to arrogance is knowledge of the Scriptures. Paul wants the Gentile Christians to know that they have not replaced the people of Israel. God has a wonderful plan for the national conversion of Israel, but it is to take place in the future. This knowledge should keep Gentile Christians humble and thankful.

God Reveals a Mystery concerning the Jews

A mystery is revealed to Paul. In earlier ecclesiastical Latin, the word “mystery” (to mustêrion) was translated by word sacramentum. Roman Catholics consider marriage as a sacrament because in the Latin Bible, to mustêrion in Ephesians 5:32 is translated by the word “sacrament.” This is an error.

What is a mystery? A mystery is that which is unknowable to man except by the gracious revelation of God. What is unknowable and hidden in God is now revealed by God to man, that man now may know this revealed truth. Paul uses the word “mystery” twenty out of the twenty-eight times it is used in the New Testament. He speaks in Ephesians 3 of the mystery revealed to him that God has a plan to save Gentiles. Paul says he received a superabundance of such revelations (2 Cor. 12:7). In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul speaks of a mystery that has to do with our final glorification-the nature of our glorious, immortal, imperishable body. This mystery was hidden in God’s mind but is now revealed to Paul: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51). Now in Romans 11:25, Paul says that he has received a revelation of a mystery that had been intimated in the Old Testament, but is now fully revealed to Paul. This has to do with the future national salvation of Israel.

The entire Bible is a revelation of God. No man could have known it. The Bible speaks of God’s ideas, not man’s. So the Bible alone is truth. All other religions contain man’s ideas under the inspiration of the devil. The Scripture alone reveals God’s way of our salvation.

Charles Hodge defines a mystery as being “any future event, therefore, which could be known only by divine revelation.”¹ Dr. Boice describes a mystery as “something that at one time was not known and could not be arrived at by any amount of human reasoning, but that has now been revealed to us by God.”² So Paul says that God revealed to him the mystery that in the future, not just a remnant but the entire nation of Israel will be converted and grafted back into the cultivated olive tree. This is absolute certainty. The people of God will be revived in the future and the whole nation will be converted.

Paul makes three points in verse 25. First, the hardness that came to Israel is not total but partial. In other words, the whole nation is not hardened, but only a part. However, that part encompasses the vast majority of Israel. They were hardened and became blind and insensitive. They were under God’s judicial hardening because they had hardened their own hearts. We read earlier, “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (Rom. 9:18). Paul also writes, “But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away” (2 Cor. 3:14). When we harden our hearts to the gospel, God’s judgment of judicial hardening takes place.

The second point is that this hardening is not a permanent condition. It will be removed when the full number of Gentiles have come into the kingdom of God.

Paul’s final point in verse 25 is that in this manner, all Israel will be saved. This means the nation Israel as a whole, not just a remnant (as it is now), will be saved in the future. “And so all Israel will be saved” is the central point Paul is making in this section.

What does it mean that “all Israel will be saved”? Some say this means all the elect of both Jews and Gentiles will be saved. Others say “all Israel” means all elect Jewish believers of all time will be saved. The truth is, the nation Israel as a whole will be saved, though not every single Jew. The word “Israel” is used by Paul consistently in contrast to the Gentiles. The mystery revealed is not that a remnant of the Jews will be saved, for that was already happening. It is that in the future, the whole nation Israel will be saved. And Paul cites proofs from the Old Testament, as was his custom, to clinch his argument.

From Paul’s vantage point, the deliverer will come to or from Zion in the future (Rom. 11:26). This deliverer, who rescues his people from the thralldom of sin, guilt, and condemnation, is Jesus Christ. We are told he will turn godlessness away from Jacob (i.e., Israel). The problem of the Jews is the same problem of the Gentiles: godlessness and wickedness. Paul wrote earlier, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). He also says, “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18). All the good works of the Jews are just filthy rags of godlessness, but the Deliverer, the Lord Jesus, will come to their aid. He will banish godlessness and remove their sins. His name is Jesus, “because he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Paul may have had these scriptures in mind as he was writing: Isaiah 27:9; Isaiah 59:2-21; Jeremiah 31:33-34; and Psalm 14:7.

