An Overview of Romans 9-11

Sermons of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 603 Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Romans 9:1-33 — The expression “missing the wood through the trees” is particularly appropriate when approaching a new section of sacred Scripture. While it is tempting to focus on individual subsections in Romans 9–11, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones encourages keeping an overall big picture in mind. In this sermon Romans 9:1–33 titled “Introduction,” he provides a helpful overview of these key chapters. Dr. Lloyd-Jones demurs from well-loved interpreters who elevate the doctrine of predestination and election as central to chapters 9–11. He also objects to placing the question of salvation for Jews and conflict with Gentiles at the center of this section. Instead, he argues for a much bigger central theme of this section. Dr. Lloyd-Jones says Paul is harmonizing the ways of God. What is found in this section, in other words, is Paul’s way of harmonizing the Old Testament with the New Testament. There is no contradiction in God’s purposes as Paul talks about the old covenant in relation to the new. Dr. Lloyd-Jones shares his justification for this conclusion by drawing attention to Romans 11:33–36 and the apostle’s doxology. Listen as he traces the central theme of Romans 9–11 as well as subsidiary themes of this important section of Scripture.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Most of you, I'm sure, will remember that at the end of last May, when we completed our last session,
0:07.7	we found that we had come to the end of the eighth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans,
0:14.3	so that we start this evening at the beginning of chapter 9.
0:20.6	Now, here we are not only starting the consideration of a new chapter,
0:25.9	we are also starting the consideration of a new section
0:29.9	in this mighty epistle to the Romans.
0:34.4	And it is a section that includes chapters 9, 10, and 11.
0:40.3	Now this is a very famous section of Scripture, and rightly and justly regarded as a famous
0:50.3	section of Scripture. But that, of course course leads me to add that it's a section
0:57.2	that we obviously must approach with care and with understanding. What then is the new
1:05.9	section and what is its relationship to that which has gone before? That's the first question
1:10.5	to ask. Whenever you come to that which has gone before? That's the first question to ask.
1:12.0	Whenever you come to any new section of scripture, it is always a wise procedure to put
1:17.2	that question to yourself and put it to the writer. Why is there a new section? And what exactly
1:23.9	is it? And what is its relationship to that which has gone before it.
1:29.7	Now, there are those who would say that at the end of chapter 8, we came to the end of
1:35.6	the doctrinal section of the epistle to the Romans, and that here the great apostle
1:42.4	begins to take up particular subjects and questions and problems.
1:47.0	They say he's rarely finished with the great doctrine of salvation at the end of chapter 8,
1:54.0	and now there is no more doctrine as such, but he takes up certain problems and difficulties which he deals with right until the end of the epistle.
2:07.4	But we are compelled to reject that ideas to what happens here immediately and entirely,
2:15.6	because for this good and sufficient reason, that there is a
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