11:21
God has shown that He is quite prepared to cut off unfruitful branches, as Jesus taught in John 15:1-11. Remaining in Christ is crucial. We cannot be proud and remain in Christ. So if we become proud and unfruitful God will not spare us. So often we treat the harsh passages of the Old Testament (and the New Testament! It contains many harsh passages) as something to be smoothed over, explained away. This is not the Biblical approach. It is not the approach of Jesus not of the apostles. The harsh passages should be taken seriously.
11:22
The “kindness and the severity of God” go together and must be taken together. If we just take one of them (usually the “kindness” these days) then we have no idea what we are talking about. Why do the two go together? It is because the only way of salvation is faith in Christ. Any other way boils down to relying on our own merits and therefore the righteous judgement, which will be severe, is all we can expect. But if instead we put faith in Christ, in His work on the cross, then we encounter the kindness of God. The gospel is good news if we believe, but contains no comfort at all for those who persist in unbelief. And the belief is first that God’s judgements are right, and we are guilty, and then that Christ has paid the price for us.
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