This salvation is seen not as a political deliverance, but as a moral and religious deliverance. The Lord does this in fulfillment of his covenant of grace with the patriarchs. It is on the basis of this covenant that the Gentiles and the Jewish remnant are now being saved (see Galatians 3 and Romans 4). But in the future, there is another phase of covenant fulfillment: the salvation of national Israel after the full number of the Gentiles have been saved.

Friends, God controls history. He does what he has planned. On what basis will the Jews be saved as a nation? It is a good question. Some think they will be saved, not on the basis of grace, as revealed in Romans 3:21-26, but on the basis of their good works, on the basis of keeping of the law of Moses. But this idea that God has a different way of salvation for the Jews is nonsense. It is an attempt to propitiate certain anti-Semitic attitudes, and became popular especially during World War II. There is only one way of salvation, based on the cross work of Jesus Christ. There is only one way for all peoples of the world to be saved.

God is faithful. Let God be true and all men liars. Paul says, “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13). In God’s faithfulness to his covenant to the fathers, the Lord Jesus Christ will save national Israel by removing their godlessness, guilt, and sin. So the Lord declares, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:34).

What happened to us will happen to them. The basis for all forgiveness is the work of Christ. Christ died for our sins. “He who knew no sin became sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (see 2 Cor. 5:21). “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” by faith (see Rom. 8:1). The salvation of every sinner is nothing but a miracle. How can a dead, disobedient, godless, and entombed sinner save himself? He cannot, without God’s miracle-working, resurrection power!

This great salvation of the national Israel is also taught in Zechariah 12-14. So we read, “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son” (Zech. 12:10). We also read, “”˜On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity. On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more,’ declares the LORD Almighty” (Zech. 13:1-2a).

Today the vast majority of the Jews are outside of God’s kingdom. Yet in the future, when God pours out his Holy Spirit, they shall, like the Gentiles, enter the kingdom of God (see Rom. 11:12, 15, 23-24).

When will this happen? Some say it will happen at the second coming. Others say during the millennium. I do not know, but I do know it will happen in the future. It can happen before the second coming. God can pour out his Spirit of grace and supplication any time, so that the Jews may look in faith unto him whom they pierced and be saved.

Listen to the words of Jesus: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” That is the problem; they were not willing. “Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “˜Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'” (Matt. 23:37-39). A time is coming when the Jews as a nation will say, “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Mercy to Rebels

“As far as the gospel is concerned, [the Jewish people] are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (vv. 28-29). Man makes promises and changes his mind. But God’s promises and covenants are irrevocable. “Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (vv. 30-32). God shows mercy to disobedient rebels.

The majority of the Jews now are enemies of God because they reject the gospel of their Messiah. Yet they are beloved of God on account of the fathers. They are enemies and beloved at the same time. But God has not rescinded his covenant promise to the fathers. Gentile believers must understand that they have not replaced the Jews in God’s saving program. The Jews still have a place in God’s kingdom.

Every elect sinner is an enemy of God. More than that, God is his enemy. If God is our enemy, we are finished. We will not succeed. Every elect sinner is also an enemy of every man. So man cannot get along with his neighbor. (PGM) He therefore cannot love God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength, and he cannot love his neighbor as himself. Moreover, every man is an enemy of himself. Every sinner is schizophrenic. That is why he cannot sleep.

There is no difference-both the Jews and Gentiles are under sin, under law, and under God’s wrath. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death for all. And all who look in faith to Jesus Christ, the only Redeemer, the only atonement, the only righteousness, will be saved. So we read in Romans 10:10-13, “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “˜Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile-the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “˜Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'”

So every elect sinner is an enemy of God, and God is his enemy. At the same time, he is beloved of God. Yet Paul tells us that Christ by his atoning death destroyed God’s enmity to man, man’s enmity to God, and man’s enmity to man. Now there is peace between God and man, and man and man: “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of [enmity] hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility” (Eph. 2:14-16).

