As regards the glad tidings, [they are] enemies on your account; but as regards election, beloved on account of the fathers.
God gives two verdicts on Israel at once. As to the gospel they are enemies; as to His choice they are loved. So has God finished with the Jewish people, or does their unbelief serve a purpose in a plan He has not dropped?
The two halves of the verse look at Israel from different angles, and they belong to different times. One writer traces both, and says what God will and will not go back on.
The Jews proved hostile to the gospel instead of being saved by it. God turns that, as we have seen, into His gracious call of the Gentiles in the meantime. But in the last days the love of election will still prove faithful to the sons for the sake of the fathers... He may regret creation (Genesis 6), but never what grace gave in promise to Abraham and to his offspring.
The enmity has a purpose. God treats the nation as an enemy and puts its promises on hold. Into that gap He gathers the Gentiles.
"As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake" — and God treats them as such. Their own distinctive promises are put on hold, so that He may gather the Gentiles into the church... These are words often quoted, but rarely applied the way the Spirit of God applies them here — to the calling and promises of the nation of Israel!
Their hostility was not passive. It showed itself in resisting the very mercy now reaching outsiders:
Instead of accepting it and believing themselves, they are enemies. The apostle says they hinder us "from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved."
Notice where the love rests. Not on what Israel is now, but on promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
As regards the gospel, they are enemies as a people, so that the Gentiles may be brought in. But as regards the election of the people, they are loved for the sake of their fathers. Clearly this is the election of the people. It stands in contrast with blessing through the gospel, and the ground of their being loved is the fathers — as we find again and again in the Old Testament, in places like Exodus 32:13 and Leviticus 26:42.
Some read "Israel" here as a picture of the church. Neither half of the verse fits Christians, and the choosing it names is not the choosing that takes people to heaven.
This does not apply at all to what people call the spiritual Israel, for they are friends as regards the gospel, and loved by God the Father — not because of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Take it as the literal nation of Israel, and everything is simple... The election spoken of here is the election of the beloved people Israel. It must not be confused with the election according to grace, by which, during the time of Israel's rejection, called Jews and Gentiles are taken for heaven. The first is a national election, the second an individual election, which sets us in far greater blessing, since its aim and result are to bring us into heaven.
God may discipline Israel hard and for a long time, and His choice still stands. How God governs the earth is one thing; what He has purposed is another.
In God's government of the earth, Israel, or a great part of it, may be cut off because of sin and unbelief. "Lo-ammi" — "not my people" — may stand written over the nation for centuries. But God's affection and final purpose never change, and Israel can never stop being the nation of His choice.
The promise stands, but Israel will not collect it as a debt. Losing every claim is what makes the final blessing pure gift.
Through this unbelief they lose all right to the promises. So they must receive what the promise gives on the ground of pure mercy and the sovereign grace of God, just like the poor Gentile... Their apparent loss of everything is only the means of their receiving everything from sovereign grace, instead of having it by human righteousness or by a promise they never forfeited.
God still loves them for the sake of their fathers. So taking their promises for ourselves is no harmless way to read the Bible.
He loves Israel — loves them for the sake of their fathers. We can be sure He will not approve our meddling with their place, their portion, or their future.
- Two angles. As to the gospel, Israel stands as an enemy. As to God's choice, the same people are loved. One nation, two true verdicts.
- Your sake. God holds their promises in suspense so that He can gather the Gentiles in. Their enmity serves the mercy now reaching you.
- Their fathers. The love rests on promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not on Israel's record. So Israel's failure cannot cancel it.
- Government, not purpose. God may write "not my people" over them for centuries, yet they never stop being the nation He chose.
- Mercy alone. They forfeited every claim. So the promise reaches them as it reached you — pure mercy, not a reward for human righteousness.
For the gifts and the calling of God [are] not subject to repentance.
Paul has just said that Israel's rejection is not the end of its story. This verse gives the reason, and it turns on one word: irrevocable. What does God never take back, and whom is He speaking about?
Older translations render this "without repentance," which can confuse a reader. It does not mean God feels no regret about anything. It means He never changes His mind about what He has given and whom He has called. One writer contrasts God's acts with God's gifts:
If God is the giver of the blessing, He does not change. The gifts of God are without change of mind on His part. When it is not a gift or a calling of God, He may repent. So He repented of making the world (Gen. 6:6), as we are told; and He destroyed it. That was not a gift; it was simply an act, however immense. But in sovereign love He calls poor guilty men to Himself to make them His own. He gives eternal life, for instance, or forgiveness of our sins, or the place of a child. Such benefits are the gifts and calling of God, and they are without repentance. Here His mind never changes.
Elsewhere Scripture says God changed His mind. One writer divides God's gifts from His ways with sinful men:
When it is a question of God's gifts and calling, which are according to His purpose, no change of mind is possible. When it is a question of His ways with sinful men, they vary in detail, though in the end all achieve His purpose. God tested Abraham, telling him to offer up Isaac, but when he had fully responded, God cancelled the order, having reached His purpose.
Christians love this sentence. One writer asks who it was first said about:
We Christians boast of this, that "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance"; well we may — it is a scriptural principle. But to whom does the apostle apply it? Not to us, but to the Jews.
The verse explains the line just before it, where Paul calls Israel "beloved for the sake of their forefathers":
The meaning is this. The Jews proved their hostility to the gospel instead of being saved by it. God turns that, as we have seen, into His gracious call of the Gentiles meanwhile. And election love will still prove faithful in the last days to the sons for the sake of the fathers. This is not the principle on which souls are blessed now, whether from Gentiles or from Jews. But after the actual unbelief of the Jews, sovereign mercy will step in at the end of the age. He never repents of what grace gave in promise to Abraham and to his descendants, nor of His call, first shown publicly in Abraham, the father of the faithful.
How can God discipline a nation and still love it? One writer separates how God rules the earth from whom He has chosen:
As to God's government of the earth, Israel, or a great part of it, may be cut off because of sin and unbelief; and Lo-ammi, "not my people," may be written over them for centuries. But God's affections and final purpose never change. Israel can never cease to be the nation of His choice.
One writer uses the same principle against a common fear: that bad behaviour can throw a Christian out of grace:
The words "fallen from grace" are sometimes used wrongly. People take them to mean that a believer once stood in the grace of God, and God has now thrown him out of it because of his bad behaviour... In the case of a true believer being caught up in this, the fall, we repeat, is in his own mind and conscience. God's grace and the relationship that grace created stay the same, for "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
Paul's point is not Jewish privilege but universal mercy — nobody, in either group, gets in on merit:
The Gentiles had no claim to salvation; they were dead in sins, in unbelief. God showed them pure mercy. Israel would not believe such mercy. They forfeited all their privileges through unbelief, so that God might at last save them as a whole nation — but as objects of mercy... Not one will be found in the church above or in the future kingdom of God on earth who has not been saved as an object of mercy.
- Irrevocable. God may change His mind about an act. He regretted making the world and destroyed it. He never changes it about a gift He has given or a person He has called.
- Purpose, not moods. God's ways with sinful people vary; His purpose never does. That is why God changing His mind elsewhere in Scripture does not contradict this verse.
- Israel first. Commentators insist Paul applies this verse to the Jews. Election love stays faithful to the sons for the sake of the fathers, even while they are hostile to the gospel.
- Government, not choice. God may write "not my people" over a nation for centuries without cancelling His choice of it.
- Mercy for all. No one — Jew or Gentile, on earth or in heaven — stands there on any ground but mercy.