The essence of sin, according to John Murray, is enmity to God. When a child does not obey his parents, he is a rebel. He is manifesting his fallenness by revealing his hostility to God. That is why we must deal with it seriously. Paul says, “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Rom. 5:10).

Sin is enmity, but this enmity is now destroyed. It does not exist any more for those who are in Christ. God and man are reconciled. On what basis? Mercy! Grace! The love of God! Darkness is dispelled; light has come. Death is destroyed by Christ’s death; life eternal is here for all elect Jewish and Gentile sinners. Because God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable, his covenant and election are irrevocable.

Referring to Jacob and Esau, Paul says, “Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad-in order that God’s purpose in election might stand . . . she was told, “˜The older will serve the younger'” (Rom. 9:11-12). He also states, “So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. . . . What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened. . . . As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the [fathers]” (Rom. 11:5, 7, 28). Thank God for his electing purpose! “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:28-30). God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable. We can count on it.

God’s promises are also irrevocable. No rebellion of his creatures can prevent God Almighty from achieving his eternal purpose of saving his people for his own glory. Are you disobedient? God understands that. But he will save you and make you obedient.

Once the Gentiles were disobedient. Then the Jews became rebellious. The gospel then went to the Gentiles, showing them mercy. This salvation of the Gentiles will, in time, provoke the Jews to also look to their Messiah for mercy, and they will be shown mercy on a national scale. How can this be? Enmity and disobedience ought to be met with utter and total destruction. That would be just. Yet that is not what has happened in the history of redemption. Instead, we are shown mercy. So mercy is everywhere in this concluding section. Each disobedience is met with mercy. We see this idea four times in verses 30-32.

Without mercy, we will die. It is the nature of God to be merciful. The Lord told Moses, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Exod. 33:19). In Exodus 34:6-7a we read, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” David said to the prophet Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the LORD, for his mercy is great” (2 Sam. 24:14). David also said, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1). Disobedience to God is met with mercy from God.

Paul writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3). We need mercy in the morning, mercy at noon, mercy in the evening, mercy when we are young, and mercy when we are old. Paul also writes, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved” (Eph. 2:4-5). Dead, disobedient, and damned people are made alive by God’s rich, great mercy. So Paul writes, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Tit. 3:5). In Luke 18 the publican said, “Have mercy upon me, the sinner.” In Hebrews 4:16 we are exhorted, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” When we go to prayer, we can pray with confidence, and God answers with the grace that we need every day.

This mercy comes to us from the mercy seat (hilasterion), where the blood was sprinkled to cover our sins and transgressions of the law, which was kept in the ark. By the blood of Christ, our sins are covered from the sight of God, who dwells above the mercy seat. Now he looks down, and sees, not our sins, but Christ’s blood, which atoned for our sins.

Because of the blood of Christ, we are now justified and forgiven of all our sins. So Paul says, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins” (Col. 2:13). That is what justification is: rich mercy and great grace. Mercy means God does not give us the condemnation we deserve. Grace means God gives us the justification we do not deserve. If we really understand this, we will praise the Lord! It is all divine action based on God’s love.

“For God has bound all men over to disobedience, so that he may have mercy on them all” (v. 32). God has shut up all Jewish and Gentile elect sinners in the prisons of their own sins. He has the keys, and we cannot get out. He must come and save us. Paul writes, “Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done” (Rom. 1:28). Why do people not do the right thing? It is because they are given over to a depraved mind to do what they ought not to do. It is not possible for them not to sin. In fact, they can only sin: “The Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed” (Gal. 3:22-23).

There is disobedience and there is mercy. And God sends the deliverer, the rescuer to save us. He turns our godlessness and sins away. He does this in fulfillment of his covenant with the fathers. God is faithful and truth.

So we can look upon “all” in Romans 11:32 as referring to elect sinners. “For God has bound all men [meaning all elect sinners] over to disobedience, so that he may have mercy on them all.” He is not speaking about all the peoples of the world, because all the peoples of the world are not saved. Therefore, we oppose the universalism promoted by the liberals and the Barthians. Even Pope John Paul II supported universalism, as we read in paragraph 14 of his “Redemptor Hominis” encyclical:

Man-every man without any exception whatever-has been redeemed by Christ, and because with man-with each man without any exception whatever-Christ is in a way united, even when man is unaware of it: “Christ, who died and was raised up for all, provides man”-each man and every man-“with the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme calling.”³

This is a contradiction of the Holy Scriptures.

Paul earlier wrote, “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men” (Rom. 5:18). “All” here must also be limited to elect sinners. The same is true in 1 Corinthians 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” Those without understanding will read these verses and speak about a universalism in which everyone without exception is saved. That is not what Scripture is teaching. The universalism we believe in is that everyonewithout distinction will be saved. In other words, God saves all sorts of people. So “as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” “All” refers to elect sinners, whether Jew or Gentile.

The Lord shall save all elect, disobedient Jewish and Gentile sinners. He is their Rescuer. To the Thessalonian believers he writes, “You turned . . . to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead-Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1 Thess. 1:9-10). Paul also says, “[God] has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will [rescue] us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to [rescue] us” (2 Cor. 1:10). We have no other Redeemer, Rescuer, Savior, than Jesus Christ.

Elect disobedient people are shown mercy, not that they may remain disobedient, but so that they may become obedient. God justifies the ungodly that they may become godly. If we are not godly, we are not saved. God reconciles his enemies to himself so that we now worship and serve him forever.

Romans 11 brings Paul’s treatment of Jewish salvation to a close. As he said, the major part of Jewish nation is totally hardened. But this hardness, blindness, and insensitivity of his people will not last forever. The Messiah will come to save them as a nation in the future and cure them of their hardness. Therefore, Gentile believers, don’t be arrogant. Be humble and rejoice in God’s great plan of saving all his people.

Application

God is not man that he should change. Dr. Boice cites the following from J.I. Packer’s Knowing God:⁴

1. God’s life does not change. He does not grow old or get weak. He doesn’t get better or worse. God is a spirit, unchangeable in his being.
2. God’s character does not change. God is holy and God is love. See the goodness and severity of God.
3. God’s truth does not change. That is why we believe in the biblical revelation about all things.
4. God’s ways do not change. He saves sinners of his eternal choice and judges others whom he passes by.
5. God’s purposes do not change. In spite of the flux of history, he saves his people for his own glory.
6. God’s Son does not change. Concerning Jesus Christ, we read that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Henry F. Lyte writes,

Change and decay all around me I see;

O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus saw the flux of everything. He said we cannot step into the same river twice. But the true and living God is above all change. So we must fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

In light of all this, what should we do? We should recognize that every elect sinner is disobedient and so under God’s wrath. We should realize our need for the mercy of God to be saved, and pray like the publican: “Have mercy upon me, the sinner, the chief of sinners!” We like to diminish our sin, but both the publican and the Pharisee Paul increased it. Paul wrote, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst” (1 Tim. 1:15). Pray, because Jesus never casts out any sinner who comes to him seeking salvation. I guarantee he will show mercy. In fact, we come to Christ because he has drawn us by his Holy Spirit. Next, be sure to show mercy to others. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Finally, proclaim the gospel of mercy to others.

Mercy there was great and grace was free;

Pardon there was multiplied to me;

There my burdened soul found liberty,

At Calvary.

¹ Charles Hodge, A Commentary on Romans (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1989), 372.

² Boice, Romans, Vol. 3, 1369.

³ http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_04031979_redemptor-hominis_en.html (accessed July 22, 2011).

⁴ Boice, 1389-90.